All,

Bill, perhaps your period of discontent had some impact on Garmin.

The StreetPilot C330 comes loaded with Maps of the entire USA and populated areas of Canada. It also has a huge database of five million "attractions" from ATM's to Restaurants divided by category.

The touch screen input is dynamic. One does not even have to complete a street address. One starts out with the state, city, once one types enough letters for it to get a hit it does and gives one a pop up menu of the choices. So far so good.

 

Matt,

Do you trust it yet, or do you still have doubts? It usually takes a few weeks.

Pretty soon you're going to start to wonder how you ever found your way without it.

 

Rob,

So far my only area of discontent is that one can not see the route that it is proposing.

For example: When I plugged in my mothers address in Riverhead, Long Island it shows the distance as 288.3 miles (that must be as the crow flies) because it is more like 360 miles by the route that I normally take. There is NO way that I have discovered yet to have it show you the route that it has mapped before one starts out.

Passed that, it seems to be WAY COOL!

 

Matt,

I can go from the Map page to a directions page where it has turn by turn directions. You must have that too.

I doubt that it is quoting you the milage "as the bird flies". Usually the milage quoted is the actual driving milage based on the route that it calculated. Maybe it has found a better way.

 

....or maybe his mother moved and did not tell Matt

(j/k....no flames please about abusing those even more elderly than we are )

 

Interesting GPS post by Anarky....moved here from the Buckeye thread:

Except for the $$$$, I'm almost becoming a believer in this GPS thang If I hold off for another 6 months, the 330 will come down to 399....same as a new V-1

 

sigh...me too, maybe.

It's a nice to have but not a must to have (although I could have used one when I was in Newark a couple of months back).

 

GPS is great and it has its place, however, for some things it just plain bites...

I plan routes, this is what I do, I make up road trips. My objective is to always find the most fun roads that are in good condition. I use a traditional map made by DeLorme called the Gazette. The level of detail on it exceeds the monitor restrictions of a GPS and when you need to see a large area, in detail, the GPS is also handicapped.

If I had GPS I would use it I guess for directions and curiosities, but when it comes to route planning, give me the Gazette and a cold beer and I'll make a route you will not soon forget.

 

I agree, with a slight difference. I like to map out the drive on my PC with it's 21" monitor, THEN download the route, usually along with several alternates, to my PDA to which I connect Delorme's Earthmate GPS. Best of both worlds. Since it's PDA-based, I can easily manage any number of routes, waypoints, etc. limited only by my memory card.

JonasM

 

But I don't think that the GPS is really meant to be a trip planning tool. Once the routes are set, though, the newer GPS units can be handy in locating ATMs, restaurants and other local amenities not available on a traditional map.