TomTom or Garmin?

[NSEMN8R 0]

I want to buy a GPS for my car.

I think I have my search narrowed down to 2 models. The TomTom go700 and the Garmin c340.

Has anyone had experience with either of these?

Is there anything else I should look at in the same price ($600) range?

Thanks for any help...

Tony

[yardhippie 0]

find out which unit that Hertz uses the call it the 'Neverlost'. we battled it for two days and dubbed it 'foreverlost'.
it sucked balls.
thats the only one that ive had experience with in a car.

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[idlewild70 0]

Quote

I want to buy a GPS for my car.

I think I have my search narrowed down to 2 models. The TomTom go700 and the Garmin c340.

Has anyone had experience with either of these?

Is there anything else I should look at in the same price ($600) range?

Thanks for any help...

Tony

i have a garmin c330. I love it. always gets me where i need to go. never a bad direction.

-Fish


Blue skies, Soft landings

[efs4ever 3]

Personally I don't need the stylized graphics. I have a good ole fashioned Garmin GPS Map 76S along with the mapsource CD. Data can be up or downloaded from the unit. Your files will be importable into Google Earth with pinpoint accuracy. Price about $400.00.

Drawback: Smaller screen, monochrome

I don't need no stinkin color.

In any case, it's like having a super cluster of instruments in your car.

Elevation, rate of climb, time of arrival at your destination, hours and minutes until arrival, compass heading, pointer toward your destination, calculation of your ACTUAL overland speed, odometer, speedometer and many more. You can choose which data fields you want on your screen. It also shows a map you can zoom in and out from and your vehicle's location and heading thereon.

It's great to have along on the ride.

When you get home dump your tracks into the computer to see where you've been.

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[weegegirl 2]

Ooooooooooh... good thread! I need one of those thingymabobs too. I get lost a block from my house!

[AllisonH 0]

We got my mom (who can't read a map and usually calls either me or my father when she gets lost, and isn't that great at figuring out how to use new electronic gizmos either) a Garmin GPS for Christmas. She loves the touch screen and voice prompts, and hasn't had any trouble using it. We've taken it through at least 5-10 states plus part of Canada since getting it, and have been quite pleased. I'm not sure what model it is... It's the one the guy at Best Buy recommended and runs around $600-700. Don't have experience with other types, so can't really compare it to anything.

[chaoskitty 0]

I stole my dad's TomTom for a while. Its better than not knowing where you're going, but I'd give it about a 5 on a 10 scale.

[labrys 0]

Which model?

Owned by Remi #?

[chaoskitty 0]

GO 700

[labrys 0]

That's the one I was thinging of getting. I guess I'll watch this thread for more input, thanks!

Owned by Remi #?

[pilotdave 0]

I have the garmin c330, which is almost the same but doesn't give street names in the audible directions and a few other little differences. I love it. I chose it over the tomtom because of reviews on amazon.com and some other sites. I thing the tomtom 700 has bluetooth and can act as a speakerphone/caller id, right? That's a very cool feature. But as far as quality of directions goes, the garmin got better reviews.

One map update and a couple software updates have come out since I bought mine. The new maps are out of date by at least a year or more, so finding businesses that are new or have moved within a couple years doesn't work well. I've even had to drive on some streets that don't exist in it. But any problems are rare. It for the most part gets me where I need to go and gives decent directions. Maybe not the best way of going that a local could tell you, but it'll get you from point A to point B (and with the latest software update, it can let you stop at point C along the way).

BTW, I bought one for my parents and even they can use it, so it's REALLY easy to use. Lacks some of the fancy features that most people don't need, which can be annoying, but for getting to somewhere, it works great.

I personally think the maps kinda suck, especially when you're navigating to somewhere. It sort of grays out everything off your route so it's easier to see your route, but that makes it hard to see whats nearby. Its actually really hard to figure out what town you're driving in... or even what state. The maps don't prioritize what information should be shown at different zoom levels very well. For example, it's pretty common for the map not to show a single street name or route number but show the name of some random stream 2 miles off your route.

Can't compare it directly with any other models, but I can say I really like the Garmin. Also aquires satellites fast and calculates routes really quickly.

Dave

[RandomLemming 0]

I have the Go 500, and I'm very happy with everything except their support for adding new maps under OS X and Linux (however there is a workaround at http://tinyurl.com/rdf74)

I've used it in the UK, Spain and the USA so far and it's been brilliant in all three locations.

The only gripe I have with it is that it can take a couple of minutes to find Satellites when you move a long distance from the last place you used it.

