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GPS Unit Recommendations?
Deozaan:
I took a trip to Los Angeles and rented a car and a GPS unit. It was a Garmin Nuvi, I believe, and I liked it a lot.
Ever since then I've been keeping my eye on GPS units and prices, when suddenly my Android G1's Google Maps updated to have Navigation and I no longer need a separate GPS unit anymore.
I find the location to be very accurate most of the time (it takes perhaps up to a minute when starting the GPS to get an accurate "lock" on your position).
The directions will always get you where you're going, though it may not always be the most direct/fastest route. The voice directions are good (though she sounds like a robot), saying things like "In a quarter mile turn right on [street name]" and as you approach it tells you to turn, and (IIRC) gives you the street name again.
It does sometimes say something like "continue on [street]" or "keep right on [street]" when the road goes straight, but that's generally only when two roads merge, one road splits, or the name of the road changes at that location.
It displays in portrait mode, though I suppose you can change it to landscape if you opened the keyboard, but you really shouldn't be typing and driving at the same time. Also, you can drag the map around on the screen with your finger.
It has options for driving, public transportation, biking, or walking directions.
It isn't perfect, and I can't say how the experience would be in Australia, since I'm dealing with USA. You could probably just go to Google Maps and try a few searches to see how accurate it is.
Sometimes the street number isn't accurate, so the house/building is farther down the street than it says. For example, a friend of mine lives out in BFE and when I type in her address it tells me I need to drive about a mile farther down the road to get to her house. But that's an extreme example. Most of the time it's accurate to within a house or two.
I do sometimes run into the problem of missing a turn, and then missing the next few turns when it recalculates the route. But in the area I live in the roads are generally all facing north/south or east/west, so if I miss a turn I can just turn at the next street and end up heading the right direction, and that will give my phone long enough to recalculate the route and get me back on track again. Also, my perspective is that if you didn't have a GPS to update the route and tell you where to go, you'd stop and turn around anyway to get back to the turn you missed. So if you have to slow down or stop for a moment or "make a guess" on a street to let it update the route, it's no different than what you'd do without the GPS.
It's not perfect, but it sure beats printing off directions from a website, or writing down directions from a friend and having to look at them every few minutes to read where to go next. There are some things I wish were better about it, but I'm very satisfied with it, especially because the phone lets me do even more related things, such as searching for addresses, specific businesses, etc., then navigates me there.
One major drawback is that it eats up the battery like nothing else. You'd definitely need a car charger to keep the battery running if you intend on using it for more than an hour or two. And it does require a cell phone and a data connection, so that's something a dedicated GPS unit may have an advantage about.
JavaJones:
In general I consider a cell phone GPS to be better than a stand-alone for several reasons (in no particular order).
1: Updated maps: Theoretically maps will always be more up-to-date because they're based on Internet resources that can be consistently updated by the companies maintaining them. Theoretically if you've just received an update for your GPS (buying a brand-new GPS does *not* guarantee you have the latest maps), you may have as up-to-date or even more up-to-date maps than those online, but practically speaking the Internet-based maps will usually be more accurate.
2: GPS signal strength augmented by cell tower triangulation: GPS signal aquisition and accuracy are generally about as good as an average stand-alone GPS. If they are slower, it is not by a significant amount. Additionally, they can use cell tower location assistance to get rough positioning before GPS signal is available.
3: Photo-based street view: With Google-based navigation (basically, an Android phone) you have the option of street-view, so you can see exactly what your turn should look like, etc. This potentially solves questionable accuracy of maps in many cases, although of course the street view may also be out of date.
4: Voice commands: With the latest Android-based Google Navigation, you can actually speak destinations and searches to your phone. Talk about hands free!
5: Free live traffic: Most cell phone GPS apps have live traffic and many can use this info to help re-route you around trafficky areas. Many GPSs now also include this feature, sometimes free or sometimes with a service fee. But most of the less expensive models don't have it, from what I've seen.
6: Theft issues, portability, and "always available": With a cell phone that has GPS built-in, it's easy (and actually the norm) to take it with you when you leave the car. This means no theft issues. Whereas even if your stand-alone GPS detaches from its car mount, most often you just stick it in the glove box, so if someone does break into your car, they can still take it. With a cell phone you also have the GPS and related functions with you at all time, without the inconvenience of carrying a separate device. It's already designed for ultimate pocketability. You can use the GPS easily on foot (or a bike, or public transit), even to the point of "augmented reality" (see Layar for a really cool example).
7: Updated Points of Interest: Relating to point 1 above, the points of interest will also always be up-to-date, and can have additional info that most GPSs wont, like links to Yelp reviews, etc. This can be especially helpful when you're in an unfamiliar area (as you often are when using GPS for navigation) and you want to find a good restaurant to go to, for example.
8: You generally have the option of changing the GPS software or using additional utilities to augment its capabilities. With Android, for example, there will be multiple GPS and navigation-related apps which you can choose from. Not only that but these apps will be updated over time. With a hardware GPS you will generally need to buy a new GPS unit to get the latest software.
9: More or less consistent update of new features over time. This is particularly true with Android, though whether you can upgrade to the latest OS version does depend on the age and manufacturer of your hardware, so choose wisely. But, assuming you have the right phone, you can go from Android 1.6 (starting OS for some of the older phones) all the way up to 2.1 and soon 2.2, without buying new hardware or paying a dime. Newer OS features include upgrades to voice control, better nav including bike routing, etc. Most new features are phone-centric, but GPS-related stuff also gets upgraded.
