Hi. I have managed to save up about 800 dollars, and was thinking about getting a portable navigation system for my car because I did not get the navigation option.

Does anyone know if portable navigation systems are any good? What are the goods, and bads?

I was just thinking about going to Circuit City or something, and keeping it simple. Budget is around 800 dollars (don't forget tax and warranty).

Any recommendations?

Thanks guys.

 

Do you have a Laptop? I would go that route. It is around $150 for everything.

 

Magellan Roadmate 700. Awesome device. The best price I found was at www.cartoys.com. $799.99 including shipping.

 

Garmin 330c...I purchased one a few months ago, the best 800 dollars I ever spent.

 

I've got a Garmin StreetPilot 2620 and an Alpine IVA-900 w/ Navi. Sometimes I think the Garmin is better than the Alpine. It offers more features such as current speed, multiple mileage logs, direction, and a number of other useful things. It has a built in hard drive with the entire continental US and parts of canada. Plus! the best feature, you could buy maps from other parts of the world and install it to use there; ie. you're going to Paris, you buy the Paris map and take your gps with you. Any questions, feel free to ask.

PS. I got mine from J&R in the city for less than $1k

http://www.garmin.com/products/sp2620/
http://www.jandr.com

 

I've seen some people that mount it in the ashtray area and if done right it looks quite good.

 

Used Garmin StreetPilot 2610 (wife's) and 2620 (Dad's) = AWESOME! Light years ahead of software for PocketPCs and Laptops (like CoPilot, mine ).

VERY VERY useful when travelling to a new city and renting a car. You simply don't have to plan if you've got one of those with you... And I don't just mean driving directions to the destination. It's got phone# and addresses for restaurants, movie theaters, etc. Just decide what you want to do and it'll get you there - fast! Will take your current route into account and calculate distances from the route, not just current location - too cool!

 

Ack... Sorry to hear this!

I was planning to buy a new iPAQ with Microsoft's Mobile 2005 OS on it and turn it into a Nav system for my car... and a phone... and bluetooth for cellular calls... plus wireless.

What doesn't the PDA do well?

 

The design just isn't the same - the GUI is just so well designed on the Garmin units. They use a touchscreen with transparent overlays. With just the right information on screen all the time to make certain you never get lost.

Don't get me wrong. CoPilot (the only one I've used) will get you to your destination, but it's just useless for any of the "other things" I've come to expect. (Like telling me the next sidestreet, continuous display of distance and time to next turn, name and distance to next exit on highway). CoPilot just doesn't keep me "connected" to my current location. With the Garmin, you take one glance and you can get your bearings.

The Garmin units have got it down to an ART! CoPilot software is one of the most expensive and I've complained to them about all the shortcomings. To their credit the customer service is good and they say this year they'll fix alot of stuff. But they are at version 8 - you'd think by now someone on their staff would have checked the Garmin stuff out and said "wow - that's a good way to do x, y, and z".