To give an idea of what it's done on this trip so far:
SF Airport -> Sonora
Sonora -> Yosemite
Yosemite -> SF
Driving around SF
SF -> Lodi
Driving around Lodi
Lodi -> The Big Sur
The Big Sur -> LA
Driving around LA
LA -> Lake Elsinore
LA -> Las Vegas
Driving around Las Vegas

I've also used it in the Raleigh/Durham area on a previous trip, and it worked great there as well.

It has steered me wrong once so far, but got me back on track in under 5 minutes.

I like the way the voice prompts work... The faster you're going, the louder the voice. Also, if you're going faster, you get your next instruction sooner. So if you're doing 120km/h, you get your next instruction at 2km. At 60km/h, you get your next instruction at around 800m. It also repeats instructions closer to the action.

Maybe I'm just useless, but I really get a lot out of the colour screen as well. When I have a quick look at it, my route is the big purple(ish) line, and that's all I have to find. It works better for me than mono, but that's just a personal choice.

Hope that helps some ?

[shropshire 0]

Not for me a single purpose in-car navigation toy.....

I use my Garmin Vista wired to TomTom Navigator 5 on my PDA... Works really well and I can always take the GPS and use it out of the car (when hill walking, Paragliding etc..)

.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[psw097 0]

I have 2 Garmin GPS units. A 9 year old GPS 12Map and Rino 130 GPS/radio. Neither are car units but in general Garmin stuff is bullet proof. They have baked in the sun, froze though a winter skydive, swam in streams, taken lots of drops, knocks and keep working. I have a windshield mount for the car and use Mapsource computer files to load info to them for driving. Not the same as a dedicated car unit but works pretty good in the car.

[2fat2fly 0]

I've go the TomTom GO 700 and it's pretty good-the menues should be a little more friendly. It would be better to ask for the state before the city. I've had problems with it sending me to strip clubs when I'm looking for restaraunts. Honestly, I picked TomTom because you can download different voices. I'm getting the British dominitrix as soon as I have time

I am not the man. But the man knows my name...and he's worried

[SpeedRacer 1]

GADGETS!! MMMMmmmmm!!
makes me wanna kill kittens!

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

The only gripe I have with it is that it can take a couple of minutes to find Satellites when you move a long distance from the last place you used it.

You will find that with any current GPS on the planet. Any time you move the GPS receiver more than 100 miles from its last location with out using it, it will require longer to reacquire the satellites. It has to figure out where it is on the planet as the Almanac it last had in memory is what it uses to reference where the satellites should be in the sky and which one it should be talking to. When that information doesn't jive, it has to search the skyfor the satellites and acquire an updated almanac (even though its technically a receiver, thats an easy way of explaning it)


I ditto everyone who recommended the Garmin Unit. I would also recommend you check out RAM MOUNTS for all your GPS/PDA/Cell phone mounting needs as they have a huge selection.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[justinb138 0]

Quote

I've had problems with it sending me to strip clubs when I'm looking for restaraunts.

How is this a problem?

[pilotdave 0]

I forgot to mention the garmin mount. The cigarette lighter charger cable is built into the mount, so you're pretty much stuck using that one (though the batteries apparently last ~8 hours or so if you can't plug in). The nice part is when you remove it from the mount, the wire stays put. Really convenient when you put it in your glove compartment or something to hide it away.

It can either mount to your windshield or to a pad that can be stuck to your dashboard, which is what I use. That puts it a lot closer to me. Windshields are so sloped nowadays, so you have to have it pretty high on the windshield to be reachable/readable. Hard to find a good spot that keeps it out of the way.

The screen doesn't do too well in really bright light... When I really need to see the screen for something, I have had to pull it off the mount (can be done with one hand) and take a close look. It's not really too bad... I can almost always see enough, but sometimes making out a route number on the map or something like that can be tough.

[HUSHPUPPY 0]

All of my GPS's (handheld, car, airplane) have been and will continue to be GARMIN! The GNS-430/530 aircraft GPS's kick ASS!

"You made my panties wet!" Skymama (Fitz 09)
"Never argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience."

[NSEMN8R 0]

Well, it looks like Garmin is the way to go. The Bluetooth on the go700 looks cool, but I don't think it's worth the extra $150, especially if the gps part of it isn't as good.

I ended up buying the Garmin Streetpilot c340. I got it for $525 new on ebay.

Thanks for all the advice..

edited to fix link

[freefallfreak 0]

I have a Garmin 2620 that I bought for about $1,200 a couple of years ago. It has never steered me wrong and I get lost pretty easily without it. The problem with GPS units is a person becomes dependant on them. Then, when you try to find your way around without it, back to a place it has taken you before, you can't find the place. I never pay attention to where I'm going now cause the GPS takes me there. Consequently, I never know how I'm going till I get there. It sure makes getting there easier, tho, if ya' pay attention to the GPS.

TripleF

"Upon seeing the shadow of a pigeon, one must resist the urge to look up."