Best GPS for the money??

[NoDecafPlz]

and maybe where to get it?

THANKS!

[darkeyed_daisy]

I tried my vz navigator out on my (verizon) cell phone last weekend. I was impressed....

The GPS has to be on on your phone, you type in where you want to go... I was looking for a chevy dealership to get my truck serviced... anyway a voice gives you directions all the way to the front door. It did one time tell me to do a legal u turn when I missed the road I was supposed to turn into.

Now I will never be without a walmart...LOL

[spinky88]

my husband had wanted a gps for a long time. we had a program called delorme on our laptop and it worked well but we had to have an inverter to run the laptop and deal with the laptop in the car...it slid around and was bulky. plus, it took forever for the program to load.

so i wanted to get him a proper gps for christmas. he is an IT Tech and into all things electronic/technical. gps prices have fallen so much, that i couldnt follow my personal rule...the more it costs the better it must be. lol

so i gave him a list of possible christmas presents and gps was on there. on his list i asked him to tell me if he were to get the gps, which one would he want. he spent about 3 weeks researching and reading reviews and all of the stuff he does when he is looking for "just the right thing". lol he knew i couldnt afford the very expensive ones so he was looking in my price range...which was 200. or less.

he chose the
http://postpublisher.net/p/28/8437/spacer.gifMagellan-Maestro 3200 GPS-980-0007-001

so i got him that and purchased it from bestbuy.com. he is very, very pleased with its performance. it appears to be much more accurate than the delorme. it loads very quickly too. the way he checked it for accuracy in chosing the best route was to use it going to familiar places and see if it took us the way we knew to be best and shortest. so far, it has been right every time. another thing he likes with this one is that it is small and detachable from the base so if he was on foot, he could use it to navigate as well. to date, he has no complaints with this model. but keep in mind, no gps is 100% accurate, even the most expensive ones will take you out of your way once in a while or think it "sees" a road that isnt there. oh yes, as dark-eyed daisy said about hers, his also will say make a legal u-turn when it is safe. lol

[MattyP]

i recently got a garmin nuvi for christmas. i abosolutley love and reccomend it. very easy to use and a bunch of cool options

[Scott Pruett]

This really depends on what you intend to use it for. Just road use? Tell us more.

Garmin (http://www.garmin.com) gets my preference for manufacturers, but there are other good ones out there.

I'm a fan of the Garmin 60CSx. It's not the cheapest but is packed w/ features & great for outdoor stuff.

[porchdog]

I have used two and like the Tom Tom. I suggest buying one where you can take it back or exchange it for thirty days or so. Drive out through the country and see if it has a majority of the smaller roads on it. If the roads arent there you would not be able to find any location that might be on that road. All the major routes will likely be on any of them but if you are going to use it in out of the way places the smaller roads are very important.

[smokey]

AAA Road maps....they are free! lol

[SCI-Nurse]

I got a Tom Tom for Christmas and really like it. I think my dad got it at Circuit City.

(KLD)

[NoDecafPlz]

I will be driving to SCI step from Philly (South Jersey) and then later this year, (fingers crossed) California.

I see the Garmin is highly touted so I think that is the way I will go.

Thanks!

[David Berg]

I just got rid of a Garmin 680. It's a good GPS, but too expensive and I was able to return it to Sams Club. It's getting replaced with a Magellan 4250 like I just bought for my wife. I got her's at Costco for $350, but I've heard they'll have 'em for something like $250 in March.

One website I go to for good info is www.gpspassion.com and read the forums there.

[Wise Young]

and maybe where to get it?

THANKS!

Caf,

I use a Magellan Maestro 4250 and am very satisfied with it, having used it in several parts of the country over the past 5 months (in addition to using it in my car, I carry it with me and use it in rental cars when I am driving in places that I am not familiar with). I bought my Magellan Maestro last summer from Radio Shack for $399 and then found it for sale by Costco for less than $300 before Christmas. Costco has good prices for GPS and you can either order from their website (http://www.costco.com/Common/Category.aspx?cat=4842&eCat=BC%7C79%7C4842&whse=BC). Because I have experience only with the Magellan Maestro, I will restrict my comments to the Maestro.

