GPS Update... June 2008.

MattinSTL

MattinSTL

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I'm hoping to get some good user input on this thread. I bought a Mio 320 last Christmas and I loved it... my nephew borrowed it for a trip to Chicago and he loved it so much that he didn't want to return it... I finally told him that if he really DIDN'T want to return it that he could buy it for just under my "black Friday" price that I paid... and he took the deal.

I thought this was good... so that I could buy an even better system (because I already enjoyed mine so much, I figured maybe a Garmin perhaps...)

At first I thought he was nuts, but in the past couple of weeks I've driven a Prius with built-in navigation... used my brother's Magellan system (the $150 model)... and we just got back from a 2-day gig for The Early Show (airs this Wednesday... Missouri "friends reunion"... 2-ladies)... and on that gig we used a Garmin 200... and I gotta' say... all these other GPS systems have sucked!

The Magellan occasionally gets confused about what street we're on... continuously giving directions on a route that is one street over... and FINALLY when you break the route by enough... it gets it and corrects, but it's off enough that I'd hate to be in an unfamiliar city and have that sh*t happen.

OK so on this recent trip with the Garmin 200... that unit frequently struggled to get a SAT signal... we'd be in the boonies and it would give nothing but a screen saying "searching for more accurate signal"... and then once it got the signal this unit tells you to turn AS YOU PASS THE TURN... so unless you want to drive like "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" you will CONSTANTLY miss turns... it tells you to turn just as you're about to miss the turn if you're doing the speed limit. Is this adjustable? The other thing I didn't like about the Garmin is the cartoon-like display... it's very unintuitive to follow a fat purple arrow all the time.

The built-in system in the Prius has a big, beautiful screen... but both the functions and the performance are definitely behind the times! I guess car manufacturers can't keep up with the nimble "small electronics" market... because the GPS in the Prius struggles for accuracy... and the programming and use of it is almost anti-intuitive.

So this brings me back to the Mio... I'm wanting to get some user feedback on the system you chose. How has it been treating you? I had the Mio for 6 months and never had ONE SINGLE issue... it always works great and gets me to within 20' of my destination... always giving turn-cues appropriate for the speed I'm travelling. It's NEVER been confused about where I am either... but now it's in my nephew's truck... and I'm wondering if anybody has a strong opinion about whatever GPS they bought... or if I will just get another MIO.

I was hoping to upgrade to a traffic-advisory model... but the main reason I like a GPS is for efficient route and location... and I've been surprised at how crappy the performance has been in these other samples that I've tried.

I think we have a common problem with people... nobody ever wants to say that something they bought isn't great (unless it's TRULY crap)... because people want to feel smart about their choices, but I think getting misleading directions (that could actually get you LOST) is a BAD THING... even if it only happens once or twice... because then you know you can't COUNT on it.

So have you got a particular model that you love... or hate? Would you want to report on it? I figured that GPS would be subject to Moore's Law as well... and that they'd get drastically more accurate, better, and cheaper... every 6 months to a year... but maybe I'm wrong?
 
Hey Matt

Recently got a Mio520 http://www.mio-tech.be/en/gps-navigation-device-Mio-C520-C520t-overview.htm and have to say its been first class. Im living in a part of Australia now that I have visited maybe twice before and need to meet people everywhere right now, so this thing has been worth its weight in gold.

Cant say anything bad about it. With the widescreen its easy to see, and you can easily view / hide some components to make it even better.

When I purchased it I was allowed to test a number of systems in store (hard to see how they perform on the road there but), I chose it as the easiest system to get an address in or search for a store etc quickly.
 
Fun topic...

First of all, I love the GPS on my wife's Prius, NOTHING is as good as the Prius GPS.
It seems that all the other GPS units come up a bit short.

The Tom Tom that a friend of mine has is a bit hard to follow.

My son's Garman C320 (older unit) does a reasonable job, but it does say funny things like "stay to the right", when it should say, "don't take the fork to the left, just go straight". Still, I was able to travel all around from Huston, TX to College Station, TX without getting lost.

I'm not a big fan of the Magellan units, but that's because of problems I've had in the past with a Magellan GPS.

The GPS signal comes from overhead, so I've been in the middle of nowhere in Idaho and still gotten a solid GPS signal. The key to getting a solid signal is letting the GPS get as good a view of the sky as it can. It can read through the glass in the window, but the metal in your roof stops the signal from reaching the unit. The more sky the unit sees, the better the unit will work.

