Sijun Forums :: View topic

Lunatique · Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 10:30 pm

My wife and I are have no sense of direction--none whatsoever. So it would make sense for us to install a satelite navigation system into our car. I'd like to hear some suggestions/opinions from you guys who use one.

[Shizo] · member Member # Joined: 22 Oct 1999 Posts: 3938

Yo!
I've seen many GPS devices in the cars i was parking.. They're alright! Mostly Magellan or built-in things in BMW and Land Rovers.

I just had to learn a bit about GPS myself..
http://www.trimble.com/gps/what.html

And here is a bunch of them for sale.
http://www.nextag.com/gps/search-html

Tzan · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 8:53 am

For my job I am always going to customers houses, rather than have them come to my crappy appartment. I just buy a book of street maps. It covers all of eastern MA. I check out the map before I leave, sometimes I make a hand sketch of the route on paper with street names large enough to actually read. I also bring the map book with me.

Owning the map saves me from having that conversation where they are trying to give me directions on the phone.

You can also put those little Post-it notes on a paper map! Smile

Lunatique · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 9:09 am

Tzan · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 9:42 am

Ah... I guess I dont go on unplanned drives.

Plan for today:
1. Do a few hours of work
2. Play some Battlefield 2
3. eat
4. Watch some TV
5. Go to bed

See... its all planned out, heh Smile

Yarik · Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 8:16 am

http://www.garmin.com/mobile/ is excellent and one of the top notch products

Lunatique · Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 10:01 am

It looks like all the models that can do on-th-fly correction are a lot more expensive (that's when you veer away from the route it picked for you--it'll automatically adjust and give you a new route according to where you are ATM).

I personally am starting to have second thoughts about buying one, but Elena insists because we paid nothing for our car (hand-me-down from my dad), so we might as well slurge on something else.

balistic · Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 10:48 am

Do you have a fairly portable laptop? Microsoft packages a USB GPS unit with their Streets and Trips software for $99 total.
_________________
brian.prince|light.comp.paint

Lunatique · Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 11:29 am

Drunken Monkey · Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:11 am

i use iway 500c its bigger and heavier than anything by garmin or other manufacturers, but i can't find anything better... big screen, fast, durable.

a drawback is that its not portable outside the vehicle...
_________________
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" - Sigmund Freud

Lunatique · Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 11:16 am

The iWay got really good reviews by tech websites, but the user reviews tend to be a lot worse. The Garmin Nuvi350 seems to be a consumer favorite, with the TomTom 910 close behind.

We picked up a Magellan Roadmate 800 for a few days, and the damn PC software stopped recognizing the unit after an afternoon of use. Their tech-support was in India, and were of no help whatsoever. I knew far more about computers than their tech-support. I did the whole uninstall/reinstall/update driver/reboot...etc dance a few times, and nothing worked. So I returned the unit. It works fine, but not being able to connect to the PC, I won't be able to do a lot of custom uploads, update firmware..etc.

I played around with the TomTom 910 and Nuvi 350 for a while at Circuit City, and I liked the 910 far more than the Nuvi. The Nuvi has crappy sound (distorts at high volume), terrible text-to-speech (could hardly understand a fucking word), but is very portable. The 910 is bigger, but has more features I want, and sounds great--both in volume, clarity, and excellent text-to-speech (very natural sounding). The only thing about the 910 I don't like is the map doesn't show names of the surrounding streets--that's a big deal to me because I like knowing the immediate environment at a glance.

I'm now wondering if we should just pick up the Roadmate 860T, which is essentially the 800 with text-to-speech and a couple of other extras. But they'll be releasing the 6000T soon, and it'll be much smaller.

Choices choices.

Awetopsy · Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2006 9:11 pm

Ive heard the Microsoft Streets and Trips w/ GPS plugged into a laptop or a PDA is real slick..

never actually tried it tho.

Affected · Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2006 3:15 pm

my father uses a phone + gps receiver and some app, wayfinder I believe. It shows directions on the phone screen and if you want, gives instructions via audio: "after 1 kilometre, turn left" etc.

Lunatique · Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:28 pm

Ok, we ended up with the Magellan Roadmate 860T--which is one model above the 800 we returned last time. It isn't perfect--no unit on the market is--but it fits our needs the most. The Text-To-Speech is not quite as good as the TomTom 910, but much better than the Garmin Nuvi 350 IMO. Also, the Garmin Nuvi 350's voices are all digitized, while the other two only have the street names synthesized, while other voice directions are pre-recorded and much clearer. The mount for the 860T is different from the 800--there's no adhesive disc for non-window suction mounting, but the articulate arms on the mount is much better than the one for the 800 (it uses tightening knobs instead of that lame bending rod). The lack of the adhesive disc is annoying though. I haven't used the free Traffic Kit yet (which comes with 15 months free service)--that'll wait until I find a new job.

So far, we don't have any real big complaints about the 860T. More usage might run into some--we'll see.