What Is The Hamer Of....

[tomteriffic]

Oh crap, not another "Hamer of" thread....

In fairness, it has been a while, but here goes...

This time it's freestanding GPS units.  Not interested in phone apps or units that require permanent installation.  Tom's Bucket List Road Trip and Traveling No Particular Plan beckons.

TIA

[velorush]

I use my phone so I know nothing of these things, but the Vietnam-chopper-pilot vet I ride bikes with swears by Garmin and he definitely knows these things.

[Jeff R]

Garmin guy here. I'd suspect prices on car dash units have fallen like fuck too with so many app users and cars that come with onboard nav systems.

[mrjamiam]

I haven't shopped lately, but when I bought my latest one (Magellan), it, Garmin and TomTom were all pretty competitive in terms of price and features.  There were still some differences, but it looked like they were converging on screen resolution/size, map currency and quality, and ease of updating firmware.  Since then things like traffic updates have come along, but if you're not linked to the matrix then you probably won't care about that capability.  Ditto roadside conveniences, except that those might be in the database rather than an instant search.  That would be a differentiator, if they vary there, and if you care about that feature.

FWIW, I regret getting the in-car navigation, since it's stuck in the past and the portable units have leapt ahead in quality, for much less money.  That doesn't mean that Jeff R is wrong, though; I expect those factors do affect the portable guys.

And Garmin definitely seems to be the favorite of the pilot types.

[Thundersteel]

I've had my Garmin for years; purchased the lifetime updates. It's not perfect, but it still works great.

[hamerhead]

Garmin here, too.

Finally updated it after about 10 years and found a program that would let you change the dialog. 'Roundabout' is now 'clusterf**k', 'recalculating' is 'you missed the turn, dumbass', etc. The wife loves that.

 

[Carl.B]

Had a Garmin loaned it to my son who took it out backpacking in Wyoming and lost it!  

[Bennyboy-UK]

I've had a few of these, an early navman that was shit several Tom toms, which we still  use over our in built 2007 audi sat Nav and I rate the Tom Tom.

 

the only in car unit that I rate (have had audi mms and the other one UHV(?) which are both a bit shit on the older cars) is the Garmin in our current 2016 Merc with unrated comand system.

 

that unit is fab. If the sat Nav stand alone units are similar,mi would expect them to be equally good.