I have personally used TomTom (on my Treo 650), Magellan (standalone), and Garmin (standalone).
My opinion? TomTom is OK. Magellan is absolute crap (took me WAAAAY out of my way instead of using a road that has been around for ages, and then when I was ON the correct road it kept trying to get me to go another way), Garmin is awesome.
To be fair, this is an unfair comparison. I bought the Garmin StreetPilot 2720 which is a fairly high end model, and love love love it. The feature that sold me was that it will announce the name of the street, exit number, etc. TomTom didn’t have as much specificity, which made it more difficult to tell which exit to take when there were 2 close together (i.e. exit to Route 66 North and South). Announcing the name of the exit means that I don’t have to take my eyes off the road.
The StreetPilot series also comes with a “beanbag” design which lets you put it on your dashboard. I was sure that it would not stay put around corners, etc but it does, and it also makes it easy to take between cars AND take off the dashboard when you park (because A) someone might smash a window to steal it and B) heat + electronics = bad).
The biggest problem with Garmin is that they have too many danged choices, so trying to find the “right” one is more difficult than it should be (less is more, Garmin… less is more).
One thing I will give TomTom is that their tech support is pretty decent. Garmin has email tech support and it is dog slow and I usually end up sending another message that says “Still waiting for a response” before I get one.
I drive a lot of places that I’ve never been before, live in a very rural area, and hate hate hate getting lost (enough that I spent $400 on a great GPS after spending $200 on a crappy one). For me, Garmin’s feature set on the higher-end is just too good to beat right now.
(I did see an ad the other day for another GPS company that claimed to have street sign text and some other misc. info that seemed handy, but I can’t recall the name, it wasn’t one of the ones I had heard of before.)
Oh, and as far as “hackability” about the only real thing that you need to be able to do is save your favorite locations (the TomTom GPS for Palm will let you save TEN. The Garmin has no limit as far as I can tell) and the ability to load your own POI (Point of Interest). Garmin has both, but the software is Windows or Mac only.
Finally, I just checked Amazon for the Nuvi and it doesn’t come with the “beanbag” but they have it for sale “Garmin Portable Friction Mount for Nuvi” for $30 which is pretty appalling for a $600 GPS.
For what it’s worth I’d save $200 and get one of the StreetPilot models that “just” does GPS unless you need/want a GPS that you can use outside of the car too (the StreetPilot I have has no battery so has to be plugged into the lighter “in-car power source”.
HTH
— TjL 
If you need hackability, the TomToms are the only ones who publish the whole Linux kernel patches and driver sources (except for their navigation software, of course). See http://opentom.org for more info.
— Beat
> has no battery so has to be plugged into the lighter
Ooh, that’s interesting, and it actually might be a dealbreaker. I only have one lighter/power source and I use it constantly for various gadgets. (I even have a converter thingie that gives me a regular outlet so I can charge my laptop, etc.)
— Mark
I’m a fan of the garmin bluetooth gps and a laptop. http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Mobile-Bluetooth-Enabled-GPS-System/dp/B000IZ7C08/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0184570-0697634?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1182360226&sr=8-1
Someone was even nice enough to go and write a python library for interfacing with it.
But if money truly isn’t a problem, I’d buy the nokia n800 and the navigation kit. http://europe.nokia.com/link?cid=EDITORIAL_174029
Once you put the n800 into development mode you’ve got a full ultra-portable linux tablet with a shell and all the linux goodies you love + navigation kit with gps, you’re set.
— mikeal
I’d been using a version of TomTom on my Palm with a Bluetooth GPS for a while, and it was OK, but a bit slow.
I bought a Garmin Nuvi 350 from Amazon last month, prior to my trip round California, and am now very much in love with it.
It’s got a smaller screen than the 660 and doesn’t have the hands-free cellphone capabilities, FM transmitter, or the ability to receive “traffic” “information” from Microsoft (for an extra fee), but that’s fine with the $300 price difference.
Advantages:
1) It has Text-To-Speech, so it says out loud “Take the next left onto Massachusetts Avenue”, rather than just “In 300 yards, turn left” (which is what the TomTom did)
2) It’s wicked fast at picking up a signal. I had to wait a minute maximum for it to lock-in. Pretty speedy to recalculate when you miss a turning too.
