GPS road navigation things?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The family wants to buy one of those GPS units that sit on your dashboard and give you turn by turn road directions.  None of the family know nothing about GPS units, and since I don't know anything about GPS units either, I'm the most qualified to pick out which unit to buy.

So, what's the lowdown on these GPS thingamajobs?  Who makes the best units?  What features are important ane which are just window dressing?  Do they actually work worth a darn, or are they a waste of money?

[Jamisjockey]

The good, the bad and the ugly.
My wife and I both have them.  She has a Garmin Palm/GPS, voice with turn by turn.  I have a Garmin Etrex Vista CX.  turn by turn, beeps to warn you of upcoming turns no voice.  Both of ours aren't dedicated driving GPS's...but the mapping software is great.  The driving directions are sometimes screwy.  One thing is that sometimes the roads are newer than the software, or have been modified.  It might tell you to turn where there is an illegal Uturn, etc.  You have to have your head about you and not blindly trust the unit.  I usually carry a map for planning ahead and the GPS for following the route.  A great thing is you can do something like pull off and find a place to eat, do some tourist stuff, and it will put you back on track.  They also have decent phonebook, searchable for things like nearest resturants and what not.
My wife is in direct sales, lia sophia, which involves some home parties.  Places she's never been.  She mapquests it just in case, but follows the GPS. 

so they are very damn handy, but consider getting something that serves more purpose than just your car.  The dedicated car units (Tom Tom, etc), can't be used for things like hiking or geocaching.  My unit has both topo and road nav.  And my wife's unit is also a planner.

[Boomhauer]

Others have said get what, a Mio (or something like that)...It has the SiRFstar III chipset, which really helps. Fast lock-on and good receiver coverage. Garmin is a good brandname when it comes to GPSs, but I don't know about their road navigation units.

Anyway, don't get the Tom-tom or one of the cheapo ones. I was really frustrated by one- the slow processor was just fast enough to get you turning around in circles if you followed the directions...The spoken directions were crap, and if you did not listen closely and check ahead on the map, you would get confused.

My idiot grandmother wouldn't listen to me when I told her it was turning her in circles due to the crappy processor- yeah, don't listen to me, I don't know a damn thing about GPS- I've only been using it for several years and I don't know a darn thing about navigation (although I am a pilot)...

That GPS was something under the brand name of Initial IIRC, and it was purchased off of QVC. The other vehicle had a Cobra brand unit, and it was just as bad, maybe worse. The touchscreen of those units did not work well. If they are going to use GPS, they need to learn something about it.

They need to know how it works and what are the limitations of the technology.

I used MS Streets and Trips 2006 with a SiRFstar III to navigate on a long cross-country trip, and it did well. This works only if you have someone to devote all of their attention to the laptop- I ran it off of an inverter with the sensor stuck to the window, and generally did not have a problem locking onto satellites in only a few seconds.

And they do need to learn about GPS to know its limitations and how it works. All of the databases are going to have mistakes, so it isn't perfect. Autorouting can cause confusion.

[Tallpine]

Do they actually work worth a darn, or are they a waste of money?

Well, depending where you are, you better have local information too.

My wife's uncle and aunt came to see us here once (the only inlaws that we ever told where we live).  I gave them specific directions on the phone ... "take the right fork at the top of the hill blah blah blah..."

Well, he has one of these GPS map directional things in his new whatever-it-was, and the darn thing being smarter than me told him to go a different way.  What the GPS didn't know is that there are only two residences on that particular road, and the owners had mutually agreed to block off the road since they each come in from the opposite ends, and neither one of them wanted a bunch of through traffic blasting through there (it's not a county road - just an easement).

So of course they had to turn around and go back the way that I had told him to go in the first place     He's darn lucky that the place he tried to cross didn't belong to some old "Freeman" types and that they didn't get shot at 

[Ben]

Lots of the good/bad points hit on above. I have the Garmin Nuvi 350 with talking turn by turn and street names. The good part is it has always gotten me where I need to go, which works really well when I'm in a new place on business travel.

Not really bad, but "less good" things are that it won't always get you there by the best / fastest route. I have mine set for fastest (versus shortest) wayfinding. Trying it in places I know well, it sometimes will want to send me down a street with a traffic light every block, when there's a parallel close by with no lights. In rural areas it sometimes tells you to turn where there is no street. If you pass the "phantom street" it will recalculate though, and get you back on track.

