Lets Talk GPS. Garmin, Tom Tom etc

I have been happy with Garmin. No problems except for the one time it started giving directions in German. I viewed that as an opportunity to learn another language.

I want voice packs. I want a Mr T one.

" I pity the fool that does not take the next left."

WAZE is awesome, but I don't think there is a Windows Phone version.

I have a Garmin nuvi with a bean bag base for mounting. I too am in and out of Boston and I store it in the console when not in use and the base sits on the floor under the dash, would probably fit under the seat as well. The Garmin does have a short life as far as map updates but if you are going to well established areas shouldn't be an issue. I use my phone more often now as it has real time traffic using Google maps, it is a work phone with unlimited data, not sure how much data it really uses but like someone else mentioned you can just turn it on when you get close to limit usage. Both systems do spastic things at time by taking you the long way. Like all other electronics it seems like they render themselves obsolete in a year or two. I'd opt for one of the less expensive units as it is essentially throw away. On a slight side step, in my wifes new car her built in nav system directs you to stay on the highway at almost every exit while on the way to the destination, really odd. Why would we get off before our destination?

You probably have it set to the scenic rout option.

Here maps on my windows phone is pretty good. If I would get a mount that is what I would use on my bike. It eats battery life however.

But I'm honestly surprised by the number of people whom have had problems with their Garmins. The ones we had at work survived hundreds of thousands of mile in big rough bouncy work trucks without any issues at all over the years. I bought my wife one several years ago and have never had a complaint.

In reply to dean1484:

If you live rural, be careful with a "shortest distance" setting. My tom tom thought a goat path was a road. It's amazing how far my neon made it before I got stuck in the fourth mud pit.

Now that I think about it, my Garmin was VERY temperamental with directions.

dean1484 wrote: I just don't want to be "that guy" that has the GPS affixed to the windshield directly in front of the driver on the windshield directly in the field of view of the road. That always makes me cringe when I see that.

I love those guys. They think they're being safe because they "don't have to take their eyes off the road" to see it, but they don't realize just how large the object is that would fit in the area of the road that they now can't see. Of course, I'm the guy that pushes his rear-view all the way up before I adjust it, and won't let the passenger put down the sun visor because it interferes with my ability to scan for deer (or low flying aircraft).

In reply to snailmont5oh:

I had a car, can't remember which one, but the rear view was constantly blocking my view. I tried to adjust it up but it was rock solid. Looking at it I knew it should move just couldn't get it to. Finally had enough and gave it a good yank, ripped the damn thing clean off. Then I remembered that scene from The Gumball Rally "whatsa behinda me is nota importanta"

I eventually got it to move with some WD/40 and glued it back on about two inches higher than it was originally.

I've had 2 Garmins, and they've both been excellent. I only bought the 2nd one when I realized I could buy one with free lifetime map updates for 150% of the price of a single update on the old one. As for phone-based maps, there are huge areas of Canada with no cell coverage at all (including where I live), and it's always amusing to see the cell-dependent tourists waving their phones around looking for a signal.

My only reservation is that Garmin's customer service sucks. When I bought the 2nd Garmin, I bought a map of Europe, as we were about to leave for Iceland and Denmark. I paid for the map and downloaded it successfully, but the machine wouldn't read it. After decades on hold with Garmin's customer service, I got no help at all. After 3 separate episodes on the phone, I finally realized the microSD card I'd bought to hold the European map was too big (8GB), and the device wouldn't read anything over 4 GB. Garmin provided a doc that had that info, but it was nowhere in the documentation with the device. I ended up leaving the device home because I couldn't find what was by now an obsolete card in time, and without the Europe map being readable, the device was useless to me. Since this trip was the only reason I'd bought the Europe map, and I'm not planning to go back anytime soon, the map was $100 buck down the drain. Garmin refused to offer any compensation and basically said tough luck. I'll not buy another from them.

I've been using my phone as a GPS a lot lately. I've added process serving to my list of specialties, so shutting it off for a few minutes could be a mistake and a mistake could mean a lot of money. I went way over my data just because of that, so I ordered a refurbished Garman. I'll report back with my findings.

