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Car GPS Systems any recommendations


ProSound

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I own two. I have the Lowrance iWay350 for the car and the Garmin Zumo 450 for my motorcycle. There are pluses to both systems, but I find the Garmin simply works faster in hooking up with the satellites, and I like some of the features a bit better, such as showing me the road name of the road ahead when it hasn't planned a route and is simply showing me the map of where I am. However, the Lowrance is probably one of the most customizable units on the market (I think most of the Lowrance product line is like this), so you can put a whole host of information on your display. Maybe a bit too much if you're not careful. My particular model is a bit bulky because it has a hard drive in the unit and can store MP3's and other things I simply don't and won't ever use, but I got a good deal on it at the time.

Planning routes is very different. On the Garmin, they included software (Windows only), that I can use to plan routes. I like this a lot particularly on my bike where the best route between two points is not a straight line, but those with lots of twists and turns. ;) Routes are uploaded to the Garmin if you use the windows software to plan routes, but I like trying to come up with routes I've never been on to get places and it gives me estimated times which helps.

On the Lowrance, you plan your trip on the unit itself which can be a bit tedious at times.

Both units will get you from point A to B, but I find that sometimes the Garmin doesn't tell me when I need to turn soon enough, so I'm two lanes over and the exit is nearly on top of me when it tells me I need to turn. The Lowrance seems a bit better when it comes to letting me know ahead of time that I need to turn ahead.

The Garmin car units I've seen follow the same interface as the Zumo for the most part (they lack the person on the bike icon, go figure), and I do like the simplicity of the interface. When working on a shoot in Fort Worth, a town I'm not too familiar with, both the Lowrance I had and the cameraman's Tom Tom unit got us a wee bit lost when we didn't know if the place we were looking for was a DR or PL (WHY towns constantly have the same street name with different endings in different quadrants of a zip code blow me away).

My parents liked my GPS when they used my car, and got a different brand (I forget what brand) and seem to really like it. I think in most cases it boils down to size, and features you want. I think both of my units are a bit larger than most, but both also have larger screens on them than a lot of units I've seen.

You might be best served by going into some electronics box store that has multiple brands and seeing what you like and don't like about each.

Wayne

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If you get a Garmin get one of the models that have the SERF Receiver.  It is a very sensitive receiver that picks up satellites much faster and will keep a hold on them better around tall buildings and even in tunnels for a while. All the Garmin models don't have the SERF receiver.  I know the Nuvi 350 and the Nuvi 660 does  I have the Nuvi 660 and I am very happy with it.  The Nuvi 350 performs pretty much the same as the 660.  The 660 has some extra features and is more expensive.  A friend gave me an external antenna that definitely improves the reception but the built-in antenna alone works very well even in NYC.

Andy

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I had a Garmin Nuvi 550 for a couple of months, but eventually returned it and purchased a TomTom 720.  VERY happy with it and for the $50 more than I paid for the Garmin, it came with Bluetooth handsfree for the cell phone (an awesome feature), and an FM transmitter for the voice instructions and the music player.  Additionally, with a 30 second hack that you can do yourself, it also has voice recognition so that you can just tell it where you want to go instead of entering the city, street name, and number, manually.

TomTom also has "MapShare" which allows you to correct any mistakes or make any changes you need to the maps, or add, move, or delete POI's.  You make the changes right on the GPS itself (they can be marked with one button and then edited once you are not behind the wheel) and then when you dock the gps to your computer those changes are shared with the entire TomTom community.  Of course you will also receive the changes that everyone else made.  With all of the development and construction going on lately, this is a really handy feature to have.  So far the changes that I have received through Map Share number in the tens of thousands.  Beats waiting for expensive map upgrades.

Cheers,

Darren

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I have a Garmin Nuvi 350 and I love it. Finds satellites fast. I reads the street names to you which is great. "In 100 feet Make a left on Magnolia Bl"  instead of "In 100 feet make a left"  This seems trivial, but it makes a big difference.  The only thing I wish it did is to recognize voice commands so I don't have to enter address' manually.

Rich

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It often amuses me how the street names in LA confuse the speech program in the Garmin 350. Cahuenga, Verdugo particularly, but there are many that it just butchers...

That being said, I was a prolific map user for a long time, and now that I have the Garmin, I haven't looked at a map in months!

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It often amuses me how the street names in LA confuse the speech program in the Garmin 350. Cahuenga, Verdugo particularly, but there are many that it just butchers...

That being said, I was a prolific map user for a long time, and now that I have the Garmin, I haven't looked at a map in months!

The speech programs aren't the only ones. If any of you have XM radio, listen to the traffic reports for your local city. At least for L.A., they butcher our street names.

David W White

D.W. Sound Service

www.dwsoundservice.com

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