You also want to make sure you set it up the way you want it, not just use the factory defaults. Mine came with toll roads off (meaning it won't put you on a toll road). Here in CA, no big deal. When I was in Florida last year though, it was sending me from Orlando to Ocala on some busy ass highway with a bajillion lights and calculated like an hour and a half for the drive. When I figured out the toll road thing, it immediately diverted me to the toll road and cut my drive in half.

So overall, thumbs up, because it WILL almost always eventually get you where you want to go. You should still when able research the area and/or have a map with you, because sometimes you're smarter than the computer is. 

[SkunkApe]

My buddy gave me a TomTom ONE as a going away present when I moved.  This thing is amazing, and saved me a lot of stress and headaches in Houston.  It was pretty easy to figure out, talks to me to tell me what to to do ("Turn right ahead, then take the freeway"  "Stay in the right lane") as well as visually showing me upcoming turns.  It was perfect in Houston.  In Wyoming, it goofs up sometimes, and tries to make me turn down two-tracks and non-existent roads, but hey, it's Wyoming, and I can't blame it.  You hook it to your PC to get updates.  I don't have experience with other car-based GPS units, except for limited experience with friends' cars and rental cars, but I love this thing.

Think of this way.  I flew into Houston.  I got from the airport to my hotel (half-hour drive), then from my hotel to my company's office, then back to the airport without looking at a map, and with no wrong turns.  I'm impressed.

[Manedwolf]

I have a Mio Digiwalker 310X, which I love. Mio is a European company, not a ChiCom knockoff. The voice is very clear, and it uses the same maps as TomTom. The processor is twice the speed of the TomTom, it uses a SIRFstar III chipset, and the interface looks like a Mac, rather than TomTom's Windows-95-esque look. Very nice gradient shaders.

 

[Jamisjockey]

PS
My Garmin Etrex has a bicycle mounting option.  And it can use topo and marine maps.  The thing is very versatile.  Unless you never ever leave the beaten path, I don't recommend a dedicated "Tom-Tom" type unit that can't do other things. 

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

I followed my Blackberry's GPS directions yesterday, and the thing tried to send me down a closed road. 

[BrokenPaw]

I've had better luck with GPS than with MapQuest.  MapQuest once tried to put me and my truck into the back yard of a McMansion.  Which would have been fun and all, but ultimately would have made me late.

I have a factory GM GPS nav system in my car, and while it tends to be conservative about what roads are the best ones to take, it's never failed to get me where I'm going.  BrokenMa has a TomTom ONE, and she loves it.

-BP 

[Marnoot]

Since I needed a GPS for both car navigation and hiking/geocaching/etc., I did some research and got the Garmin GPSMAP 60csx, along with a mounting kit for the car. It does a good job both in the car (just beeps mind you, no voice, but auto-routes very quickly and accurately) and on the trail.

[wacki]

I recently went on vacation with the gf.  I subscribed to the VZnavigator for my phone.    At $10 a month I consider it a must have for vacationers.  It can be a little tough to follow on the highways but it is deadly accurate.  The language the computers uses when talking to you takes a little bit of getting used to.  My pops says Garmen has a better interface but verizons GPS is rather new so what can you expect.  About 98% of the time it will tell me to turn right as soon as the right hand turn lane starts to open up.  A couple of times the routes have been a little odd but I always ended up at the correct destination.   Cool thing is you can say "where is the nearest subway" and it will list them via distance from you.

VZnavigator for $10 a month through verizon >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  any map.  And if you are going city hopping it's cheaper too.

If you are going on vacation GPS is a must have.  I don't care if you are a traveling college student, it's worth the money.  It doesn't chew up minutes but make sure you have a car charger.

Word of caution:  Verizon GPS fails in areas where there is no phone service.  So be careful in national parks.

[Manedwolf]

The problem with cellphone based GPS is that it's not merely a reciever. The company is getting all the info of where you are, and can sell that to any marketer they wish.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Where's the best place to buy a GPS unit from?

[Manedwolf]

Where's the best place to buy a GPS unit from?

Usually Amazon, or whenever Best Buy, Circuit City or CompUSA have one of their special deals, things can be half-price or such as a loss leader to get people in the store.

[280plus]

The one time we used one we had more fun NOT following it's directions and getting it all pissed off at us. In an emphatic tone, " PLEASE turn around at the next opportunity!!"