3) The database of restaurants, malls, attractions, gas stations, etc is pretty up to date. We used it extensively as part of our “Visit all the west-coast junkfood joints” tour. Search, Restaurants, “Jack” and it gives you all the Jack-In-The-Boxes by proximity *with the direction* (my TomTom would just say “3.8 miles”, which was a pain if it was 3.8 miles in the opposite direction from the way you were travelling)
I love my TomTom Go 510… It’s got a built in battery, the software and UI work really well, people are able to write and install applications on it without too much pain, and the directions I get from it seem great to me..
For Text-to-Speech, I gather the next version of the TomTom Go 910 is the way to go…
It also has lots of crap, including built-in bluetooth and the ability to use that to get a data connection to get traffic, weather, and “Quick GPS Fix” updates..
In that last paragraph, “crap” should read “stuff”… I shouldn’t have used a pejorative there..
I can’t speak for TomTom or Magellan, but I was gifted a Garmin StreetPilot I3 a few years back. With its tiny screen and limited inputs (only 3 buttons and a scroll wheel) it is still completely useful and pretty great. I am a definite convert. I hardly ever look at the screen while driving so the small screen size doesn’t matter, I just follow the audio prompts. As long as I have an address I have never gotten lost using it in 2+ years, which is pretty impressive according the my wife. My mother in law just got a Garmin Nuvi 660, and the only down side to that unit that I noticed was that the voice is completely annoying, it sounds like a distressed robot. On my old I3 I get a pretty soothing, nice voice that hardly ever grates on the nerves, so I was surprised at the downgrade for the newer model.
There are some negatives I didn’t anticipate. This may be unit specific, but if the unit loses all power (meaning I don’t have batteries in it and the car is off) it can take a really long time — like 5 full minutes — to get satellite signals again once power is restored. This is confirmed in the user manual but something I was totally unaware of initially. I also had to borrow a Windows machine to load up maps (didn’t feel like learning how to do that via linux at the time, and have never updated the maps since the original install) which was a negative, but the newer models don’t require any such nonsense since all the maps are pre-loaded. Entering an address for each place I want to find is tedious at first, but after about two months of use my “Favorite” locations were all in there and I hardly ever have to use the wheel address entry UI anymore.
Lastly, my Garmin did just finally die on me (bricked, wouldn’t turn on, wouldn’t reset, nothing). I know, pretty big negative. But when I emailed their tech support, 2 days later they offered to fix or replace it a full year after the warranty had run out, I didn’t even have to grovel, all I had to do was ship it to them. I call that pretty good customer service even though it would have been nice if it had never broken.
I’ve got a Garmin Nuvi 350, and I have nothing but great things to say about it. I’ve looked and used most of the rest, and the Garmin wins not just on speed, but especially on ease-of-use. This is of utmost criticality when you’re trying to use it in a car. My only complaint? The suction cup mount is somewhat iffy.
— petrilli
I have a pre-Nuvi Garmin (StreetPilot 330c) and it’s very nice. Holds the whole continental US with points of interest included.
After a couple of years of ownership, though, I have to say that the StreetPilot’s process for updating the map data and POIs — which you have to do every so often, or else the POIs start getting out of date — really sucks. As I recall I had to do it using a USB connection to a Windows machine, and it was an error-prone process that failed a couple of times before it took. My last update was about two years ago (May 2005) so I really need to do it again soon, since 2 years is enough time for many business to open/close/move. I’m not really looking forward to it.
Honestly I think that the update process is probably going to be the defining factor between the different manufacturers these days. I think the market has leveled out in terms of useful features — they all get the job done. You don’t really need traffic or MP3 playback or any of the other jazz, just maps and points of interest. Voice synthesis that can actually read street names out loud is a nice perk, but I think most of them do that now. So I’d say look at the update options and see who’s got the better process.
Another one for the Garmin Nuvi 350. Actually, we’ve got a Nuvi 360, but it’s exactly the same as the Nuvi 350, but with Bluetooth.
The Bluetooth-phone interfacing could use some work. It’s really cool that it pauses music and such while you’re on the phone, but the speaker and microphone are on the back of the GPS, so hearing and talking are pretty difficult. I’d recommend buying something separate for talking on the phone, and picking up the Nuvi 350.
Can’t really elaborate better than the others did. It does exactly what I’d expect it to do, very well designed.
