I dunno... I prefer separate devices.
My GPS navigates. That's all it does. Considering that it's old and has never been updated -- roads don't change a whole lot up here -- it does okay. It also has a nice big screen, and it's conveniently glued to the dashboard so it doesn't fall off on the rough roads. The duct tape wasn't cutting it. Gorilla Glue is great stuff.
I will admit, however, that Tom-Tom has a rather sardonic sense of humor when it comes to routing. My dear Tom-Tom has routed me over "roads" that scared me more than my worst day of flying (which happened to involve a near mid-air, just by way of comparison). Roads that you can feel crumbling away beneath you as you drive upon them. Roads that even the local deer and bears avoid when they're sober.
Roads like this one:
But hey, what's life without some excitement?
While Tom-Tom provides navigation and excitement, Sirius provides music. There's pretty much zilch in the way of commercial radio here, so everyone has Sirius. We have Sirius in the car, Sirius at home, and Sirius playing over the sound system at the supermarket. Sixties on Six usually, because we have a lot of old farts in this town.
But I also have CDs of MP3s of oldies that I've burned in the center console, just in case I find the one spot in North America where Sirius doesn't work. And if even that fails, I can always sing.
I use my phone as, well, a phone. I hate speakerphones in general because I know how crappy they sound on the other end, so I use a Bluetooth headset, which sounds slightly less crappy. Just in case I forget to bring it with me, I have an el-cheapo wired headset in the glove box. I think it cost four bucks at Dollar General, but it sounds almost as crappy as speakerphones costing many times that amount.
Frankly, though, I prefer not talking on the phone at all while driving. I'm not a big phone person, anyway, and I rarely call anyone unless I have an actual, specific reason for making the call at that particular time, which rarely is the case when I'm driving. I'll answer it, however, assuming that I'm unlucky enough to actually be someplace where there's a signal when it rings.
So really, I understand that we're all different, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around why you (and many others) prefer one device to do half a dozen different things. If that one device conks out, you're up the creek. Or worse yet, you could be up one of those roads that Tom-Tom routed me over, which would be a lot worse than being up any creek that I've yet to come across.
-Rich