It could be possible that your unit was a bit defective. Garman GPSes work very well and should give a solid reading. Excessive HEAT can cause can cause a problem, but most of the time it should work OK. The best way to be sure is to get the unit from Circuit City and test the $%^& out of it for the next 30 days. IF there's a problem, you should be able to return or exchange it.

If all else fails, check out the user reviews you'll find on equipment on the Best Buy and Circuit City WEB pages. That's a good way to see what other people think.


I hope this helps,

Bob Diaz
 
Hey Matt, I've got the Garmin 200w and I like it. It DOES take a little time to find the satellite when I turn it on the first time. I haven't had any problems with losing satellite signals but then I've only used it here in So.Cal. I've gotten spoiled by never having to look up directions anymore. I DO find that sometimes it gives me a route that I KNOW isn't the optimum, but it hasn't failed to get me where I'm going.

That said, I'm sure there are other units out there that may be superior but I haven't felt a need to look into them because I'm happy with the Garmin. I've had it since December 2007. Of course, the nice thing about all the portable GPS is that you can take it in any car you want.
 
I have the Mio 230 and it's the only GPS that I've ever used.

I like it a lot. Gets me where I need to go, and now all I need is an address to get somehwere.

Sometimes it's a little confusing (I don't ever have audio on) when the highway name changes. It will come up as a maneuver and I'll see "2 miles until..." but in 2 miles it just tells me to keep going straight. The first few times I used it I'd get off at the nearest exit to where it told me I would be changing route. I've figured it out now and I like it a lot.

I only wish it would tell me when I need to make a U-turn if possible. Imagine driving on a 2-lane road in the middle of nowhere. If you missed a turn off of this 2-lane road, the Mio wouldn't say, "try to turn around," it would re-route and let you turn around in 5 miles (example) and then go back through the stretch of road you were just on. Sometimes if I miss a turn it will re-route and be the same distance as the first turn, and other times the next route will be ~5 miles longer. I always have to check.

All in all, I'm really glad to start driving in a time that has GPS technology.
 
Blaine... we WERE in the middle of nowhere with this Garmin 200... (Fredericktown MO... and then later the outskirts of Springfield MO... The Early Show on Wednesday is my sound from Thu and Fri)... but I didn't think GPS SATs care WHERE you are on the planet? I guess they do, huh?

Bob... I just got back from LA where we had a Prius as primary transport... and the GPS in there was nowhere near as efficient or accurate as my last dash mount unit... the Mio 320. Perhaps there's differences between year models... or we had an issue on ours... but the buttons on the side of the display were "laggy" and the GPS itself was nowhere near as snappy as the Mio unit. There's no questioning the luxury of the huge screen, but even for "finger dragging" the screen around the Prius GPS was difficult... dropping cross-hairs on everything and reluctant to drag the screen in small increments... again... maybe it was this particular unit? Your statement that nothing is as good scares me, because the Mio (on black Friday pricing at $156)... clearly out-performed the car unit.

What I really want is a unit with traffic advisory service... but I'm willing to skip that for the best actual GPS performance.

I always thought that Garmin was the GPS leader... and I planned to buy a Garmin when I let my nephew have my Mio... but after this past weekend with that Garmin I figured I'd run a thread on it first.

Noel... thanks for your report... yeah... I'm definitely considering another Mio unit (obviously) because most of the internet complaints I read on it have to do with people that are overwhelmed with the features... and it's stuff that I found to be helpful and cool... like the little bar-graph that grows as you get to the turn... and the side-panel with all the extra info (that you can tap on and off)...

BUT... I was fully expecting to get a Tom-Tom 9XX series... or a very high-end Garmin... one of the fully loaded units with traffic. I'd like to hear more about THAT... does anybody have a unit with traffic advisory? How well does that work? HOW does that work? Are congested roads in red or something? How does the unit indicate traffic problems... and more importantly, how does that translate IN USE?
 
I think Tom Marshall's got one of the higher end Garmins. It would be nice to have the traffic integration...especially out here.:thumbsup:
 
Yeah... I always equated Garmin with GPS. I considered them to be the defacto standard until that last gig. I originally bought the Mio based on some brief internet research and the combo of features and appearance... then I just assumed that all GPS systems would perform around that level.