— Mike
> I think that the update process is probably going to be the defining factor
That’s a really good point. I have access to a Mac (my old laptop) and a Windows machine (my employer’s), but for how much longer?
— Mark
Hi Mark, I own a Tomtom Go 910 and I am quite impressed by it, for its navigational features. As a first time user in a continent I have never visited or lived before, I have never got lost yet. The downside, however is that the device is highly addictive :).
One of the reviews (I can’t find the link) said something about how a particular mapping technology may be making a difference in a given continent, once you have similarly featured products. Tomtom uses TeleAtlas and since I am living in Europe, they are a perfect combination. TeleAtlas has better maps of Europe and they update as regularly as every week.
If for America, NAVTEQ has better maps, then it would make sense to use devices powered by NAVTEQ. (How about some fact-checking with your own in-house maps department to find out if this is true :)). Google Maps is definitely using NAVTEQ. Because as a consumer product, the device is only as good as the updates. Even cellphones have GPS technology built-in, but it is the built-in maps and related info that make a difference in how well a GPS helps you navigate.
Garmin apparently uses NAVTEQ maps. I wonder if anyone has tried using NAVTEQ maps on a Tomtom device in America. That would be an interesting thing to know about.
— Chetan
I’ve also got the Nuvi 350 and would recommend it. It is dead easy to use, and here in Germany (I’ve got the european version), the data is mostly spot-on. It unclips easily from the windshield mount, and I use it a lot when I’m walking around a city to find various restaurants, businesses, etc. Unfortunately it seems like a rather closed platform, but I don’t have any experience with the TomToms.
Scott Hanselman has the nuvi 350, and that’s the one I’m looking at too. It’s Garmin’s cheapest GPS that pronounces street names. Unfortunately Garmin decided to remove the “avoid this area” feature and some others that their older GPSes had; they were sacrificed on the altar of ease of use. Still, Garmin’s routing is consistently the best, the screen and UI is the nicest, and in general I don’t see anything else being seriously in contention with it.
I have a Mio 310x unit and, while I have no idea how it stacks up to the Garmins, it does me just fine: consistently accurate directions, and it works while unplugged so you can pocket it for use outside the car.
The Garmin Nuvi 660 rocks. ’nuff said.
— John
I do not have a GPS, but my coworkers all do. As we drive the mess that is New Jersey roads, it is essential. Most of my coworkers got a Magellan model that was on sale at Best Buy for $249.
On the regular run up to Newark, Magellan and Garmin both tend to go south to the Garden State Parkway before heading north, even though it is shorter and faster to go up to the 1. During the recent fires, however, Magellan generally avoided the affected area, while Garmin wanted to go straight through. In either case, you’ll need to retrieve your updates from time to time
It is probably more important that you get a GPS than it is to get “the right” GPS, especially assuming an unlimited budget (not possible with kids, even though my teen seems to think my budget is unlimited).
— Sam I Am
I would recommend getting one with WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAAS
It helps in increasing the accuracy of your position. A good proportion of Garmin units support this (though you may have to pay a little more). Not sure about other manufacturers.
— David Magda
A documented quest leading to a different conclusion
http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2006-04/19-gps_device_for_geotagging
http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2006-07/27-new_toy_navigps
http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2007-01/17-navigps_review
> I only have one lighter/power source
you can always make more
— Sam Ruby
Hey Mark. I just bought a Nuvi 350 and am pretty happy with it. Two features I wanted were US+Canada mapset and voiced street names. I also like that it turns itself on and off automatically when connected to the cigarette lighter. It’s also an MP3 player (via SD card) which I can plug into my aux port. The music cuts off when the voice comes on. Doesn’t seem to be very hackable but on the other hand, it’s not dependent on a PC to plan your routes like the early models. I used my Windows (gaming only) box to update the software and never hooked it up again.
— Jim Storch
I got the nuvi 370 so I can have the European maps as well, it’s much cheaper than the widescreen 600 series, and more compact as well. Great little device. The Bluetooth hands-free functionality is very nice, although sound quality leaves a little to be desired.
The Garmin nüvi series is really nice. I use a 660 regularly, and it has always done a good job for me.
To be honest, I’m employed at Garmin, so I may be a little biased. I can answer some of the questions that have been raised in here regarding the Garmin devices, however.
