I am considering buying a portable GPS that I can take from car to car. Any recommendations?

 

Yes. whatever the folks here say they have and like, it is probably already a generation out of date. Every time I think I know the market and the "one to get" another generation comes out.

That said, the big question is how big a screen do you want? Some very nice, portable units (like the Nuvo) come with very small screens. The bigger screen units sit on the dash, usually with a weighted bag. The small units use a suction cup on the windsheild.

Be careful of price versus "features that matter." the more recent units have all sorts of features that you may not care about. They usually cost another $100-$200.

 

Thanks Bill. I know things change quickly, but I figure people will have features they like and since I am just starting to look, thought it might help.

I think I want something I can actually see.

 

Jim,

We bought our GPS before our 2600 Mile + road trip in June of 2005. I will share my thoughts with you.

When we bought ours we had a few prerequisites that where a must:

Ease of use. As it was thought at the time that Barbara would be the navigator. The Garmin C-330 Street Pilot is a touch screen.
A screen big enough for Vintage eyes.
Transportability from vehicle to vehicle.

After we bought it I was showing it to a co-worker that got fascinated by the GPS technology and decided that he had to have one. He started doing research on the web. When he had questions, he called the various tech support lines to ask his questions. He was looking at Magellian, Tom Tom, and Garmin. He choose the Garmin based on their live tech support. He got to talk to a person. When he called Magellian he got an automated system with prompts that had a message that someone would be back to "you" within twenty-four hours. :-(

Subsequently, since we have owned our Garmin C-330 they have not only had e-mail broadcast (after one registers with them) alerting their users to updates (three in the past year). But they have also developed a utility software that is a free download within the past few months. When one fires it up after hooking the Street Pilot up to the USB port of your PC it identifies your GPS device and then goes out to their web site and identifies any updates automatically.

In short: Garmin gets my vote.

Last weekend, I had a simular conversation with Valentine and she has also had a great ownership experience with her Garmin.

 

I got the Garmin Street Pilot 2610 last summer for my drive from Cali to Ohio. I chose it after the recomendations from Ralper and other guys that I don't recall.

I love it and highly recommend it. It's already programmed for my drive from BWI to the Hilton Garden Inn in Gettysburg, for October 6th. When I go on a long trip, like to Colorado in July, I make my hotel reservations at least a day ahead of time, so I can program the GPS to take me to the door on the day I want to drive there, just by activating that route I have told it to make and save.

I liked it so much, I got Andy one for Christmas last year.

I have many different routes stored, so if I want to go to my daughter's in Irvine, I just chose that route and activate it. If I want to drive to the most highly recommeded aligment guy in So Cal, I just activate that route that I have stored.

I did follow Vintage recommendations and bought a 2 GB compact flash card for it, so I have the entire country (maps) in it at all times. That isn't what came with it, but everything else I needed did.

 

Garmin has been #1 in consumer GPS for a long time, and generally for good reason.

That being said, what do you want the GPS for? If it is as a driving aid, then what's really important is the quality of the street navigation software and algorithms, not the GPS.

(My experience with GPS is all as a wilderness navigation tool, which has a whole different set of priorities.)

 

I have a Garmin as well and am very happy with it. I have a 276C because I wanted both land and sea capabilities. It's more complicated to use but it gives me the biggest bang for the buck since I use it on my boat, cars and motorcycle. It does not have touch screen capability and I agree that touch scree is a real plus in terms of ease of use. I find the maps to be quite accurate and the tech support to be great.

 

If you have a passenger as navigator, an alternative to a self-contained GPS unit is a small laptop computer with a GPS add-on. On our recent trip to Colorado, I used such a setup, along with a gerry-rigged way to attach it to the dash (we rented a big car), and it saved us a lot of wandering around, twice (and, best of all, I didn't have to stop and ask for directions, not that I would have anyway!).

For the computer, I have one of these, with a 12-V adaptor; and for the GPS, I have the DeLorme USB receiver and their mapping software (they have both topographic and street versions of national maps on DVD, which you can load onto the computer's hard disk).

In a small car, it's nontrivial to get it rigged to the dash, but with a passenger it can be used as a notebook or, in this case, as a tablet PC. Advantages are a relatively big screen, complete portability, really good maps, and a full-featured computer; disadvantages are size and price. My take on price was that a Garmin or other GPS unit represents an investment in a specialized piece of equipment that I'd use only occasionally; the computer etc. represents a more generalized investment.

Another, less pricey but still generalized, solution would be something like the Garmin iQue, a combined PDA/GPS. That puts you back into the small screen world, though. HPH
HPH

 

Hey Steve, I bought one of those and returned it after trying to get it set up. I ran into a problem trying to unlock and load the maps and I found Garmin Tech support to be unreachable after hours and on weekends. I note you say it isn't as easy to use. Would you buy one again, or would you get a dedicated nautical GPS and another for the cars?

 

I like the Garmin StreetPilot that I have and use it on all our roadtrips. So far she's never led me astray and I really love being able to tell it things I wish to avoid (unpaved roads, highways, toll roads, etc.). I think most of the gps devices use the same navigational systems, so its more a matter of personal preference as to what extra features you may want, etc. I like mounting mine where I can see it as I'm driving and the turn-by-turn directions are clear. If memory serves, you are told 3 times that a turn is forthcoming so you have ample time to move into your lane and the map on the screen is large enough that you can see what's ahead without diverting your attention from the highway. I never had any problems reaching Garmin for technical assistance and they're excellent about sending e-mails for updates, etc.