Which Car GPS

[andyzee]

I'm looking to by a GPS for the car. For now the front runners are:

Garmin Nuvi 350 and Tom Tom G0720

Anyone have any experience with these units?

 

[wintersyndrome]

The Hagstrom 50 always seemed to work well-enough

Seriously though the Navigon models (250, 450, and 750) offer free lifetime traffic. Thats the best use for GPS is getting around traffic.

 

[loafer89]

Our Gamin Nuvi had half the screen go dark on us about 4 months after we bought it while skiing at Sunday River last December. Garmin was very good about it and sent us a replacement unit after we mailed it back free of charge.

Personally I do not like the Nuvi 350 as it has programming issues with alot of intersections that we come to and the short lag time between directional turns can get you to make a wrong turn.

I have an old school IQue 3600 from Garmin that I have had since February 2005 and I love it and use it all the time, it shows me turn by turn directions and an ETA all on one screen.

 

[andyzee]

Well, already purchased the 350, got it online at Walmart for 299, good price

 

[hammer]

Bump...been checking these out recently, which ones are the best?

 

[RootDKJ]

I have the Garmin 360, and Mrs Root has the 350. Love 'em.

 

[gmcunni]

wife and i have TomTom, both a couple of years old. generally very happy with them but have had a few mishaps due to winter road conditions that the GPS was not aware of.

it got a fancy one thinking i needed all the features of blue tooth, pictures and Ipod integration. I never use those now.

 

[campgottagopee]

I have Garmin 350---no problems, would reccomend

 

[RootDKJ]

wife and i have TomTom, both a couple of years old. generally very happy with them but have had a few mishaps due to winter road conditions that the GPS was not aware of.

it got a fancy one thinking i needed all the features of blue tooth, pictures and Ipod integration. I never use those now.

The 360 has bluetooth and mp3 and I use them all the time. Never used the picture viewer though.

 

[Puck it]

Navigon all the way. Software on the 8100 is awesome. Shows mountains and valleys.

 

[ERJ-145CA]

Go with the Garmin. I only say that because I have stock in the company. I do have an old Garmin aviation GPS which worked flawlessly for years (I no longer use it because I haven't flown a small plane in years). My parents gave me a Garmin Nuvi 255 for my birthday in March but I haven't used it yet.

 

[mlctvt]

I've got the Garmin Nuvi 265WT that I've had for about 6 months. It is less than $300 with all the bells and whistles. Bluetooth, lifetime traffic, text to speech, 6 million POI. It's great, I'm going to buy another one for my wife. It's never let me down and the routing isn't stupid like so many others. Amazon had the best price when I bought mine.
Read lots of reviews before deciding, most recommend Tom-Tom or Garmin

 

[ctenidae]

The TomTom GO 740 LIVE goes on sale in April. Looks pretty snazzy.

 

[eatskisleep]

I have had nothing but problems with Garmin, such as not figuring out which road you are on, taking way to long to acquire a signal etc. On the other hand I have had nothing go wrong with my TomTom it is high tech, calculates routes fast, has lots of options, can be upgraded easily to the latest roads, and it's voice actually sounds good... If you take a wrong turn it recalculates the route in a matter of seconds, not minutes like some of the Garmins I have used...

 

[dmc]

This looks kinda cool

http://www.escortradar.com/smartmirror.php

 

[hammer]

Picked up the Garmin nuvi 265WT at Costco for $250. So far so good...

Update: I'm really looking forward to using this on vacation next week. This is my first bluetooth device so I'm figuring out how that works as well.

I have not had any problems with signal acquisition yet...it can't get a good signal inside my house but once it's in the car it acquires the satellites pretty quickly.