I was at a conference and didn't know it, but they had door prizes. I got lucky, and now I have a $160 gift card at BestBuy. We already have a lot of electronic junk, and I usually get it cheaper online or elsewhere if it's a major puchase, so other than miscellaneous small stuff, all I could think of to get is a cheap GPS system for the car with one of Modifry's adapters. As I'd like to effectively get it for free, the TomTom One looks rather appealing.

Are the cheap (~$200) GPS systems good these days? I'm only accustomed to the Honda nav system in my friend's 03 Accord. I particularly like the route calculation/recalculation and the restaurant finder.

BestBuy has the following on their web site for under $250:
TomTom One - 3rd edition (sale, $170)
Navigon 2100 ($200, navigon? who?)
Mio C230 ($200, again--who?)
Magellan Maestro 3200 ($220)
Garmin Nuvi 200 ($250; it's starting to cost significant money out of pocket)

So, is the TOMTOM One a decent unit, are the Korean products better, or should I just suck it up and pay a bit for the Magellan or Garmin?

 

And to complicate things a bit, I just looked, and I can sell the gift card on eBay and get ~85% of the $160.

 

I like the Garmin. We bought the Magellan and returned it because it was so crappy. My understanding is that the Tom Tom One works but is very basic.

 

/\/\
Good to know on the Magellan. Was the problem a bad UI? Sounds like it's not the one to get anyway, if your experience was that much better with the Garmin.

So then it looks like, ignoring the Korean brands, the Nuvi is good but costs a bit, the One is free but short on features, and the Magellan is one to avoid.

Anybody else have experience with these?

 

Mio isn't bad. I have the C520. The C320 would be the smaller version with some functions stripped.

 

I recently saw the C330 on sale at Buy.com for $100.. A little on the bulky side, but a very good unit. Wonder if bestbuy does price matching.

*edit*

nevermind, it's a refurb unit selling for $119.

http://www.buy.com/prod/garmin-streetpilot.../205583800.html

 

Well we just got a gps review not too long ago and it looks like Garmin is the best of all choices. Just put a bit more money out and buy a nice gps or don't buy at all.

 

No complaints w/ Garmin. Look at it this way, thats $160 that you're not really paying out of your pocket.

 

True, true...

I was hoping to go with the "If it's for free, it's for me" method, but it sounds like I should just suck it up and fork out the money.

Thanks for all the replies!

 

I would actually get the Garmin Nuvi 260 if you're gonig to get a Nuvi 200. As far as I know, the Nuvi 200 does not have the Text to Speech (TTS) function, meaning that it won't spell out the street names for you when you need to turn...I currently have a Nuvi 360 and I love it. I will be buying one for my fiancee when she moves up here after we get married, and I've been eyeing the 260 for a while.

You can check out this website for more info on different GPS units:

http://www.gpspassion.com/fr/default.asp?_...rrentVersion=EN

Hope this helps.

Eric