What GPS should I buy?

Kid Presentable

Gonna buy my girlfriend a GPS for a birthday present. In the future she's going to get a ton of use out of it as her new job is going to require her to drive all over the place, to multiple client houses. I don't know anything about these things though, so I could use some recommendations or things to look out for. Thanks!

I'm looking to spend no more than $150 (and only then if its justified by an increase in quality), but there appear to be some ridiculous sales on these things going on all over the place today, (50% off or more) so I figured I could get something pretty good.

WildEEP

I would recommend a phone. Or a Giftcard toward a phone.
Driving navigation is free that way - and then she gets a ton more features.
Add in a car-dock and she'll be ready to roll with driving navigation, pandora, and gasbuddy.

Kid Presentable

I would agree with you, but smart phones have costly monthly fees that are not an option right now. I would be giving her the gift of debt, unless I'm taking on the bill for life :P The fact that she is going to be using this thing every day for work in the future also leads me to believe that it might be better to have a dedicated unit anyway.

greggersaurus

Garmin nüvi was the brand I was recommended years ago and is what I (and my family members) have been running with ever since. Currently have a three year old 265W/265WT which has been great. I'm sure there are better models available now with better options (i.e. mine doesn't have lane assist, or whatever they call it, where they tell you what lane you should been in).

MushroomStick

In my experience, cell phone gps's don't seem to work as nice as dedicated units. There's nothing quite like counting on your phone to guide you home from the middle of nowhere, only to find that the middle of nowhere doesn't have data coverage.

I've got a garmin that works pretty nice and a friend of mine swears by a tomtom that he uses to deliver pizza, so you'll probably be good if you go with either of those brands.

MichaelLC

Garmin units are good.

Some have lifetime map updates now, which can be helpful if you're going to new developments a lot. I have an older widescreen, and it's nice with the icons being a little bigger and spread out on the screen.

Ruckus

Thirding for the Garmin Nuvi, additional bonus is that most of the new ones include a bluetooth handsfree mic/speaker to link to your bluetooth enabled cellphone while in the car. We gave my dad one (a 245 I think) for Christmas two or three years ago and he uses it on pretty much a daily basis. He's a fire inspector for a number of municipal governments, some of his inspections are literally hundreds of kilometers from home. In this province (Manitoba) you have to have a handsfree device of some sort to legally talk on your phone while driving.

[edit]just browsing the garmin website, I stumbled on this one:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=401&pID=97243
It looks pretty good