Our oldest boy has requested a GPS for his car for Christmas. Both Mrs. Classic and I have them built into our cars, but his '78 El Camino is technically challenged, to say the least. I've been seeing lots of displays at the local stores for tomtom and Garmin units in the $100 range. Are these functional enough or too limited? Is there a model y'all have had good or bad luck with? Comments welcome.

The $100 units are good but slow. I recently bought 2 Garmin 1650 and I love it because they are fast.

I have the TomTom One 340. It works very well and I'm happy with it. TomTom sells refurbs on their web site for just over $100.

I have the Garmin Nuvi 255WT. I think it is great. I am not sure on the slow vs. fast comment?? I have it on the Australian Female voice and we call her Sheila. I liked it so much that I have given one to both my daughters. I am from NC - we took it her with us to Yellowstone this past summer and it she performed flawlessly.

If I miss a route my new Garmin recalculates in an instant. It is like I never made a mistake. My older Garmin and the lesser priced models take some time to recalculate.

I had an old Garmin that never failed me. I replaced it a year or so ago with (I think) the Garmin Nuvi 265WT, and that model has made a few mistakes, which I found odd considering the old one never missed a beat.

Coming back from the Axiom gig, it wanted me to get off the main road I was on, to take a different road to get to the one I eventually wanted to be on. When I took the turn, I was surprised to find the new road was a suburban neighborhood, and the road turned to dirt after a 1/4 mile. It wanted me on the road for like 70 miles. Needless to say, I went back to my original route and after it recalculated, it took an hour off my arrival time.

Another time, just a few weeks ago, it wanted me to get off the main route I was on, to take a little street that offshot, paralleling the main road for a 1/16th of a mile, and then joined up with it again. Bizarre.

I still trust them, but not blindly anymore.

Yes.

Yes, I used to drive blindly.

Scott, you might want to check into this, or maybe someone here can elaborate on their experience with Garmin/Magellan/Tom Tom ect. I don't own a GPS but several of my neighbours do...they say certain co's allow updates for a yr, then you have to pay $$ for further updates, but one of the companies(Tom Tom or Magellan?) allows lifetime updates. Don't quote me, but I think it might be worthwhile finding out about the upgradeability of each of the units and if there's costs or time limits involved.

Although I've never owned a GPS for an automobile I have used some jam up Garmin portable aviation GPS units for cross country flights and for aerial firefighting without any of them ever skipping a beat. Given that, if I never needed a GPS for any of my automobiles it would certainly be a Garmin.

Even with a GPS, I believe you still need to have a general idea of where you're going. The GPS doesn't always pick the best or most direct route. Most of the time I'll look at a map, and if I decide not to follow the GPS route, it will recalculate to keep up with me.

TomTom has free lifetime updates, but I don't see that as a deal breaker. After all, how many new roads are being built these days? And in a few years the technology will probably evolve enough that you'll be upgrading the unit anyway.

Actually, I think the "updates" point was a valid one...if not for roads, at least for finding restaurants, etc.

The reason I replaced that older Garmin with the new one was because the maps were SO out of date, that on a trip from NH to south Jersey, I kept pulling off the road for restaurants that no longer existed, and I was getting pissed at the time lost.

Those maps were like 6 years old, and a new map download was $80, while a new GPS was $100.

Joe makes an excellent point. You need to be smarter than the GPS. My new Garmin has some "adaptive" features that want to tailor the routing to your driving style. I had a few strange routes until I found this and turned them off.

I bought the lifetime update from Garmin for $120. 6 weeks after I bought (it had been that price for 2 years) it dropped to something like $80. Even with the updated maps, it still doesn't find everything - like the REI in Greensboro - doesn't have a clue that it is there. Yesterday we searched for the Palladium Cinema in High Point so we could get the number - no deal. But, when we went in under points of interest, it was there but it was spelled Pallidium. Probably outsourced the data entry?

I purchased the Garmin Nuvi 1300LMT (lifetime maps & traffic updates included). Got it on special at Best Buy for $129.00. I've only had it a few weeks but it's been great so far (used it in Florida and currently on vacation in California). Have not gotten lost yet.

I just use my Android phone with Google Maps + Navigation. It just got even better with version 5 (using vectors instead of bitmaps so it holds more information of offline use).

Yeah, but can it talk with a female Australian accent?

If someone would make the voice data file, yeah. But as it is, it's just a sort of robotic female (which is also hot to me).

I want one with 7 of 9's voice..."a left turn here is futile"..."a right turn would be acceptable"..."you have reached your irrelevent destination"...

...and when the charge is low..."I must regenerate"....

Sweet.

Wow! Drive across country for 2 and a half days ans POOF! Two pages of info to go thru. Thanks everybody.

*reads back through thread*


Holy smokes! We were helpful for TWO WHOLE PAGES!!





That's a first.

::Shaking Finger::

Don't ever let THAT happen again!

I could go for some pie.