Garmin units are fairly closed, so you won’t be able to do much hacking, aside from loading things like waypoints (favorite locations) or additional maps to the unit. On the plus side, a nüvi mounts on a computer (Mac or PC) as a drive. You’re able to view most of the files on the unit, and directly load some data, such as MP3s. From a support standpoint, it provides a lot of flexibility, too. We’re not fully Mac compatible, but we’re working toward it.
All of the nüvi line of units have built-in batteries. In my case, I always have mine mounted in the car and connected to power, so it stays charged. It’s always available if you need to stick it in your pocket if you plan to head out on foot. The StreetPilot 2720 that was mentioned early on does not have an internal battery, but it was designed exclusively as an automotive unit. It’s not meant to be portable, and the expectation is that it will always be connected to power.
Garmin uses NAVTEQ mapping data, just like most other GPS companies utilize (with the exception of a couple like TomTom). The previous commenter was correct that Google uses NAVTEQ, too. Any given version of mapping contains information that is anywhere from six months to two years old from the date of release. This can vary from region to region, too. Larger metropolitan areas tend to have more complete sets of information than more rural areas from what I have observed. Garmin releases mapping updates every 10-14 months, and must be purchased at a cost of $75.00.
The nüvi is designed with a high-sensitivity receiver that acquires fast and will often acquire in places other GPS units won’t. My nüvi will usually pick up satellites indoors, even though it’s not advertised with this capability. It also has WAAS capabilities, which greatly increases accuracy over standard GPS. Most Garmin units have this capability now.
All nüvi units have text-to-speech capability, which is really nice. It announces turns and road names well ahead of each turn so you’re not caught off guard when the turn comes up.
The last thing I’ll mention is support. I personally feel like our support is second to none. Support is based in the US, and we’re available by phone and via e-mail. There is no charge for our support, and there is really no such thing as a Garmin unit that’s too old to be supported (though we do have very old units that we will no longer repair).
Just remember that the GPS is a tool, just like anything else. They’re not perfect, but can be very useful. I know of stories about individuals who have driven into lakes or off bridges because they were strictly following their GPS and not using their heads.
My goal here was to provide the information I can to help you make your decision. I’ve been reading your blog for a few years now, so I know you’re a pretty smart guy. I’ll keep an eye on this post in case any other questions come up.
— Hawken
I was recently sold on the concept of in-car GPS on an extended-family vacation to CA last week (all parties mentioned being east coast natives). I reserved a GPS along with my rental car at the airport; that particular unit was a less-than-svelte Garmin model, but I didn’t bother to remember the model number. My brother-in-law brought a Garmin nuvi along for the trip. We used his GPS for most of our travels as he had a number of points of interest pre-programmed into it from research prior to the trip. It worked quite admirably.
One feature I would be hesitant to exclude from the list of “gotta have” features is the ability to speak street names. I made a couple of wrong turns when faced with multiple choices and a directive such as, “Turn right in 400 feet.” I am apparently deficient in my ability to distinguish 350 ft. from 400 ft. when piloting a rental SUV, containing no less than four adults and a hungry, irritated toddler.
The GPS from the rental car agency proved itself invaluable when my wife woke up at 4 am the last day of our vacation with severe pain from a throat/ear infection. I can’t describe how comforting it was to be able to quickly locate the closest E.R. Without the GPS, I suspect we would have had to ask the hotel desk clerk, who was sort of friendly and sort of spoke English, for directions to whatever hospital he/she knew of.
btw: my wife says penicillin and vicodin are wonderful drugs.
— yelkeew
WAAS is definitely cool and I’d never buy a GPS without it, but text-to-speech is the killer app of GPS-dom.
One thing I neglected to mention but remembered while reading the followups: California and another state (Minnesota?) have laws against any sort of windshield mount for ANYTHING (GPS, cell phone, note paper, etc). There was a note to that effect in my Garmin box.
Yet another reason to go with beanbag love.
Also, regardless of the unit that you buy, you’ll want to get used to this process.
1) Open car door
2) Turn on GPS
3) Put child in carseat (if applicable)
4) Put self in seat
5) Fasten seatbelt
Your GPS should now be ready to use.
The ones that I have used have these silly little “EULAs” (for lack of a more precise term) which say, in effect, “DO NOT USE WHILE DRIVING AND IF YOU DO AND CRASH AND DIE DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN YOU AND IF YOU GET LOST WELL SORRY WE DID THE BEST WE COULD” as well as little splash screens while they go through their initialization program.
