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Automotive News & Views Navigation GPS Systems
1753 messages, Last post on Dec 01, 2009 at 12:23 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: lmacmil (Jul 21, 2008 12:19 pm) Even with the best GPS units, you still have to intervene with the "human" view, even with a place or city you're not familiar with. The in-dash navi I have in an Acura TL is downright dismal, only useful now for getting a general picture of where you are but to have it navigate? - Pathetic. It will ignore a perfectly good state road that cuts a diagonal to favor the interstate, miles away.. Even with a "minimize freeways" selection, it's still pretty bad with strange routings....
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Replying to: ponderpoint (Jul 22, 2008 6:19 am) Yesterday my brother came to pick me up at Dulles air port, and the GPS didn't tell him to use the Dulles Toll Road, which for airport traffic is free and never is full even at rush hour. Instead he sat in rush hour traffic and was almost an hour late. I don't think the software can think and reason the way a human can, probably never will. It calculates distance and time, and maybe a few other inputs. Having said that, it's still a useful tool and adds information for the human to make decisions. If you know a better way - take it! Let the GPS recalculate and keep up with you. The maps are useful, as are the distance and time remaining, things like that. I would have taken the Dulles Toll Road, let it recalculate, and then it would still have been useful to tell me how many miles to the airport, plus an ETA. I could call and say I'll be there around x:xx. For Gary's case, I'm thinking perhaps gated communities are private and therefore not as well mapped? |
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I broke down and got a Nextar on sale a couple of weeks ago for my road trip last week and for an upcoming trip in Virginia in a rental car. It seems pretty good, even though the maps aren't that new (copyright 2005). My sense of direction is so bad, just having the compass part helps a whole lot. $120 shipped seems to be within $20 to $30 of the cheapest text to speech ones I've found, but there are a lot of sales on them recently. The 3.5" screen fits handily over the tach that I rarely use in the Quest. Looks like the windshield mount will be the way to go for the Outback and rentals. Here's a pic: 
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Replying to: steve_ (Aug 31, 2008 11:45 am) Text to speech for $120 is cheap. My Nuvi 200W was $199 and doesn't have that feature (I wanted the big screen). Call Nextar to see if you're eligible for a free map update, you never know.
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Replying to: ateixeira (Sep 02, 2008 9:26 am) It worked well getting me from Dulles to northwest Virginia. I routed myself on the back roads to avoid the interstate and I didn't miss a turn. Your comment about the "toll" road being free heading toward Dulles helped me get back to the rental car lot too.  I can see where having a bigger screen on the dash somewhere would be good. I didn't want to stick my hands through the steering wheel while driving around to type in a POI or zoom in or out.
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Replying to: steve_ (Sep 10, 2008 7:38 am) |
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Anyone have input on the Sony model? Not sure of the model number but it was wide screen, I saw it at a local costco for ~$250. Seemed like a good price for a wide screen GPS unit. I have an magellan roadmate 360 - however I don't want to pay to update the maps.
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Replying to: murphydog (Sep 16, 2008 6:39 pm) http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11294330&whse=BC&Ne=5000002+400- 0000&eCat=BC|79|4842&N=4001412%204294908475&Mo=6&No=3&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_P- rice|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&topnav= I sampled an earlier model at the Sony store at a mall in my area, and was not impressed with the interface. It was a bit cumbersome to use, took me a while before I could it to show my address. See if you have any Sony stores in your area, if so you can sample it first. |
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