Best Portable GPS Value
 

I was all set to search for this, but the search function is disabled at the moment. I'm looking for a good value GPS for the car, such as Magellen, Tom Tom, Garmin. Any insight?

Mio c310x

Frys.com $198 Shipped

Have had mine since 12/28 and have been very happy with it. Has some minor quirks but for the money can not be beat. Runs on a PPC 2003 shell so you can hack the hell out of it if you so desire.

I was very impressed when my friend showed me his Garmin Nuvi. This GPS is awesome. I thnk it's in the $700 range ;(

http://www.garmin.com/products/nuvi/

I looked at several of these and ended up with a system for my laptop form Delorme. works great and since I travel with my laptop it is one less thing to have to haul around.

I just bought the Magellan #760 new refurb for $300 from this site. Was very happy! timothy.connolly@gmail.com

Garmin i5. Sub $300 these days I believe. Solid performer.

x2 on Garmin. I got the Nuvi 350 for ~$470 on-line order and am completely pleased with it. You can select either male or female US American voice (other languages too) and it will tell you the actual street name to turn on.

If you are truely interested in the "good value" portion of your post, search either http://www.fatwallet.com/c/18/ or http://www.slickdeals.net/

There's is a weath of information on all kinds of deals there. This MAY be where osidak found the Mio deal, which seems like the best current deal.

These are the other sites besides the Pelican forum that I visit daily/hourly.

I got a basic garmin nuvi on sale around the holidays for around $450, a great deal, it is a great GPS, easy to use, many POIs

-Lewis

Based on an earlier thread here, I got a garmin nuvi about 3 weeks ago. Unbelievable. One of the neatest gadgets I have played with in a long time. It was in the $450 range.
Gary

Buy a used Garmin off Ebay. I like a Garmin V. Shouldn't have to pay more than $125-$150.

I've been using a Garmin Etrex Legend for 5 years now in Auto, Sailplane and foot. I cracked the screen (LCD) and it still worked. I sent it in for repair at $99. They uploaded my waypoints, airports and POI's to a NEW unit. It's a mule! It still commands a price that I paid for it 5 years ago at Target. Used ones are on flea bay. What's cool is that I upload my tracks to my Mac or PC and put them in free programs that use USGS maps, Terraserver,(etc) and view my journey. Flight Track works for Mac and will display tracks in 3D.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1169730819.jpg

I came out of a Garmin GPS V and while I loved it the limited memory (19mb) and serial only connection to load new maps drove me bonkers. Takes nearly 2 hours to load 19mb of maps and that doesn't even cover half of NC. Route recalcs took forever as well.

I strongly considered the Garmin Nuvi but I found it impossible to justify spending $450 + for the unit when the Mio c310x cost less than half and did everything the Garmin did. I just don't have that much excess money.

The Garmin is a little nicer when keying in address as you do not have to input a city first but the mio gets around this by allowing you to input a zip code. The Garmin uses Navteq Maps and the Mio and most other GPS' use Teleatlas.

The Garmin is limited to what the factory allows you to do. The Mio is hackable and with a little time you can change the menus to what is more pleasing for you, you can load other software (movie player, nav software, games, ect) and in general you can customize it.

For the money (mine at least) there was no question the Mio beat the Garmin hands down.

What kind of cellphone do you have?

I've got a moto 'Q', along with a BlueTooth GPS receiver (as big as a Zippo lighter) and CoPilot software. I travel about every week for work, and since I have to have my phone anyway, it prevents me from carrying to many devices.

One thing to consider is display washout in daylight conditions. Some of the less espensive units fair poorly in this department.

I used this site to research before purchasing a used Garmin Street Pilot. I love the thing.

What do you do for an antenna? I have a bluetooth cellphone.

You mean for the GPS receiver? If so, I've got a bluetooth GPS receiver. So, receiver "talks" to satelite, phone "talks" to receiver.

As for the CoPilot software (and there are similar products like Mapopolis, etc) might require a Windows Mobile device, which is what the Motorola Q runs, as well as many other devices.

I have a Garmin i5. It's okay. I found it for $250 in December. I'm not crazy about it, but it does get me where I want to go, and definitely de-stresses trips where I'm alone in the car and don't know exactly where I'm going. (That happens quite often with me.)

Glad to hear your opinion, because stuff I read rated it pretty high.

I do still have it though. I thought about returning it, but I wanted a GPS and I doubted I could find anything better for the money. I could be wrong.

The key flaw is that the route-plotting software doesn't deal with HOV-only roads or roads that go from one-way to two-way at different times of day. There are quite a few of them around DC, so it'll often route me away from the best routes. It's annoying because the alternative is taking surface streets instead of parkways and expressways.

If that's the biggest problem, it's not really relevant for me.

for what is worth the screen on the mio i would rate on par or better than the garmin and way better than the tom tom

Another vote for Garmin. Used them for 10 years now and best I have seen.

Does anyone know whether the Garmin Nuvi 350/360 can be used in both NA and Europe? Do you just change the chip?

And what is the best place to buy these things?

Thanks.

I have the Europe CD.....Not sure with the Nuvi, but on my Garmin, I just download the areas I want via a serial cable from my computer.....Some Garmin come pre-loaded and you can't hook up to the computer. For several reasons, I wouldn't have one that didn't allow me to set my routes on the computer....

I have a Garmin iQue M5, if it broke I'd buy its successor in a heartbeat. The thing is unbelievable, I've used it all over the US and Europe.

Love the Nuvi 350. Size of a deck of cards, very intuitive. Works like a regular car GPS, but also has pedestian setting, so you can be guided the 'wrong' way on one way streets. Or no streets, if you're out in the boonies. Works mid ocean and @ 35,000 feet. Stores pix, tunes, etc.

A bit more $$, but worth it.

I really like the Garmin stuff. I've got a nüvi 360 and love it - quite expensive though.

Another option probably out of the realistic price range (but nice!):
http://www.gpslodge.com/images/PorcheGPS.jpg
Porsche P'9611 GPS

I have two Garmins: an iQue 3600 (Palm-based PDA model, now discontinued) and a Quest. For my eye-sight the Quest's screen is too small, but my wife likes it. The iQue is really only suited for in-car use. I never use the PDA functionality and GPS at the same time, i.e. hiking around while updating my diary entries.... Its one or the other.

If I had to replace either unit today, I would probably go with the Streetpilot C550 or C580. The Nuvis are nice, but expensive for a MP3 player. I don't need personal entertainment from my GPS.

I would never consider anything other than Garmin. Their relationship with Navteq provides excellent mapping data in other parts of the world than just the US. Since you are US-based, this is probably not a factor for you, but for those of us living in other parts of the world it means the difference between having comprehensive map data and POI's versus mickey-mouse stuff. YMMV