Re: Re: GPS questions

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:17:48 -0400, Lon VanOstran
<RVnFT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

altar nospam wrote:

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:49:08 -0700, "Big Al" <sal1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


How do you update after market GPS units? Is there a subscription you have
to pay for?

Do they give directions based on any local traffic conditions? What's a good
brand/model for use in different cars? Can't see much use for it as I mostly
drive to the same places in the city. But for a trip it would be nice.

Rented a car from Hertz with "Never Lost." Was in New Jersey. Programmed it
to go to Long Island. It routed me through the Holland Tunnel, then changed
it to take me over the GW bridge?? Can't figure out why it did that. The guy
I visited there has a new Honda Civic with built in GPS. Seemed to work a
lot better than the one in the Hertz rental. Or he knew more about how to
work it. The Hertz unit came with a plastic instruction card that showed a
different unit than the one in the car. Also noticed the route the Never
Lost suggested was sometimes not the best. Like Google maps.

Al



There are several good ones. I have a Tom Tom, but the Garmin's, among
others, work well. I like the TT mostly because you don't have to be a
rocket scientist to set it up or to use it. Turn it on, poke in an
address or city, and you are off.

While it does have advanced features, you really don't need to mess
with them in order to get it to work.

I did pay $50 for updated maps recently. That's not uncommon.

You can get a subscription if you like in order to get the traffic
conditions, etc., but you have to have a blue tooth enabled (and
compatible, Verizon mostly isn't) phone for that to work. And be in a
cell area. Way too much bother for me.

With the TT, I never look at the speedometer anymore, the GPS is far
more accurate. It even alerts me to the "exit only" lanes ahead, so I
have plenty of time to move over. That part is kind of subtle, but
it's there, and works amazingly well.

And no GPS is perfect when it comes to routing. The neat part is, it
will automatically change your route if you don't like where it is
sending you, and drive elsewhere.

Saved my *** a few times.

Tom

IMHO, when buying a GPS, data matters. I keep being amazed at the amount
of info our Garmin Quest has. When our tire went the other day, Carolyn
brought up a list of Goodyear tire stores in the state of Michigan. She
did so while she was on the phone with Good Sam's ERS, and had the info
while the lady on the phone was playing around trying to find us a tire
store and kept coming up with tire stores 60 miles off our route.

I especially like the ability with Quest to create the trips on my
computer and then send the trip, maps, and data for the area surrounding
the trip, to the Quest.

The negative with the Quest is that so much data is provided that the
unit can only hold the data for a little over one state at a time. Not a
problem for me. I usually want to load the next trip into it anyway.

Lon


I use a GPS for general position navigation as I can still use maps
and mostintegrated GPS software only carries the more main roads and
not back roads. I use a laptop to fine tune when need be with MS Map
Point. If you use a handheld like a top end Garmin you can even upload
ToPo maps with routing on them which I have yet to see on car mounted
ones.
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