Need a GPS for driving, advice requested.

Liquid Hellz

I am going to need a GPS for driving around unfamiliar areas on Tuesday all day to multiple homes.

I need a system that has fast loading times. I have used others before that takes a few seconds to respond to your inputs and I can't stand that.

I need a system that costs less than $200.

I need it to have good battery life and hopefully come with a car charger.

Most of all I need to be able to put multiple addresses into the GPS (10+) and have it take me to those addresses in order of the closest one. I don't want to be doing circles around town all day because I am not familiar with the area, wasting time and gas.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Szechuanosaurus

Planning the most effiicient route around multiple destinations is something you would think would be a common feature. I can imagine a lot of commercial applications for it from courier services to sales people.

How do courier companies do that? Preplanned routes at the depot downloaded into the vans GPS?

SideAffects

I have an entry-level GPS, the magellan 1200 Roadmate. I am nearly positive that it can't do what you need a GPS to do, unfortunately.

For Magellans, the yearly map updates cost about $80. I would definitely check whatever manufacturer you go with to see what the map update system is like.

Liquid Hellz

My only previous experience was with an older gps system and when I would click zoom in or out it would take a few seconds to reload the picture. It would also take a few seconds to change from 1 screen to the next in the menu. Like a slow laptop that needed more ram/better processor. That just pissed me off. I went with the Magellan Maestro 4700, found it for $170 at hhgregg. It has the feature I was looking for in "Multi-destination Routing - Plan a trip with multiple stops in the order you want or will optimize it for the most efficient route. Easily reorganize, add, or remove destinations." Thanks for your input guys.

Bowen

I have $150 tom tom and it's amazing, as for storing addresses, it does keep a list, not sure it goes up to 10 or organizes it and does all that stuff, I don't think any gps will let you input 10 destinations in order and advise you on how to get there after each stop.

Daenris

I have the Garmin Nuvi 755T that I bought recently. It's pretty decent, though the touchscreen leaves a bit to be desired in terms of accuracy.

It has multi-destination routing, though I've never used it for more than like 2 or 3 locations, so I'm not sure how well it would handle 10+.

The worst thing about it was the included windshield mount, which didn't work too well, so I got their friction mount which works great (if you have just a bit of flatish dash space).

Protein Shakes

http://www.amazon.com/TomTom-4-3-Inch-Widescreen-Bluetooth-Navigator/dp/B000PCBVA6

DragonPup

I have a Garmin Nuvi 205 that I got as a gift and it works fine. Sometimes the directions are not always the best route, but 90% they are perfectly fine.

As an aside, make sure you never leave the GPS visable when you are note in the car of you may get a window smashed. Make sure you wipe off the suction cup mark, too.

admanb

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

Planning the most effiicient route around multiple destinations is something you would think would be a common feature. I can imagine a lot of commercial applications for it from courier services to sales people.

How do courier companies do that? Preplanned routes at the depot downloaded into the vans GPS?

Planning the most efficient route around multiple destinations is as hard (CPU and time-intensive) as cracking encryption keys. That's why it's not a common feature.

a5ehren

Protein Shakes wrote: »

http://www.amazon.com/TomTom-4-3-Inch-Widescreen-Bluetooth-Navigator/dp/B000PCBVA6

This one is better and cheaper. The TomTom XL 340S is my default recommendation for a GPS - it has TomTom's IQ routes and lane guidance for most major interchanges, which are pretty cool.

Edit: Just saw the multi-point routing request - for this, I'd get a Garmin 755.

Bowen

The lane guidance is the god damned best thing ever. Just saying.