Re: I-95 Richmond to DC....OUCH!


Mike Tantillo wrote:

Twice, we encounted interstate blocks.. and twice we exited... no
knowing anything about the exit and relied on the GPS unit to find an
optmized alternate route.

Can you ask it to find an alternate route, or do you have to pick your
own deviation point and then deviate from the route and then it will
plot the "best route" from there?

In otherwords, using my I-95 example. Suppose I got onto I-95 north in
Massaponax and saw it was slow, and my intuition says its bad all the
way to Springfield. I want to deviate. If it doesn't give me any way
of picking an alternte route other than deviating from the current

this is one of those areas where the different GPS brands and models
may
handle this differently.

We have a TOM TOM 300 that allows several different ways of dealing
with a block. The basic ones are to ask it to find a way around within
a certain number of miles but it also allows "travel via" and "don't go
through".

It has two functions for trips. The first is always Navigate from where
you
are right now (with the options stated above). A second capability is
to
do a Point A to Point B scenario... i.e. you give it an origin and a
destination.

The unit also allows beyond the deviation capabilities.. the ability to
set an
itinerary...

It is not perfect. It screws up ... sometimes... not because of the
algorithms - they seem pretty good but because of errors in it's map
database. The alt gps newsgroup threads indicate that map databases on
a continuing issue... and that most GPS Nav companies use the same 3rd
party map database supplier... (so getting a different GPS unit may not
be a help).

Consumer Reports just published an excellent article explaining the
technology and rating the units.

Top rated is the Garmin Nuvi 350. Best Buy is the Garmin StreetPilot i5.

.

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