GPS - Advice needed.

Author

Advice needed.

trh136

2005-10-21, 11:48 pm

My employer has bought gps units for the company's vehicles. I have the
choice of either a garmin c-330 or a tom tom 300. Due to my not knowing
much about gps units, which would be the best choice? (either way the unit
would be used for street navigation). Thanks in advance........trh133

Bob

2005-10-21, 11:48 pm

I seem to be one of the few C330 owners, or at least one of the few
who hangs around here. The TomTom seems to be more popular, but I
haven't yet figured out why.

To me, the issue was map accuracy, and the Garmin was supposed to be
better. So far this has proved to be true - everywhere I have used it,
it has been pretty accurate. The only exceptions were obviously very
new roads or intersections.

But the C330 does only one job, and does it well. It gets you from
where you are now, to where you want to go. Very easy to use, no
frills. For example: no "vias" - you cannot plan or specify your route
unless you do it manually, step by step.

The software and touch screen work very well and (to me) are very
intuitive.

I probably haven't helped you must, except to say that I like the
Garmin. Maybe a TomTom owner will chip in...

Bob

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:54:43 GMT, "trh136" <travis.hughes@verizon.net>
wrote:

>My employer has bought gps units for the company's vehicles. I have the
>choice of either a garmin c-330 or a tom tom 300. Due to my not knowing
>much about gps units, which would be the best choice? (either way the unit
>would be used for street navigation). Thanks in advance........trh133
>

trh136

2005-10-22, 5:48 pm

Thank You for your response. It sounds like I could not go wrong (based on
my needs) with either unit. This morning I read some previous postings on
this group and found my question had been addressed in the past. Some of
these previous posts reflected opinions of tomtom owners. They, like you,
seemed to be happy with their units. I don't think I am any closer to
knowing which way to go, but there is a relief knowing either would be fine
for my needs. trh133

Nospam@nowhere.com

2005-10-22, 5:48 pm

Apparently on date Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:43:43 GMT, Bob <beachboy@nc.net> said:

>I seem to be one of the few C330 owners, or at least one of the few
>who hangs around here. The TomTom seems to be more popular, but I
>haven't yet figured out why.
>
>To me, the issue was map accuracy, and the Garmin was supposed to be
>better. So far this has proved to be true - everywhere I have used it,
>it has been pretty accurate. The only exceptions were obviously very
>new roads or intersections.
>
>But the C330 does only one job, and does it well. It gets you from
>where you are now, to where you want to go. Very easy to use, no
>frills. For example: no "vias" - you cannot plan or specify your route
>unless you do it manually, step by step.
>
>The software and touch screen work very well and (to me) are very
>intuitive.
>
>I probably haven't helped you must, except to say that I like the
>Garmin. Maybe a TomTom owner will chip in...

A lot of these questions come down to experience, personal preference, and
actual needs.

Destinator does pretty much everything needed but has a "hard to use" interface
and can't manage roundabouts - fine in the USA but in Europe there are lots of
roundabouts. Lots more clicking on small buttons to "navigate to."

TomTom is better at telling you the next junction details but has major missing
features - no optimisation when you have a string of destinations. Can only do
4800 baud and old NMEA as a software product, meaning that you don't bother
with a decent antenna and ten year old kit is fine, but not exactly marvellous.
You have to know which town / village / city your road is in, as TomTom does
not let you search by street and then select the city.

I've not tried Garmin, so I can't really judge it. I'd not have hugely positive
expectations but they would be that the hardware will be sound but the software
will let it down, particularly in Europe, if I'm guessing right. If not all you
Euro Garmin users, kick in comments now.

For my money, the Go would have the edge. As with "via", this to me is not too
relevant in many respects, with my Axim I don't generally need to go via, I can
go "via not" or set up a string of waypoints, or just drive and let it reroute.

Having just watched a Volvo built in system, though, I can see how some designs
have persisted well past their best before date. This also had a single "go via
this point" option, routed badly wrongly, lacked huge features, had that
stupidly complicated pick a consonant, pick a vowel, pick a consonant, each of
which requires several button presses or wheel jogs, and then you get the
street and finally house number.

Quite right that it won't let you jigger it up while on the move, you'd be
"busy in the office" for ages before looking back up to say "Is That A
Stationary Truck?!?"

While in TomTom, you just hit the screen, pick the most recent of several towns
with one click, then pick a street you've done in that town recently, with one
click, and then house, default last one. Or a few clicks finds you a town,
street or junction / house.

To go home, hit screen, destinate to, home. Or, hit screen, desinate to, recent
location, pick from a screenful. Dead easy and handy.

The Volvo doesn't even reroute, it realises you went off the route it gave you
and offers a menu for getting it to route you again, from where you now happen
to be. I suppose that's better than not offering it, but with Destinator, or
TomTom, they assume you still want to get there and figure out the new route
automatically, unless you cancel.

And that's another thing TomTom gets wrong, you have to comfirm that you want
to cancel the route. Well, why else would you be clicking the screen to say
click, click - cancel route ?

Summing up, personal preference comes into this stuff, the market leaders are
getting it right more than the rest because people don't buy rubbish again, I'd
happily accept Garmin software or kit and talk them up generally but I doubt
they'd offer me that and it won't run on my 12 / 12XL :)

Might run on my Axim... ;)

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