What is the best street based GPS

[101RRS]

My brother has a 50th birthday coming up and our family has decided to buy him a street based GPS such as Navman or TomTom as his present. Only to be used for guidance around towns not cross country so PDAs and laptops systems are not being considered.

Based on peoples experience what brands/models are recommended. I have heard Navman are not real good and often cannot find streets and regularly give wrong directions. I have also heard mixed but generally positive comments about Tom Tom.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks

Garry

[ladas]

My brother has a 50th birthday coming up and our family has decided to buy him a street based GPS such as Navman or TomTom as his present. Only to be used for guidance around towns not cross country so PDAs and laptops systems are not being considered.

Based on peoples experience what brands/models are recommended. I have heard Navman are not real good and often cannot find streets and regularly give wrong directions. I have also heard mixed but generally positive comments about Tom Tom.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks

Garry

For door to door navigation, throught towns on main routes I would go for the TomTom, either the One, 500, 700 ...........or if you want to spend a bit bigger the TomTom 910 that comes complete with integrated blue tooth - (hands free phone use) in built 20 gig HDD that you can put music or even a video/dvd or two on.

TomTom are a bit naff off road or on tracks, but on the tarmac they are great.

[seqfisho]

I use a Garmin Nuvi 660, and around town is great, especially interstate where I have no idea where Im going at times so my life is in its hands and 99.9 times out of 100 it gets me to the location in the time it says which is handy if you have appointments to keep. It is even very usefull in country areas with pretty good coverage for a lot of back areas which was one of the reasons I went for the Garmin.

Plus the big screen and the bluetooth to use my mobile hands free is great.

[Bushie]

I'm currently using a work supplied Garmin C320, very easy to use, and seems to get you to the right place when you need to.

The ETA seems to be very accurate especially on long trips. The first software update can be free if you register the unit at the right time :D subsequent ones are ~$165.

To see if the detail you want is there have a look at http://www.whereis.com.au as sensis supplies the base data for both.


Martyn

[101RRS]

Thanks guys - Garmin does seem to have good write ups.

[Rovy]

Thanks guys - Garmin does seem to have good write ups.

I agree Garmin Nuvi is the best, I swear by my 310.

[Tusker]

There's an index of reviews here

http://www.mtekk.com.au/Forums/tabid/56/view/topics/forumid/29/Default.aspx

Based on what's in there, I went with a TomTom One, & it's dead easy to use. Just don't hardwire a 5v device to a 12v vehicle like I did...

Regards
Max P

[dobbo]

There's an index of reviews here

http://www.mtekk.com.au/Forums/tabid/56/view/topics/forumid/29/Default.aspx

Based on what's in there, I went with a TomTom One, & it's dead easy to use. Just don't hardwire a 5v device to a 12v vehicle like I did...

Regards
Max P


Unless you rip apart an old pc and get the good bits out of the powerbox

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/


The car battery is a 12 V one, but the CD-ROM drive needs two voltages to work: 12 V and 5 V. The 7805 circuit is able to convert a 12 V voltage into 5 V (its pin 1 is for the input, its pin 2 is the grounding, and its pin 3 is the 5 V exit). Figure 1 shows the plan for the connection. The grounding pin should be connected to the wires of the plug grounding and the negative pole of the car battery, what is done by simply connecting that pin to the metallic body of the car.

taken from
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/71

Tis cool trick for tightarses

[MickG]

Garmin Nuvi 310i I think we bought for my dad at Christmas. Excellent unit so easy to use and extremely accurate not only on maps and guidance but on estimated time of arrival etc.

Will be buying one of these for me soon

[Camo]

I just bought the Garmin Nuvi 660
Great little GPS .. used it on the gold coast, brisbane and melbourne so far and havn't had a hickup yet

camo

[CraigE]

We have recently got the Navman N40i and that seems to work well. Depends what you want, we did not want bluetooth, hard drive, i pod connection etc so the N40i was the go. The Tom Tom is also a good unit.
We have the laptop with track ranger, nat maps and ubd for the 4x4 and the N40i for the Statesman for city driving, not bad in country areas either but not totally accurate.

[EchiDna]

Unless you rip apart an old pc and get the good bits out of the powerbox

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=176


The car battery is a 12 V one, but the CD-ROM drive needs two voltages to work: 12 V and 5 V. The 7805 circuit is able to convert a 12 V voltage into 5 V (its pin 1 is for the input, its pin 2 is the grounding, and its pin 3 is the 5 V exit). Figure 1 shows the plan for the connection. The grounding pin should be connected to the wires of the plug grounding and the negative pole of the car battery, what is done by simply connecting that pin to the metallic body of the car.

taken from
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/71

Tis cool trick for tightarses

actually while this would work - the power supply should be regulated, it's safer and more robust...