Most useless “feature” of my Garmin? It came with a remote control.
Yes really.
I’m not sure where it expects me to be that I would not be able to reach the GPS and would need such a thing. Worse, the remote doesn’t have a full alphanumeric keyboard (which would have at least given some usefulness when typing in addresses, etc).
Only other thing I don’t like is that when you are tapping the screen to enter an address, it gives the audible feedback of “Ok, you clicked a letter” even when you didn’t. And it limits the number of characters in the name of the place you are going. For example: I plugged in the addresses of the Sam’s Clubs around here so I’d know when we were near one, but since there are several of them I wanted to put the city name in the favorites too so I could easily tell which one I was choosing. The character limitation cut off as shown:
Sam’s Club Chilli[cothe]
Sam’s Club South [Point]
Note a huge deal, but it’s text! Why is there a limit of less than like 100 characters?
Last and possibly least, where we live there are a lot of “County Roads” (i.e. County Road 27) but no one calls them “County Road” whatever, they all have names. I’d like to be able to rename some of the streets.
Something no GPS does (AFAIK) is remember the route that you prefer. For example if I prefer to get off at exit 14 and turn left and it wants me to take exit 15 and turn right, I wish that after a certain number of times it would say “Save as preferred route over automatically calculated route?” and then lead me that way and estimate my time that way.
OH! Which reminds me of something else I like more about the Garmin than the Magellan or TomTom: it’s much better at estimating the time it will take to get somewhere. For example there’s a major airport about 2 hours from here, and TomTom and Mag always always always said it would take 2.5 hours to get there, and then the time would drop off as you drove. Garmin estimates have been within 5-10 minutes for me (excepting things like traffic or rest stops).
— TjL
From yesterday’s route experience (borrowed a coworker’s Magellan Maestro unit):
1: Be sure that you also *take a map of the area*. If your GPS shuts down (cig power not working, so it went into sleep mode), you’re up a creek.
2: The GPS does not know about things like Friday night traffic from NYC, so it is up to you to alter the route to avoid it (unless you happen to like sitting in one spot on the highway for a couple of hours).
3: Sometimes “right turn in 0.5 miles” just means the road curves, while other times it means that there is an intersection. One time, it meant that the road angled to the right at an intersection. The Maestro, at least, did not distinguish between these conditions, so I wound up making a few wrong turns. In one lower-income section of Paterson, NJ, the unit itself seemed to get lost, telling me to take the next right on a street with no place to make a right and leading me into a dead-end. Once I made it back to the turn I missed, it regained its footing. I should mention that this was just before it started going into sleep mode, so this could have been a power issue.
— Sam I Am
I use Street Atlas and one of their Bluetooth GPS receivers for automobile navigation. The particular Delorme Bluetooth GPS receiver I have is crap. It turns off at random and gives me fits trying to get it to connect with the PC. I don’t recommend my exact solution, but it seems like a nice way to go if the kinks are worked out of some other Bluetooth GPS receiver.
I have been mostly happy with the Street Atlas maps, but when I got to mapping greenways, I was disappointed that the license on the software forbade me do anything useful with the maps I was able to generate through the software. (You’re supposed to buy the multi-kilobuck professional GIS software if you want to share any of your cartography – or I guess now you could do a Google Maps trick.)
If you will be traveling with another adult most of the time, the laptop solution is pretty good. You have a navigator and a pilot. We often call it “the ‘Are we there yet?’ machine,” and aside from answering that question, it can be useful for finding the next exit with your favorite restaurant and for navigating the last few miles to your destination in an unknown place. If you intend to use it every time you want to a new address in town, don’t go with the laptop solution – it takes some time to fire up, gear in the car, and whatnot.
A new application sent me looking for a GPS receiver for a different purpose: getting lost (and then un-lost) in the woods. I have a habit of chasing fox hunts through unfamiliar territory, and it’s only a matter of time until I can’t figure out where they went – or how I got wherever I was. I needed something on which I could mark “base” and trek around and find my way back to base. I considered chiefly Magellan and Garmin and came to the realization that Magellan makes toys and Garmin makes navigation systems. I have a Garmin hand-held model with a gray scale LCD screen and an altimeter. I may eventually buy some more maps for it to get more detail in the areas where I am likely to roam.
One word: Garmin.