Comparing Garmin and Prius GPS

Sounds like we're in a similar situation! I too am a long-time Street Pilot user, now using a 2610. Your comments are quite interesting to me, since I debated about the $2k for the Prius system. I LOVE having GPS, and there are so many advantages to my portable unit (and yes, some disadvantages, obviously) that I finally decided to order package six without the Nav.

Anyway, I'll stand by and be interested to see what others say. For my money, my 2610 really does do everything that I need a GPS to do.

 

Ihave been using the Garmin C330 Street Pilot for about 10 months now and would not trade it for 5 Denso units!

 

We've been using the Garmin 2620 for almost 18 months and are extremely satisified with it. It even has the logging roads on Vancouver Island and we can keep updating the harddrive for mapping, software etc.If the Garmin 330 had been available back when we were making up our minds we might have gone with it because of the lower price but that's technology for you. It's really great to be able to transfer the Garmin between vehicles and even lend it to family for their trips.

 

I have an iQue and have compared the Prius with the iQue side by side but only in places that I want to go. So I will do a test. The iQue will take me to Pony Montana. I don't know how many people have been there but it was a booming town a few years ago when the mines were open. Now there is a Post Office, Elementary School, and a Bar. The rest of the town is empty. It is off the side of a side road. I have to say the old bank is great. You can see Butch and Sundance coming out the front door any day of the week. The Pony Bar is a must see. The iQue will take you there. I will try to see if my Prius will do the same?

 

I recently tried the option with the Prius GPS to enter the business phone number of the destination. It was amazingly less difficult than enter street number, street name, city and state. I haven't tried entering the phone number of a location outside the region. Will have to try that sometime soon.

I am a old time StreetPilot III user and am generally ok with the Prius GPS. Everything is a compromise but I enjoy that it is integrated. I always felt I had to take the StreetPilot out of the car in the past lest someone want it.

You win some, you loose some.

 

I have been considering that unit. How do you have it mounted?

 

Wow, after reading all these positive comments about the StreetPilot I'm in shock. I bought the thing two or three years ago. Paid about $1000 for the GPS and maps. What a POS! As soon as I got out of the S.F. Bay area the thing went silent. It had no details ANYWHERE and lost its famous voice nav feature except when one highway crossed another. I drove all the way to Albuquerque and back and the maps sucked everywhere. I returned the thing to Fry's as soon as I got back from my trip and never considered a Garmin product again.

I guess they're better now?

 

I recently bought the new Lowrance iway 350c. It comes preloaded with the latest maps 3Q05 of the entire US and Canada AND has a built-in MP3 player that plays through the Prius speakers - I have about 1,000 songs on it, AND it only cost me $400 delivered. Works great and looks great sitting on the dash behind the MFD. The Garmin 2620 may be a better unit (I have never seen one in action), but you can't beat the $400 price of the iway.

 

Yes, the StreetPilot III did have the limitations you spoke of originally. Much has changed and the whole product line is vastly better. It does deserve another look.

 

What you are paying for with the factory GPS is the integration. Yes, for $2000 you can get an excellent GPS setup, but it would not be integrated. While you may still scoff at it, it is something many (if not most) people want. That is why it is offered in practically every car now.

I know darn well I could go an buy something better myself, but I like to have it built in. That is why every car I buy from now on will have a nav system (and HID too).

 

I went back and forth over this - I finally decided that integration didn't mean enough to me to give up the ability to import waypoints as GPS coordinates. My main reason for wanting a GPS is to go geocaching - the Prius NAV just can't do it. I know nothing about previous models, but the 2720 (the model I have) has the whole US on it - and I've not yet had any problems.

If what you need are powerful GPS capabilities, and you are content with having a somewhat portable unit, you will be more than happy with what any of the StreetPilot line can accomplish - and while I don't know anything about the other brands, I assume they offer comprable options. You also have to admit that being able to bring the darn thing with you into another vehicle is pretty cool =)

If integration is paramount, and all you need it to do is basic routing anyway (and if money isn't a concern) then you should go for the factory NAV - the voice recognition is an awesome feature, and I've not heard any real complaints - it does what it needs to very well

 

Well, I don't know about you, but the geocaching I did when I lived in El Paso was usually in areas that NO vehicle could have gone, so it would have been irrelevant anyway. For this I used my handheld unit. I'm currently without, as mine got smashed beyind repair, but I'llprobably get one soon (probably a set of Rhino's) You can have both the factory nav as well as the "better" handheld one. Each has it's own function. The Land Rover LR3 is one of the few nav systems that can be used off-road and will mark nav points, etc.

As far as the integration thing, I find it much, much better that way. Of course I could do many things better than the factory by buying aftermarket stuff, but who wants a bunch of crap stuck to varous parts of the dash or interior. All kinds of clips and mounts and things like that. I chose the VAISTech unit because I could pllug in and hide my iPod, and use the steering wheel controls. There are other units out there, but the ipod has to be mounted on the dash or somewhere accesible. There are other things you can get that likely do a better job than factory, but it would be unwieldy at best.

