OT - Best GPS system sub $1000

[Mike]

Anyone have experience of sub $1K GPS In Car navigators. Was interested in
Navman ICN 320 but it does not have 3D mapping. I also have an iPAC 2210 so
have considered a bluetooth Navman 4420 receiver. I am now considering a Mio
or TomTom but have not found many local users that I can question. Anyone
able to offer an opinion on these options?
Regards
Mike

 

[Mike]

"rowan194" <googlegroups@sensation.net.au> wrote in message
news:1134518217.745874.197270@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

I tried out a Destinator ND briefly. Apparently Destinator have the
best maps in general, but they need to work out some kinks...


- It invited me to do a U-turn on a freeway.

- Asked me to turn right in the Burnley tunnel (it's a straight line!
It probably got confused with the road above.)

- It gives instructions for intersections that are some distance ahead
(it once told me that I had to turn left at a roundabout that was 3km
ahead. It also yaps on at 500m and 200m which I think is more than
sufficient.)

- Battery life is so severely limited that it's almost useless. It
doesn't last more than 5 minutes out of the car. I thought it was a
faulty battery but others have reported this also.

- Complains I'm over the speed limit when I'm doing 80km/hr on a
freeway onramp.

- Told me to turn right into a road... that was blocked by a locked
gate and a nasty warning sign about trespassing on federal airport
property.

- Does some odd route calculations, in suburbia it tended to prefer
weaving around back streets rather than sticking to the main roads. The
former may have less DISTANCE than the latter, but because of all the
turns, roundabouts, lower speed limits etc it takes LONGER.

- Blinking red and blue lights on each side of the unit make my car
look like an unmarked police vehicle any time I need to turn (these can
be disabled )


On the plus side, I did like that it was fairly flexible with route
recalculation. I could ignore an instruction and it would figure out a
new way that usually fitted in with what I wanted to do, rather than
trying to guide me back onto the route it had previously chosen. This
was handy as I tended to tune out when I was in my local area, I know
it better than a computer.

Anyway, my brief experience with this product is apparently typical of
the current generation of GPS navigators. They are not yet ready for
general "hands off" public consumption. If you can live with the quirks
and not rely 100% on it then you'll be right. Just make sure you have a
return path in case you're unhappy with it. Mine went back a few days
after I purchased it.

Sounds like a fun toy!! Do you recall what release map software was on it?

 

[Bob Parker]

Hi Mike,
A mate of mine's got a Garmin GPSmap 60CS receiver running the City
Navigator v6 maps. It's proved itself to be a very good compromise
between a dedicated car unit and a fully portable one. Very sensitive
receiver and generally excellent at autorouting a driver from one
place to another with minimum problems, even when the driver goes past
a recommended turnoff.
It falls into the price category you're asking about, though the
City Navigator CD is about $350 extra.

Regards
Bob




Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:17:03 +1100, "Mike" <mike@(nospam).com.au> wrote:

Thanks Bob. The GPSOZ site was useful but looks geared specifically to
Garmin and Magellan etc. I'll keep up the search.
Cheers
Mike

 

[rowan194]

Here's a thread I started on a web BBS... my msgs repeat a lot of what
I've already outlined in this newsgroup thread, but there's some other
useful info in it (including mention of other products) as well.

 

[Heywood Jablome]

I have also been looking for a good portable GPS for the car. I have not yet
come across a model that tells you both where to go, and where fixed speed
cameras are. I am aware of the uniden unit that does the latter but I would
be after a combined unit. It seems a trivial feature to have, so why have
they not added it to other high end models?