My brother got the Magellan 3100 and it gets completely confused in the next neighborhood over... just for laughs I told my bro to follow it's directions completely and it would lead us through "horse-shoe" streets... where we were told to turn down a street that popped us right back out 100' down the road (but adding 1/4 MILE to the route). Naturally my brother LOVES this unit because A) it's the first GPS he's ever had... and B) it does keep him moving in the right direction and I've found that new gps owners are generally freaked out by how convenient it is to have something in the car that's at least as reliable as a friend who thinks they know the way.

But I got spoiled by this last unit that I had... which always proved to be uncannily accurate... "arrive at destination in 50 feet..." and it never missed once. My nephew is only 18 and had never been to Chicago before (trust me, another hard town to get around in...) and he said it was a BREEZE. He went everywhere... and this is not a kid that you'd normally let go on a trip like that by himself! (driving up to meet a friend at the Naval Academy)

About the Prius GPS... in all fairness... it's the FM car... and Tim didn't seem to have too much trouble with it... but again... it's what he knows... and when Geoff and I tried to find the location in Long Beach... the GPS was of marginal help... and dragging the screen around was a pretty rough experience... whereas on the little unit I had previously... you could pull it around as easily and precisely as if there were invisible paper extending in all directions.

What I really want to hear is that the TomTom 920 or 930 is the best... and that it's been flawless for somebody... or else the Garmin that's in that same range... because one of those is the unit I want to try out next (for the features, appearance, and traffic)...
 
Yeah, if I was in the market for a new GPS, traffic would definitely be a high priority for me. I agree that there's probably something to the fact that if it's your first unit and it works for you, you're probably going to love it. I know I'm very happy with mine, but the only thing I have to compare it to is Johnson's Prius GPS...which I have trouble with.

The only time I had any trouble with mine was when Matty_g used it to go to the Wooden Nickel on the first day of the O2 shoot. After I got it back I used it to guide Hudson and me back to Rancho Cucamonga. It took a couple of OBVIOUSLY stupid turns. I went into the navigation and saw the highway avoidance had been engaged. I turned that off and it got us back to the freeway and home.
 
I got a Magellen Triton 300 last December thinking since it was new it would be cool, turns out it was crap and their customer service is terrible. I took it back and got what I really wanted, a street GPS, the Garmin Nuvi 200. I love it! As Blaine said there have been a few times around where I live where it wants me to go a way that I know isn't the best, but it still gets me where I need to be.

Went to Monterrey once and got off on the wrong exit, pubched in where I wanted to go and the soothing voice took me there very efficiently. I also used it extensivly on my last trip to Vegas. At one point I looked for the nearest Subway and it took me to a place where one used to be but I just hit the next one down and was there in no time.

Sometimes it does take a while to aquire signal on innitial startup, but I can speed it up by telling it to find directions. Other than that it never looses signal, always takes me where I need to be and has me in the right location. Oh, there was one time in Vegas where it took my down a road that wasn't finished yet :grin: not it's fault the road crew is slow!

Great topic!
 
I wonder when GPS's will use something like Google maps street view as their method of navigation.
 
Talking about GPS... Once I had a problem with UPS. It seems that my house doesn't exist in any of the GPS systems I know about and you know that UPS uses the GPS to find their way to your house.
So they entered my street and house number and they coulnd't find it, they tought that the street number I had given them wasn't correct and in the online tracking page it said that my house adress wasn't correct........This happened one friday and I needed the microphone that weekend, and they didn't even try calling home......

Even though I really enjoy playing with GPSs I've never felt the need for one.....But it is a great small tehcnological gadget.

BTW, is there a way to enter your house adress in the system????

Thanks,
 
There is an error in the streets surrounding my house so I went to the Garmin site and filled out an error report. I had to include some Google Earth photos and a lot of detail. Not sure if it made it into the update. Also not sure if I am willing to toss down 60 or so dollars for some updated maps.
 
Zander said:
I haven't tried any of them yet but the Navigon units look incredible.
Click to expand...

I LOVE the look of the navigon... the real view is exactly what I want... BUT... read the reviews... Navigon's units (at least prior to this post) are slow to calculate, slow to re-calculate, and just slow... period. Low performance.

