[tell me about] GPS for vehicles!

temperature!

I'll keep this short. It's the holiday season again, so that means I've got to spend some money! My ladyfriend has been asking for a GPS system for a few years now, so I think I'm going to get her one this year.

Problem: I don't know anything about these. After some quick research, I found that I'm looking for a portable one for a vehicle (no dash installation needed), and since I'm about to graduate and in an amazingly huge amount of debt, I'm looking for cheap. 100-200$ dollar range if possible. What I need to know is, which systems are good? Do they have a monthly subscription? What specs should I be looking for? Feel free to recommend any that you feel are good.

Improvolone

Generally speaking, if you've got debt, you don't have money to spend...

For all things technical, I usually check out www.Cnet.com and their reviews.

Kendrik

I just got a Mio c220 for my wife for $99 bucks at an OfficeMax Black Friday, deal. I've used it a few times and it's a damn nice piece of hardware / software for that price. They can still be had for about $150, and I don't think that anything else even comes close to that price range.

Pros:
CHEAP
Good quality screen
On-the-fly search filtering (reduces the list of possible street / city / search names as you type)
Maps new as of 01/2007

Cons:
Bit of a learning curve. Not bad, but not quite as intuitive as TomTom
No Frills. This does GPS only. Thats a Pro for me, but might be a downer for some.
No Text-to-speech for street names.
No built-in memory. Uses an included SD card for Map / program storage.

Personally, I think it's an excellent GPS unit for the price, and even with the slightly more clunky interface my wife had no problems getting up and running with it.

Official Site

buydig.com Link - $147
Circuit City Link - $139
Amazon Link - $154