I started with a Garmin GPS-V, small black and white screen, no voice, just beeps. Loved it.
Upgraded to TomTom Navigator 6 running on a Palm PDA. Had a larger color screen, voice prompts (but didn't speak street names) and a nice 3-D view. But I don't like the way it handles saved routes (which they call itineraries) which is cumbersome and buggy. It also does not save tracks of where you've been, a feature I missed from the Garmin.
When I bought a new unit for the MH, I went with a Garmin 7200. It has a large color touch screen, voice prompts with street names, and all of the features I missed from my old Garmin: saved routes, saved addresses (waypoints) which I can categorize and set custom icons, saved track logs, and the ability to load custom points of interest.
But what I like best about Garmin, is the Mapsource program that runs on your computer, and let's you define and edit waypoints, define and edit saved routes, and then upload everything to the GPS unit. It's much easier to plan a trip on the computer, than on the GPS unit itself (even though it can be done quite adequately using just the unit's touch screen.)
My next unit will not be a TomTom, I much prefer the Garmin. I have no experience with Magellan.
Iny my opinion: TomTom is easy to use, and is adequate for many purposes. Garmin has more features, is more robust, and seems to be preferred by the more experienced users.
2007 Holiday Rambler Endeavor 40PDQ 400 ISL Cummins/Allison
2002 Chevy Avalanche toad
Inside: Him, Her, and a pack of little furballs...
I chose Garmin because of ease of use, and excellent customer service. My very non-technical wife figured out how to use our Nuvi 200 in 5 minutes, without instructions. When I called Garmin to get a copy of the map DVD they sent it for free and treated me like a valued customer. If you want the street names stated, go with a Nuvi 260. The 200 only does turn by turn, but it works fine for us. We also still like maps. You can compare Garmin models here: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134
I wanted a Megellen Crossover, but there was a big map update fiasco last year. Many Magellan owners couldn't get their map updates to work, and most of their overseas support didn't understand the issue (nor do they understand english). Garmin's support is in the US.
If you stick with either a Tom Tom or a Garmin, I think you'll be really happy.
* This post was
edited 04/17/08 07:23am by Campfire Time *
Chuck D.
'03 Jayco Kiwi 17a, '03 Chevy Trailblazer EXT, Garmin Nuvi 200 GPS
Photography is my obsession: http://coldwater.smugmug.com/
“Adventure is just bad planning.” - Roald Amundsen
Quote: But what I like best about Garmin, is the Mapsource program that runs on your computer, and let's you define and edit waypoints, define and edit saved routes, and then upload everything to the GPS unit. It's much easier to plan a trip on the computer, than on the GPS unit itself (even though it can be done quite adequately using just the unit's touch screen.)
My next unit will not be a TomTom, I much prefer the Garmin. I have no experience with Magellan.
Iny my opinion: TomTom is easy to use, and is adequate for many purposes. Garmin has more features, is more robust, and seems to be preferred by the more experienced users.
That's because you are more well versed with Garmin than TomTom.
Do you know that what you do with your MapSource, I can do the same with program Tyre and Google Earth, Google Map ?
TomTom use open source (Linux) and has much more support from User Groups than Garmin. And best of all, most of these are freebies.
Quote: But what I like best about Garmin, is the Mapsource program that runs on your computer, and let's you define and edit waypoints, define and edit saved routes, and then upload everything to the GPS unit. It's much easier to plan a trip on the computer, than on the GPS unit itself (even though it can be done quite adequately using just the unit's touch screen.)
My next unit will not be a TomTom, I much prefer the Garmin. I have no experience with Magellan.
Iny my opinion: TomTom is easy to use, and is adequate for many purposes. Garmin has more features, is more robust, and seems to be preferred by the more experienced users.
That's because you are more well versed with Garmin than TomTom.
Do you know that what you do with your MapSource, I can do the same with program Tyre and Google Earth, Google Map ?
TomTom use open source (Linux) and has much more support from User Groups than Garmin. And best of all, most of these are freebies.
Aaargh! I typed a long and detailed reply, and when I hit "post" I got an error and lost everything I typed!
Well, I'm not typing all that again. So I'll summarize...
Yes, I am more familiar with the Garmin, and what I posted was my opinion... which is what the OP asked for, after all. I'm not knocking the TomTom, I just think the Garmin has more features and works better. There may be tools available for the TomTom from open source sources, but I'll bet that doesn't mean much to most users: I'll bet they just install the software that comes with their unit, and use that. In that regard, the MapSource program does much than TomTom Home. It seems like the TomTom Home is just a media and upgrade manager. MapSource allows you to define and edit routes and waypoints, manage track logs and maps, and allows you to upload or download all of that data directly to/from the device.
You mentioned a few mapping programs. I'm not familiar with Tyre, but I have used the google products. Google Earth Pro (a paid upgrade from the regular free version) can talk to a GPS on a limited basis. I use the paid version to download the tracks from my old GPS-V which now lives on a handlebar mount on my ATV. It lets me make maps of the trails I've ridden, and lets me correlate them with the satellite views. But it doesn't allow me to define waypoints and automatically routed routes to upload to the GPS. Google Maps lets me plan a route, and provides directions, but does not talk to the GPS -- the planned route must then be manually transcribed into the GPS unit. Tedious, at best. Those programs do have some nice features (unrelated to the GPS) that MapSource does not, but MapSource has it hands down as a planning tool that allows the planned routes and waypoints to be uploaded directly into the GPS. Are there other tools out there? Sure. But I'll bet the average user couldn't be bothered to look for them. There are also better programs out there than MapSource. For printing maps and directions, I prefer Microsoft Streets and Trips, but it does not integrate as well with the GPS. So I use both, depending on my ultimate goal at the time.