So yes, integration, for most people, is paramount. That's why car audio firms are now making factory integration adapters. Now people can keep all their stuff neatly integrated and still get good quality sound. Bluetooth, nav systems, back-up sensors, iPods, the list goes on. It's so much nicer to have one interface, one set of controls. Functionality may not be as good, but it cetaily is easier and neater.

 

The little Quest handheld I wound up with cost an order of magnitude
less than a built-in nav would have, and has the advantage that I
can pop it out of its little holder on the dash and take it inside
with me to muck with, plan routes, find stuff, etc. [Well, I could
do that on the PC with the companion software too, but why should I
have to reboot into windoze just to do that...] The display is a
bit small but that's fine, it still includes all the things needed
to know where my butt is at while rolling along.
.
It seems that some people don't realize that yes, they have to load
detail maps into these things for areas that they frequent, or you're
back to the "basemap" which doesn't show nearly as much. The only
possible advantage I could see to a built-in unit is more memory for
detail maps [a DVD under the seat as opposed to 128 or 256 Mb in the
unit itself], but really, if you're planning a farther-afield trip
it's no biggie to plan ahead a little for loading your map sets too.
.
If it's any statement, running on the basemaps for large parts of the
recent Florida-and-back trip was just fine. It was amusing to see
reality represented by the breadcrumbs after climbing up and down
lots of mountains, crisscrossing and twisting around the few line
segments representing some of the roads in the basemap, but all the
major roads I needed to find were already in there and dead-accurate
on where the intersections were.
.
_H*

 

I would have said that integration and dead reckoning were no big deal until I had them. I can not count the number of times I was in a big city I did not know and needed to get on the freeway to get out of town and my iQue failed me. It could not pick up satellites and left me hanging. With dead reckoning the car navigates in covered parking.

 

Well, my dad has a Garmin Nüvi, and I have the Prius's GPS. They both are nice.

The Garmin has a harder to understand voice, but can speak street names. The Prius's is easier to understand, but doesn't speak street names and rarely speaks route numbers.

The Garmin's display is sharper; the Prius's larger.

The Garmin has no problem routing in the one place the Prius gives that annoying "Guidance cannot be provided in this area" message. The Prius seems to route fine here (the proper roads are highlighted on the map), so I don't understand why it refuses to give guidance.

The Prius properly routes the one jughandled turn around here; the Garmin tells you to turn left.

The Prius switches to the night color scheme based on your headlights. The Garmin appears to switch the color scheme based on time of day and what time local sunset is. (It switches to night later than I'd prefer)

I find the Prius's advance warnings for exits on the highway to be timed better. (The Garmin has one early, and one far later than I'd like as I recall)

The Garmin shows you what cross street is ahead.

Both are more than willing to show you driving across an empty screen if the zoom level is too high for the road type you are on. (I wish it'd always show the road you are on, regardless of zoom)

The Garmin Nüvi can run off internal batteries, so you can remove it from the car and set up your destination in the comfort of your home.

The Prius GPS is harder to steal.

The Garmin seems to be more apt to follow back roads, the Prius seems to prefer highways. (By comparing the routes, they seem to be very similar time wise)

The Garmin has an option to avoid dirt roads, the Prius doesn't.

You can set your average speed on the Prius and it will use that to estimate times. The Garmin doesn't. (Instead, it has vehicle types. It might learn based on your average speed automatically; I don't know.)

The Garmin can be used walking.

The Garmin can't route or show your current location until it gets a GPS fix, even if the location it shows (from last time you powered down) is correct. It appears to do dead reckoning somehow once it gets the initial fix, though. It seems far less likely to get a fix while moving, and in poor weather it can be an intersection or two until it gets one. The Prius will happily route based off your last known position (last time you powered off the car). (Of course, the Garmin is portable, so not trusting the last known position is probably reasonable... it could be the rental car drop off near the airport you just left on your vacation or something.)

The Garmin recalculates the instant you stray off route... even if you are just pulling into a gas station.


To add a third one... the BMW/MINI navigation has more descriptors for where to turn ("at the end of the road" for one), but the interface sucks. I mean really sucks.


To be honest, I like the Garmin's interface better, but I prefer the integration of the Prius's nav system. I'd use a paper map over BMW/MINI's, though.

 

I bought a used Garmin 295 for use in the Prius and in the airplane. I gave up some of the nifty features of land only GPS, like auto routing, but Garmin offers free updates on their city maps once you pay them a 100 bucks for the MapSource software. I like being able to use GPS and the full MFD functions simultaneously, and the GPS adds some "illumination" to the cave like interior at night.

My brother in law has a 2000 Acura with Nav, but it will cost him 300 bucks to upgrade the data base.

What are you folks paying to upgrade the Toyota database? Autorouting is useless if the database isn't right on the money up to date.

Bob

 

My original plan was to get a #5 package and get a third-party GPS system as my last NAV system consisted of a 2002 Thomas Guide of San Diego, a 1992 Thomas Guide of Los Angeles and what I printed off Street Atlas USA or Mapquest. Anything is an improvement from that.

My next car will have a GPS NAV system. Whether it's built in or not is still up in the air.

 

I've got a Garmin i3 for business travel and the Prius Nav. The Prius screen is about 16x bigger than my i3's screen.

I like the ability to load custom POIs into my Garmin. I've got all the Hooters locations programmed in for quick one button access :lol: