Looking for GPS Unit

No help on the features you want but Snoop Dogg was on Larry King and said his voice is available for Tom Tom

 

The features I find the most useful is gps units that announces street names.

I can tell you to stay way from sony and magellan. horrible maps, weird pronunciations, overly complicated/illogical menu system.

Tom-Tom has a good menu system, but can get pricey for the features.

garmin is pretty good all around, but stay away from the 99 and below garmin units. they are typically so stripped down that they are basically a screen with an arrow on them.

 

From recent experience the Garmin Nuvi units are 'acceptable' but you'd be driving around the long route on more than one occaision.

The Navigon app for the iPhone 3GS just poops on the Garmin (Nuvi 265W) from a great height. I recently used it alongside a Nuvi on a long road trip and not only does the Navigon software provide more features but it was more accurate when it came to providing an accurate 'time to destination' given that it had info on road speed limits - a feature which can be enabled to be displayed on the screen.

I'd definitely check out the stand alone Navigon units before even thinking about getting a Garmin.

If you plan on doing lots of long road trips, get one that will accept 'route planning ' rather than relying on having to save waypoints and using them to modify a gps calculated route.

 

Garmin hands down. Has the most user friendly interface and Good screen clarity. Not sure who dl's to google maps tho. But if you want a gps unit that is good at what it does- get a garmin

 

I love my TomTom, in fact I have 2, one lives in the Prius and one I use in my other cars.

 

I have three Magellan and one Garmin. I like the Magellan units because they report altitude.

 

I spent a lot of time reading at this site before I made a decision on my Nuvi. GPS Review : GPS Reviews

 

I use the gps in my nokia n95. I don't use a lot of the features some folks do, but I think they're all availeable. Map updates are all free etc, but I need to subscribe to a service from my cell phone company to get turn by turn directions etc.... thats maybe $15 a year. I mount it using a proclip centre mount so it's right there and powered. Nokia has pushed its gps ahead a lot to compete with iphones.... i recently updated to their ovi software.... again for free... even though the phone is 2 years old and not made anymore. Data entry is a bit cumbersome since it hasn't a qwerty keyboard, but oh well. The new ovi stuff lets you overlay a satelite image, which can be fun too.

The nice thing about gps in your phone is that you can drop a landmark as you get out of the car and can then find your car easily later... i've used this after driving around in circles trying to find a place to park where i could see a parade in toronto.... i didn't know the neighbourhood (i don't live there) and it was nice to be able to do that, even though i ended up not using it(I have a pretty good sense of direction above ground)

The phone gps was free, since i was buying the phone for the 3g stuff and the very nice camera and mp3 player functions.

 

I vote for Garmin. They may cost more initially bur you get frequent map and firmware updates.

You can buy lifetime map update for $99 and get quarterly maps! You can google around for the hacks as well.

 

Unless I've missed something I can no longer get mapping updates for my Garmin Street Pilot 2620 since early 2009. It's an old GPS unit but works well including accurate altitudes.
Gary

 

I also vote for Garmin units or at least units that don't use inferior (in the US) Tele Atlas maps. Stick w/ones that use Navteq maps.

See http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...min-nuvi-350-any-other-good-alternatives.html as to why.