I'm a reasonably intelligent guy. After all, I'm an engineer who has spent the last 25 years developing products and systems with embedded processors, and I've written a lot of software for those systems. I've even designed and developed a global mapping system, and a few other products with embedded GPS receivers. So I know a fair amount about what these systems can and cannot do, and I don't have any trouble adapting to new technology. But there are some features that I've taken for granted on the Garmin, that I have not been able to figure out how to do on the TomTom, or if I could do it, it's more cumbersome or buggy. (Saved routes is a big one, the "Itinerary" feature of my TomTom is abysmal!)
There are a couple things the TomTom does better than the Garmin. One that comes to mind is a warning about toll roads on a proposed route, and it allows me to request a toll-free route instead. But there are many more things I like better about the Garmin.
The TomTom is not a bad product, I just think the Garmin is much better.
I spent several weeks through November 07 - January 08 reading everything I could find about GPS units. Based on all the technical research and scores of user reports/opinions, and based on the options I wanted such as text-to-speech and multiple waypoints and the options I didn't want such as Bluetooth, I purchased the Tom Tom One XL S.
We then made a seven week trip from British Columbia, Canada to Arizona and then southern California. During that entire trip, the Tom Tom performed very well. Yes, there were three or four times when it would tell us to turn left when it should have said to turn right and Susan doesn't have a clue how to correctly pronounce names such as Los Angeles, but these are issues I understand you will experience with all brands of GPS. When the incorrect turn info happened, it only happened when we were within a block or two of our destination and given that we probably made 15,000 turns during the trip, three of four errors didn't seem too bad to me. I was also impressed by the fact that newly changed roads seem to have been covered in the mapping system.
I especially liked the fact that if you happen to go off route, it never took more than 5 seconds before the Tom Tom would set out a new route to get us back on track.
I also liked the fact that we could enter in POIs that were of interest to us and that the MapShare function is free for updating route corrections sent in by Tom Tom users.
Please note that this is our first GPS so I can't compare it to our units but I can tell you that we are very pleased with this unit.
2005 Pace Arrow 36'
2007 Saturn Vue Toad with Brake Buddy and Blue Ox
I've have or had laptop GPS, handheld GPS and vehicle-mounted GPS for years. I think I had the first DeLorme consumer mapping program for a computer. They all have their good points and bad points. Garmin products seem to have more good points and fewer bad points. I don't think you could go wrong with a Garmin because they have enough variety that you should easily find one with the features you want and since there are more companies putting them out, all the prices are more competitive.
David
Life is too short to worry about how short life is.
Quote: But what I like best about Garmin, is the Mapsource program that runs on your computer,.......
Is Mapsource now free from Garmin? I paid about one hundred dollars for mine.
I don't know if it's included with all units. All I know is that it was included with my GPS-V I bought about 5 years ago, and also with my StreetPilot 7200 I bought a year ago. I assumed it was included with all units, but you know what happens when you assume!
I've been hit with upgrade fees, and unlock fees in the past (not yet so far for the current 7200 unit) but that was for the map data, not the MapSource program.
One of the nice things about MapSource is that it can handle multiple GPS units, and multiple map sets. In my installation, I can switch between the old map data compatible with the GPS-V (which I haven't upgraded for a while and won't anymore for that unit) the new map data for the 7200, and the topographical map data package I bought to load into the GPS-V for use with the ATV. There's a combobox in the toolbar that easily lets me switch between map sets.
Quote: But what I like best about Garmin, is the Mapsource program that runs on your computer,.......
Is Mapsource now free from Garmin? I paid about one hundred dollars for mine.
Upon request, Garmin sent me a DVD with MapSource (and a copy of the map that was already on my GPS) at no charge, but you would have to pay for updated or other maps. Preparing custom routes on my Garmin Nuvi 750 GPS is relatively easy but using MapSource on the computer and uploading to the GPS is easier still and it's great for preplanning and saving many routes for long trips. I find having concurrent access to Streets and Trips, Google Earth and various other web sites (Woodall’s directory etc etc etc) really helps with pre-planning and saving routes (and, of course, waypoints) in MapSource. Many GPS units have limited ability to create and save customized routes (ie to modify the routes provided by the GPS) and among my Nuvi's many features, I like and use that one the most. Garmin's literature implies that their 700 series GPS units can accommodate up to 10 saved routes (which can have multiple waypoints). Although, this is often very adequate, in fact, one can have many more than 10 routes stored in the GPS's memory. The 10 route limitation only applies to the number of routes one can have “active” at any one time on the GPS unit and one can easily remove one or more routes from the active area (these will still be saved on the GPS for later reactivation if one wishes) and activate other stored routes (or create new routes) on the GPS at any time without requiring access to a computer.
Lorne Ross
2003 Pleasure-Way Ford Excel TD Camped the lower 48 states and 9 provinces
Most multiple times and now on the repeat!
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