Performance is the highest priority... and reading the various reviews for GPS on CNET... well... that's only making it harder to figure out which GPS is best... not just "for the money"... but BEST best. I liked my last one so much that I feel comfortable in spending 2-3X as much to get more. (again, traffic mainly)

On CNET the reviews of the Mio units (I'm not trying to push the brand, but it's the brand I had for 6 months so I can best comment)... anyway... CNETs reviews were some glowing... a few negative... then comments saying that the negative reviews were incorrect, and that even the CNET reviews' negative points were incorrect. A couple very articulate writers convinced me... and my experience was in accord with their's.

One thing I really like is the speed and timing of my last unit... when it said "turn right in 400 feet"... the unit was spot-on... it was ALWAYS spot on. The Garmin unit that we just used might have been setup improperly... but the prompts were so off... that we'd sometimes slow down and then, yep, turn here... or it would give some distance to a turn that was clearly not right... such as turn in .2 miles and there's no turn in that distance... so you ask yourself if you turn at that light in 400 feet... or if you go over the next hill that's way over 1/4 mile away? Pretty soon we were just using the unit to keep us going in the correct general direction. And in all fairness, this was the producer's GPS... so maybe she had it set up in the worst possible way... like ACTUALLY the WORST possible way.

Blaine... I'm glad to hear you struggled with the FM Prius GPS as well... so it's not just me... and Geoff. When we used the "home" function it worked fine... I should add... but for on the fly navigating it lags too much... we had to pull over to program it. On my last unit I can drag the screen around, drop a point, and then tell it to take us there... all in about 3 seconds tops. I'm going to have to have that ability again... even if I don't get traffic.

Something else I'm wondering about... is do most units have the ability to zoom in and out smoothly and quickly? The unit I had can take you from a distance that the screen reflects 50' of land... all the way to showing the entire earth... do they all do that? Also... if I hit a satellite button it shows all the SATS that it's using for the signal... and a little bar graph for each that shows the strength of each SAT input. Do you need this? NO... but I loved the excess of info that this unit offered... like when approaching a turn a bar fills up with red until you actually make the turn... I found that to be very intuitive... and if other units don't do all this stuff... I guess I'll just get another like I had and skip the traffic. :embarasse

High-end TomTom or Garmin users?
 
I have been pondering the same thing.

My wife's new Chrysler 300C has it built in and I absolutely love it. I am going to be getting the new iPhone 3G next month, which has GPS built into it, but my guess is it's going to be pretty basic. I'll try it for a while and see how it works. If I'm not mistaken, I think when Stevie J was introducing the new features on the 3G last week that he indicated that it would have traffic, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, if the iPhone GPS doesn't cut it, I'll be on the hunt for one as well.

-Brad
 
... we WERE in the middle of nowhere with this Garmin 200... (Fredericktown MO... and then later the outskirts of Springfield MO... The Early Show on Wednesday is my sound from Thu and Fri)... but I didn't think GPS SATs care WHERE you are on the planet? I guess they do, huh? ...
Click to expand...

The way GPS works is that there are 24 satellites evenly spaced around the Earth. The satellites are moving across the face of the Earth at all times. So, there is no area on the Earth that does not get coverage.

This coverage is uniform, so it really does not matter where you are, a farm in Idaho, the middle of the ocean, or LA. The coverage should always be about the same. I did have problems in New York City, because the tall buildings blocked the GPS's view of the sky. However, as long as the GPS can see the sky, it should all be the same.

The maximum number of satellites your GPS could see at any time is 12. The other 12 are hidden by the Earth. It's very typical for a GPS to pull in 6 to 10 satellites. You only need a minimum of 4 satellites for a 3D fix (location + elevation) and 3 satellites for a 2D fix (location only).

I have been on an open field on the family farm in a remote area of Idaho and still gotten 8 to 10 satellites. So where you are does not matter to a GPS.


Bob Diaz
 
Drew Ott said:
I wonder when GPS's will use something like Google maps street view as their method of navigation.
Click to expand...

The new 3G iPhone will be using both google maps as well as satellite view. Actually the old iPhone uses them already, but its not true GPS.
 
MattinSTL said:
I LOVE the look of the navigon... the real view is exactly what I want... BUT... read the reviews... Navigon's units (at least prior to this post) are slow to calculate, slow to re-calculate, and just slow... period. Low performance.
Click to expand...
Damn it. Those GPS units looked killer. Guess not.
 
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