Pick a Garmin?

[Ramjet]

Read Farmsky's excellent GPS intro sticky...Sounds like Garmin is a fair bet for a street navigator (I have a Garmin handheld and it has been good), so I thought I would go to my normal site for checking on this stuff...



There is 15 of the bastards! Which ones are worth buying? Are the cheaper ones poorer quality? Choice is good but this is ridiculous...I'd hate to be picking from all brands...

[randersn]

There is 15 of the bastards! Which ones are worth buying?

There ARE indeed lots to choose from.

I see from your profile you are in Melbourne, and if you intend to only drive around greater Melbourne, you will probably get away with using a Garmin.

They have some good features, seem good quality hardware and the user interface is useable, if not spectacular.

The downfall for Garmin, in my experience is that they use the Whereis map data, and Whereis=Sensis=Telstra. Telstra even gets a credit on the opening screen of the model I bought a few weeks ago (255W).

The unit performed quite well around Melbourne, to Dandenong, then out to Ocean Grove via Geelong. The speed limit information was 99% spot-on. The routes chosen were a bit suspect, I was in a rental car so wanted to avoid tollways. You can choose to avoid tollways, ferries etc in the settings and it did what was asked of it, except it took me from Dandenong to the city via red light alley, otherwise known as the Princes highway. It should have had me use the Monash freeway until just before the first toll section, then put me on other roads. The trip from Ocean Grove to the airport was very well planned and very efficient. A trip to a house in Camberwell two blocks from Riversdale road had me planned to take lots of tight, narrow little back streets, rather than along Riversdale road followed by a single turn-off.

From what I read on a variety of forums, Whereis data gets by in Melbourne and Sydney but anywhere else, it can be highly inaccurate. When I brought the Garmin home to Hobart, it was a different story. Firstly, there is no speed information for Tasmania. Route planning is atrocious and map data is highly erroneous and outdated. I find the Garmin virtually unuseable as it's simply not reliable. I expected better from Garmin.

On the other hand my Navigon 1300, which uses Navteq map data performs brilliantly wherever I go.

[hollowman]

they are pretty much all the same.. all your paying for is the screen size really... (and some other gimmick stuff)

they all do the exact same thing, they use the same software and same maps....

[elbee111]

I find the Garmin virtually unuseable as it's simply not reliable. I expected better from Garmin.

On the other hand my Navigon 1300, which uses Navteq map data performs brilliantly wherever I go.

Cannot comment on your Navigon 1300, but I have travelled over 200,000kms in just over 2 years with a Garmin Nuvi all over the Eastern Seaboard.

Worked OK for me.