10: Sophisticated Internet-based Point of Interest and other searches: You can search for nearby points of interest of all types using name, type of destination, and a lot more. While some GPSs also include good PoI databases and search functionality, the actual searches are sometimes cumbersome. On recent Android phones these searches can also leverage voice recognition. For example, speak the name of a restaurant you want to get to and it will find the location, then you can ask for directions.
As you can see I'm pretty sold on the idea of a GPS-enabled phone. Do I have one yet? Sadly, no. Well, I do, but the GPS doesn't work on my current carrier (Credo). So why, you ask, am I such an advocate for it if I don't have one yet? Well, I've spent a lot of time researching it in preparation for my own GPS purchase, during which I heavily considered the stand-alone vs. cell phone option. I ultimately decided to buy a good Android-based phone and switch carriers, in large part due to the great GPS features I listed above. I'm basically just waiting for a 1Ghz Android phone with the right features to come out on Verizon and I'll snatch it up. I almost bought a Droid when it came out. I'm taking a big road trip (8 weeks) in August around the US and I expect it to be very useful. :)
Addressing the screen size issue, it really depends on what phone you have. The Droid, for example, has a 3.7" (wide) screen. The average stand-alone GPS is 3.5-4.5", though granted they're not widescreen so there's more actual screen space even for the 3.5" model. But the difference is not huge in many cases. You can of course get very nice, large-screen GPS units (though the price generally goes up quickly).
As for battery, a stand-alone GPS will definitely last longer without power. But for the most common GPS use case, in a car, you will generally have both the stand-alone and cell phone based system plugged in (why wouldn't you?) so the point is largely moot IMO.
Now I will grant that some of the points above are possible and true for certain GPS units, though often times at greater expense (or you make some other sacrifice, e.g. bulk). However most people have cell phones already, so if you have the opportunity to upgrade to one that supports good GPS features, it may be a better value overall than buying a stand-alone unit.
The big caveat for this is that you need a cell phone data plan to really make all this work well. Some carriers also charge additional for their proprietary GPS software/service, though this is on the decline with great free options like Google Navication.
If you don't already have a cell phone and/or don't want one (or don't want to pay for a data plan), then the stand-alone option makes more sense and is cheaper in the long run.
All this being said, I don't know how true any of this is for Australia. In the US a cell-phone based GPS really makes the most sense IMO, particularly Android-based. Elsewhere, you'd have to get personal experiences from people who live in those locations.
- Oshyan
superboyac:
Oshyan, you have some great points here. I was thinking of trying to use a fancy cell phone with NO data plan (i.e. just the phone itself) load a nice GPS app on it, and use that to take advantage of the possibly nicer UI than a standalone thing like Garmin. But I don't think that's even possible. See, the problem is that these new phones offer way better experiences as far as touchscreen abilities, response times, etc. From what little I've seen from the dedicated units, they are very slow...it takes a long time for things to change on the screen, the touchscreen controls are klunky, inaccurate, and slow. The animations are choppy and lame. So i really don't know what to do.
superboyac:
Well here's some VERY disturbing information about Garmin's 3790T, their $500 top of the line model:
OK . . . now on to the PROBLEM. This thing has POPUP ADS. Yes - commercial popups, like "Crabfest at Red Lobster" and "Best Western Rewards - Get 1500 points" and "Unlimited lunch $6.90" that pop up while you are driving, and take up screen space, obscuring the damn map. I called tech support, and they said that these are not supposed to pop up while you are moving, only while you are stopped. But these came up while I was driving today. Tech support says there is NO WAY THE POPUP ADS CAN BE DISABLED. Apparently it's built into the license with Navteq and will happen whenever you are receiving traffic information, and they cannot disable it. How is this OK? They don't mention it in the product specs, or on the box. I am paying hundreds of dollars for this device, and I cannot opt-out from popup ads?$#@!% Garmin seriously needs to get a firmware patch (or a hardware patch if it's part of the traffic receiver) out to allow people to disable this. The popups don't even have an "X" in the corner for you to press to get rid of them.
--- End quote ---
I swear, these companies can be such assholes sometimes. A top of the line model that costs hundreds of dollars should NOT have any sort of advertising on it. Assholes...there's just no other word for it.
Renegade:
Well here's some VERY disturbing information about Garmin's 3790T, their $500 top of the line model:
OK . . . now on to the PROBLEM. This thing has POPUP ADS. Yes - commercial popups, like "Crabfest at Red Lobster" and "Best Western Rewards - Get 1500 points" and "Unlimited lunch $6.90" that pop up while you are driving, and take up screen space, obscuring the damn map. I called tech support, and they said that these are not supposed to pop up while you are moving, only while you are stopped. But these came up while I was driving today. Tech support says there is NO WAY THE POPUP ADS CAN BE DISABLED. Apparently it's built into the license with Navteq and will happen whenever you are receiving traffic information, and they cannot disable it. How is this OK? They don't mention it in the product specs, or on the box. I am paying hundreds of dollars for this device, and I cannot opt-out from popup ads?$#@!% Garmin seriously needs to get a firmware patch (or a hardware patch if it's part of the traffic receiver) out to allow people to disable this. The popups don't even have an "X" in the corner for you to press to get rid of them.
--- End quote ---
I swear, these companies can be such assholes sometimes. A top of the line model that costs hundreds of dollars should NOT have any sort of advertising on it. Assholes...there's just no other word for it.
-superboyac (November 17, 2010, 04:50 PM)
--- End quote ---
WTF?
That's what I ended up replacing my TomTom with. The Garmin 3790T. $500 and top of the line.
But it doesn't have ads. To be honest, I think whoever is saying that is either lying or there's something else going on. Perhaps a subsidized model? I'm inclined to think it's just someone lying.
Where did you read that?
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