I also keep a Garmin (with unlimited map updates) around for road trips in "fun cars."

When driving in Canada, the iPhone GPS is useless not only because of the poor cell reception issue mentioned above, but because international roaming charges on cellular data are a bitch.

I'll second the Nokia Drive+ for Windows phone. I live in an odd area of KS where most Nav devices think there are roads that never actually got built. With Drive+ I just download the states I want ahead of time and go offline. I have a very cheap and data limited plan because I have WiFi available pretty much everywhere I go.

Off topic: The MixRadio app also blows Spotify and Pandora out of the water BTW..

My wife and I love doing long roadtrips. I had an older Garmin that worked well, I bought it because the speedo in a junker DD of mine quit and I wanted to have some idea of speed. I recently did a ton of research and talked to a couple Garmin reps. I also hate using my phone as it is a phone, and always quits when I need it most... So you want a great GPS.

Garmin Nuvi 3597 LMTHD

Discontinued, expensive, hard to find...

Best thing since sliced bread. Having owned it for less than a year I can say this is the best gps on the market. The voice command on this thing really works,and is a game changer while on the road solo. Tom Tom is a total pos (imho), Magellan also.

Garmin also has great support, both in person, over the phone, and software wise.

Maps also... I always have paper maps when we travel.

I've got a couple of Garmin units (an old 2820 for motorcycle use that I've had just about forever, and a Nüvi 55LM that I keep around so I can hand it out to family when they come visit). I like them and compared to the TomTom I owned years back in Europe, I prefer Garmin. That's a PC vs Mac type religious war, though.

On phones I mainly use Waze (which you can get for Windows Phone, BTW), but I tend to have Here (aka Nokia Here/Drive+) as a backup for places where I have bad or non-existent reception. I also tend to use Here if I'm abroad and am too impatient for T-Mobile's throttled data connection.

I have a Magellen. I prefer the Garmin's but the Magellen was a lifetime map model and with the sale price and my Crappy Tire money, it cost me all of $33 down from $120.

The Magellen has served me well. I have updated it 7 or 8 times. You are permitted 3 updates a year.

My only issue is that some of the roads where I am volunteering at performance rallies don't show up. Not surprising, they are forest roads.

So I've played with my Garmin. I set up a route to go serve papers and holy hell was it awesome. It was super easy to add stops in. It increased my time and I doubled my regular daily income on my day off.

Honestly, I'm on my third windows phone and the one consistently good app for them is the here drive GPS. None of mine have needed data to run it but it does suck down the battery.

Another Here Drive+ and Windows Phone user here. If you have enough storage on your phone, it'll let you download maps for as many countries as you want, and you can navigate offline. I have the entire United States on my Lumia 822.

Waze does exist for Windows Phone, but for some reason doesn't announce turns when I am navigating.

Ah, so Windows phones do not have good navigation apps yet. Bummer.

I've a Tom-tom and a DeLorme, wife has a Garmin. Between the two, it's a neck-neck horse race.

Tomtom has the quicker switch between North up and heading up, which is darn usefull, imo. Garmin looks a little better and displays a little more usefull info.

Both will create a route in about the same time, and the routes will almost always be identical.

Both take for forever to find a point of interest.

Tomtom is a little easier to enter the address into.

Neither has been chucked in favor of the phone just yet, because when either of us disappear into the mountains and such where there is no cell coverage the phone navigation dies. As far as stand alone navigation apps for the phone, I've yet to find one that makes me willing to give up either the Tomtom or Garmin in favor of it.

Had a Tom-Tom and never really cared for it. It would get janky with directions sometimes, including making me get off the insterstate and drive through downtown Cincinnati for no reason before screaming at me to turn around and get back on the thruway. And then the touchscreen became desynchronized and you couldn't make any inputs

Replaced it with a Garmin and absolutely love the Garmin, especially with the whole lane selection thing it does on interstates. Makes things much easier when doing my roadtrips to TN, as a few of the big cities get real confusing.

Here Drive is actually not a bad navigation app at all. I've found that when I'm around tall buildings it gets my position off a little bit, but otherwise it performs well.