Before 2003, Magellan was the best GPS maker. Hertz rental cars used them and I liked their user interface. However, both Garmin and TomTom have since come out with competitive and cheaper units since 2004 and Magellan has put out dozens of new models in response. The Maestro is Magellan's top of the line GPS. The 3000 series has a smaller square screen. The 4000 series has a larger rectangular screen (4.3 inch). The original 4000 had map coverage for only the 48 states. The 4040 covers all 50 states and Canada. There is a Europe version and a north America version that includes Mexico. The 4050 has live traffic coverage. The 4200 series added voice command and has live traffic coverage. Magellan just released the Maestro 4350 (Source (http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/details-released-on-the-magellan-maestro-elite-4350/)). The 4350 has live- and historic traffic data, as well as an FM tuner. Although reviews suggest that live traffic reports are useful, I am frankly skeptical and think that whatever information that it provides cannot be sufficiently up-to-date to make a difference in your driving. However, historical traffic patterns might be useful for routing your path through cities during rush hour.

Many of the features of my Maestro 4250 remain unused, including an SD card slot (for updating map information or music), bluetooth (for talking to your cell phone), AAA data for points of interest, and traffic reports. The Maestro has voice command and of course voice instructions. The voice is that of a sultry female (and sometimes exasperated sounding when you don't take her suggested turn) voice. You cannot switch it to a male voice and I think that my wife is annoyed by the voice. The Maestro can answer cell phones through its bluetooth and essentially provides a speaker phone in the car. I can't be bothered, however, to set up the bluetooth connection between my cell phone and the Maestro every time I get in and out but I can imagine this to be useful for long drives.

The Maestro has an impressive ability to choose the best path through the maze of roads in New Jersey. As you know, this state has a lot of backroads and I use the Magellan to explore new ways to get to places. For example, I can tell it to choose mostly freeway or mostly local roads. The latter has shown me ways to get to places that I could not have imagined. Most of the time, its chosen path is a good or better than mine. There are very few places that it has not been able to find. All I have to do is to put in the street address or zip code and it takes me to the doorstep. The only complaint that I have is that some address entries are rather cryptic. For example, it would not recognize Route 1 until I realized that I had to enter "US 1".

My original reason for buying the Maestro was to stop being lost in New Jersey. While some people have suggested that a GPS unit is distracting, I think that it is infinitely more dangerous to be looking at a map or directions while you are driving. The GPS saves a lot of time and reduces your stress level. For example, I once rode to a meeting in Boston with a friend and brought along the GPS. Instead of becoming a passenger-navigator spending much of the trip looking for road signs, we had a wonderful stress-free conversation, not interrupted by having to look at directions, maps, or street signs. It was a very worthwhile investment for me.

Wise.

[NoDecafPlz]

Thanks Doc!

If I can program mine to sound like Angelina Jolie, they have a sale!

[Broknwing]

I second the recomendation of the Maestro. I'm on my second Magellan unit. The first one was one of their older, larger, less portable ones & it died(we assume the internal battery, didn't try to replace gave me an excuse to get the new one) so I upgraded...Was quite happy to get another Magellan unit. Unlike the one dr Young has, I can chane male/female voice, just haven't bothered...I HAVE used the AAA features, including the link up to call for AAA service through my bluetooth connected cell. Quite handy to have if you have AAA service. :) The speaker leaves a little to be desired as a speaker-phone but it does work in a pinch especially if you don't have a hands free headset. I LOVE being able to use the "least use of highways" option, I get great routes that way too...I've traveled all over with mine & the only place either has given me really wonky directions was at home, in metro orlando when i KNEW where I was going anyway(this was the old one btw)...It kept telling me to turn circles in an abandoned parking lot...lol...


If you've got a Costco membership, buy from there, they have a 6month return policy so if you dont like it you can always return it when ya get back from Ohio... ;)

[NoDecafPlz]

Ok cool!

I just bought the Magellan maestro 3100 for $124 because I had a $25
gift cert!

Thanks all for help!

[Broknwing]

yeah! have fun w/Magellan ;)

[Lizbv]

Costco has a coupon that is good in March timeframe for the meastro 4250 at $100 off. This will put the price to (i think) $250 .

a steal!:D