GPS Recomondations for under $300?

[Chris Freeland]

My wife is getting me a GPS for my birthday, what is the best for $300 or less?

 

[charper1]

Whats will its main uses and location be? Must you have a hand-held, dash mount or just wanting a very reliable, easy to use and inexpensive GPS?

 

[SatinKzo]

I got a TomTom One for $200 a month ago and I got my wife a Garmin Streetpiloe C340 (with text to speech) for $220 also. I like the TomTom, but for my wife, I prefer the garmin.

 

[patrickpiteo]

Garmin 340 is real nice.

 

[Chris Freeland]

Whats will its main uses and location be? Must you have a hand-held, dash mount or just wanting a very reliable, easy to use and inexpensive GPS?

Just wanting a very reliable, easy to use and inexpensive. I drive a non emergancy
mostly medical transport bus, I want something that is easy to switch from personal car to my mini bus for work.

 

[ToddMeister]

I picked up a Garmin Nuvi 200 a few months ago. Very easy to use. Prices are down to about $250 for this unit.

 

[riffjim4069]

Costco has the Nuvi 650 for $299...

I picked up a Magellan Maestro 4040 for $349 six weeks ago Costco. It's a pretty good unit, but it just a tad too slow rerouting, provides limited route exclusion capabilities, and is just a little too inaccurate in its route calculators for my liking. It does have Bluetooth capabilites, but I don't use them.

Anyway, I noticed that Costo is selling the Nuvi 650 for $299 plus shipping on their website. I ordered one last night and will probably be taking back the Magellan after comparing both units side-by-side...or shoud I say drive-by-drive.

 

[SatinKzo]

Seems like many big box retailers are discounting GPS's this week, might want to look around this week.

 

[Chris Freeland]

I found the Garmin Nuvi 350 for $324.49 at Buydig.com. From my research this seams to be the best value for my needs. Anyone deal with Buydig.com before? Are they a good place? If nothing changes in the next week, I think I will order this from them.

 

[charper1]

Those are all serious cash expenditures; I love my GPS laptop add-on w/15" screen, voice, etc. Now I NEVER need it for hunting and such so it is perfect for in-vehicle and very portable, receives instant updates via net and was less than $50.

Unless you already ordered, be sure to check out this week's sale ad for Office Depot on page #3. (lower left)

 

[Neutron]

Those are all serious cash expenditures; I love my GPS laptop add-on w/15" screen, voice, etc. Now I NEVER need it for hunting and such so it is perfect for in-vehicle and very portable, receives instant updates via net and was less than $50.

Unless you already ordered, be sure to check out this week's sale ad for Office Depot on page #3. (lower left)

What add-on are you talking about?

 

[charper1]

You can buy the same & better software that the hand-helds use and and add-on receiver (antenna) via USB. They also sell all-in-one kits, but I found better deals buying my own separates. My receiver (antenna) cost about $40 on ebay brand new and works perfectly; and software can be found ANYWHERE; darn near free or at least cheap.

This is just to provide visual examples: GPS Store

 

[Chris Freeland]

I found the Garmin Nuvi 350 for $324.49 at Buydig.com. From my research this seams to be the best value for my needs. Anyone deal with Buydig.com before? Are they a good place? If nothing changes in the next week, I think I will order this from them.

Changed my mind, upon further investigation I decided to get the Nuvi 260 instead, it seams to have all the features of the 350 except for the mp3 player, for less money. $284.89 at Buydig,com or $249.99 at TigerGPS.com as of today 11/22/07.

Anyone have the 260 yet? It appears to be a new model and has 2008 maps and POI's. C-Net gives both of these stores a five star rating, anyone here deal either of these on line retailers?

 

[sidekick]

I've purchased from Buydig before. I had no complaints. I also own the Garmin Nuvi 350 and it's an outstanding unit.

I found the Garmin Nuvi 350 for $324.49 at Buydig.com. From my research this seams to be the best value for my needs. Anyone deal with Buydig.com before? Are they a good place? If nothing changes in the next week, I think I will order this from them.

 

[jpn]

I've been using a Magellan 3210 for the past month. It's my 3rd GPS and I'm very impressed. Re-routing is fantastic. It's got the AAA Travel Guide built-in -- you can lookup stuff like hotels/restaurants and get the AAA ratings and lists of amenities, etc. The 3210 can be had for $249-$299 at a number of sites. It's also thinner and lighter than TomTom One or the Garmin units. Literally fits in a shirt pocket with room to spare.

Magellan's parent company (Thales Navigation) makes nav units for many large ships, competing with Loral. The maps are by Navteq, which are used by Google and Mapquest. Some reviewers consider Navteq maps to be slightly better than Tele-Atlas. Tele-Atlas maps power the Garmin and TomTom units. Very recently TomTom outbid Garmin to purchase TeleAtlas.... so who knows how that impacts Garmin over time.

 

[Chris Freeland]

I've been using a Magellan 3210 for the past month. It's my 3rd GPS and I'm very impressed. Re-routing is fantastic. It's got the AAA Travel Guide built-in -- you can lookup stuff like hotels/restaurants and get the AAA ratings and lists of amenities, etc. The 3210 can be had for $249-$299 at a number of sites. It's also thinner and lighter than TomTom One or the Garmin units. Literally fits in a shirt pocket with room to spare.

Magellan's parent company (Thales Navigation) makes nav units for many large ships, competing with Loral. The maps are by Navteq, which are used by Google and Mapquest. Some reviewers consider Navteq maps to be slightly better than Tele-Atlas. Tele-Atlas maps power the Garmin and TomTom units. Very recently TomTom outbid Garmin to purchase TeleAtlas.... so who knows how that impacts Garmin over time.

I did check this one out, but it does not have speach-to-text, the Nuvi 260 and 350 do, this is a must have feature for me.

 

[JamesJ]

I saw this thread earlier and wanted to add, I just picked up a garmin c330 unit, and LOVE it, it was 128 dollars at wally world (wal mart) best 120 I have spent.

 

[Charise]

I got a Mio Digiwalker C320 at Radio Shack. Nice big screen and turn-by-turn voice navigation for their intro price-it's now $299. It's been accurate in all my travels and can be used for walking or in a car. RadioShack.com - Car: GPS navigation: Mio DigiWalker C320 GPS Receiver

 

[maddawg]

I picked up the Garmin Nuv 650 and its a fantastic unit. Some POI are a bit outdated, but its fast and works great.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I have had several Garmin GPS's, for running (Forerunner 301), for hiking (eTrex Vista), and now for the car. My dad had a Nuvi 350, which I used on a trip last week in NY. I loved it. Decided to get one for myself. CC had it for $300 on Friday, but I opted to go for the 660 instead, for $100 more. Its bigger, has bluetooth for hands-free phone, has better text-to-speech, and has the traffic features. I used it twice yesterday, and it is very nice. I am going on a workshop in Florida in 2 weeks, and this will be my primary mapping while I am there.

With the 660, I can download POIs and routes from my existing Mapsource software for my eTrex vista; but the software it includes is pretty good, and I doubt I will need to add stuff to it.

I do like the widescreen display - at 4 1/3 inches, its quite nice.

One of the differences between the 350 and the 660 is that on the 350 it would say "turn left in 500 ft," on the 660, it says "turn left on Baker Street in .2 mile." Its much more specific, and with the bigger screen, makes it really easy to navigate.