I am shopping around for a new car to replace my current gas-guzzler. I have GPS now (pre-installed) but the new car won't, so I will be buying a unit to install. I haven't paid much attention to the ads since I haven't needed to, but now that I am I see that, although they are relatively inexpensive, there are also lots of brands, models, and prices.

Can anyone offer any advice on brand, model, etc.? Thanks.

=============
EDIT: I've ruled out all but the major brands: Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan, and I am now ruling out Magellan because I've used it on rental cars and I hate it. It takes too long to calculate and recalculate and is difficult to enter and read.

So Garmin and TomTom are the brands I am looking at now.

Well, I personally have a TomTom One. It's the only one I've used, but it was cheap and it gets me where I need to go. Of course, there will always be some issues in certain areas with the maps and all, but I've only found 2 really messed up places with it: my neighborhood and my grandma's. But I'm also using the older map file (haven't paid for the new one yet, haven't found it necessary). But as far as functionality of the unit, if you just need something that can get you from point A to point B, I think it's a great value for the money. You can get fancier units with more features, like finding gas prices and so on (but I think they require a subscription). From when I was looking for GPS units, it seemed like Garmin and TomTom had the best ones. I think TomToms had the most points of interest but at least with my unit, finding them can be a pain. I think the Garmin units have more sorting like finding specific types of restaurants, whereas my TomTom just lists every place that serves food from McDonalds to Ruth's Chris Steak House (maybe that has changed in newer models though). If you search Google, there are communities based around GPS devices where you can probably find lots of user reviews (but sites like Amazon are also great).

CR's June issue rates 39 models. The TomTom 920 series is #3 and the 720 series is #6. The 920 lists at 650 but I found it on Pricegrabber for under 400 from 5 merchants. The 720 lists at 400 and I found it for under 300 from TigerDirect.

Of the top 8, Garmins are #1, 2, 4, 7, and 8.

Well, those are definitely fancier models than mine. Mine was $120 last Thanksgiving, so you can surely save money unless you really want all the things those nicer models have to offer.

Oh, if you're worried about screen size, my One has a small screen (I don't remember, probably somewhere between 2.5" and 3") but I don't find it a problem. For where I use it, the extra space really wouldn't show anything extra that I needed to see (there's enough detail to see where I'm going, I don't need to look at all the roads in a neighborhood I'm passing). Also, a smaller unit means you'll have more room to see out of the windshield. Not that a bigger unit would make you crash but I prefer to have as few obstructions as possible.

ar1stotle wrote:

Well, those are definitely fancier models than mine. Mine was $120 last Thanksgiving, so you can surely save money unless you really want all the things those nicer models have to offer.

I'm used to one with lots of features. I don't think I want to pay for an additional subscription (which I think you need to do for real-time traffic) but I'd rather get a good deal on a top-of-the-line product than spend as little as I can and get a barebones one.

The one I have now cost $2000!

A friend of mine has a Magellan this one http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Car_Vehicle_GPS/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A1295884

yeshuas wrote:

A friend of mine has a Magellan this one

Thanks, I've ruled out Magellan though. They have the worst routing time and I've gotten lost with them waiting for them to recalculate.

The one I have is an add on to my Dell Axim X51v hand held and I have had good luck for the most part, recalc is fairly fast. The only trouble I have had with it was one time downtown Chicago, it wanted me to make a left over a 4 ft high concrete divider LOL

Well after looking at specs, checking out a couple of stores, comparing prices, and reading reviews, I have narrowed it down to these two:

TomTom GO 720

$308 inc. tax & shipping from TigerDirect

Garmin Nuvi 260W

$248 inc. tax & shipping from BuyDig.com

Right now I'm leaning towards the TomTom because it has the fastest calculate times.

I don't have experience with either of those units but I'm completely satisfied with my One's recalculating times. I'd say within 10 seconds of passing an exit or something, it's already told me where to go to fix the error. But yea, I've heard that the Garmin NavTeq maps are better than TomTom's Tele-Atlas, but I'd assume both are being updated constantly and are bound to mess up somewhere. I'm sure they're very comparable units and you probably won't regret either purchase though. If you've done all the research and can't find a clear winner, I'd say grab either.