Garmin Nuvi

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
Messages
14,872
Location
Montgomery County PA
Display Name
Adam Zucker
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KLOM
My folks are in the market for a new auto GPS. I have the Nuvi and was going to get them one for Hanukkah. I was going get them the one with lifetime maps and traffic. In asking my brother if he wanted to go in he said yes but he thought the traffic was a waste.

He has a GPS with free traffic and he says all he gets are advertisements and no traffic or re-routing even when he is sitting in stand still traffic. Any one have a similar experience with the traffic product.

As a side note the GPS product on my Droid X is great as is the traffic product.
 
I think the traffic only works in common urban areas - not further out. Mine has the early FM traffic and it never worked usefully for me. (I also never subscribed for the reason that I'm in the hinterlands.)

I would skip the free lifetime versions because they have the ads and the ads look to be a pain. You can buy a lifetime sub for $90 or less.
 
I have a TomTom with traffic and that feature works well no ads or anything. The problem is that the unit itself is garbage and the databases are useless. They are quick to replace them, but all they do is to send me someone elses broken one in a 'refurbished' box. The Nuvi in the other car is still trucking along, doesn't have traffic or anything though.
 
I've never used a portable GPS unit with traffic, but my wife's car and my truck both have it as part of the in-dash nav. In our part fo the country at least -- pretty much worthless. We get a bunch of alerts for long term construction projects and stuff, but really no useful traffic information. The only time I've seen one work as claimed was the in-dash unit in a rented Audi over in Germany. Population density over there, though, is pretty high, and a lot of things are different.

Maybe it's better in large population centers, but it hasn't been really useful anywhere we've driven.

Oh, and yeah -- the one time we had a TomTom (another rental in Germany) it was a complete POS. Got us completely off course a number of times. Eventually it was comical, but the first couple of times I was dumb enough to believe the thing, and it was really irritating to have to backtrack. The maps were partly out of date (by several years), partly just plain wrong, and if it lost signal even momentarily it seemed to just guess (wrongly).
 
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I bought my wife the garmin nuvi 1490T from costco last year. The traffic seems to work ok in urban areas and general freeways here around denver. I've not followed the reroute feature but the suggested alternates seem logical. I don't get to use the gps often. I think it came with lifetime map updates but when I tried to get an update the other day garmin web updater said it didn't have a subscription. Yet another to-do still undone. :-)
 
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> he thought the traffic was a waste.

Not my experience. Automatic re-routing has saved my butt more than a few times.
 
I thought after google nav came out, dedicated Hoses were obsoleted.

except for the poor apple users....I don't think they get google nav yet. har har.

but, to the point, traffic will only cover major roads and some small state highways. dunno about the ads.
 
I picked up a $150 Nuvi this summer at Best Buy, and I'm not very happy with it. I suspect it's a lack of memory, but the unit is simply incapable of scrolling. If I try to scroll the map, there is at least a ten second delay while it thinks about what it's doing.
 
My wife bought me a Tom Tom with traffic, and I like it a lot. The traffic works in the larger metro areas, so if you live in one of those that has coverage, its pretty good. Mine has lifetime updates as well, and no advertisements.
 
I got a Nüvi earlier this year and I like it. It is a slim package. Battery life is around 6 hours before it needs recharged (car, computer, or pretty much any USB recharger). I have lifetime maps & traffic. There is no traffic in Nebraska except in Omaha and it showed what roads were closed in Omaha due to flooding. The traffic is helpful on my business trips (invariably big cities).

I was able to buy maps for London, UK ($8.00 after a coupon code for 20% off). It worked very well, used in pedestrian mode. It let me know what subway lines went to various places. A smart phone probably could have done all this, but I probably would have paid beaucoup roaming wireless internet fees to get the maps and info on my phone.

The Nüvi works well for geotagging photos at highway speeds or slower. It will record a track when used in a jet, but you can't access the GPX file until you get to slower speeds (confirmed by Garmin).

The Nüvi is a slim package, a little bigger when I bring the suction cup and charging cable which also has the traffic receiver.
 
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