What features are important for a particular use are a very personal thing. And.. The features needed for automobile navigation use are a bit different from those needed for hiking navigation use. Below are my "essential automotive navigation feature list" of GPS receiver features.
(I omitted features that are present in ALL receivers.)
1) Address to address Routing: We believe that any GPS
you buy for automobile use from this time forward should have the built
in capability for automatically guiding you to a specific street
address. (Kits which INCLUDE mapping software are indicated (*). The automatic car navigation feature is now
present
in low and medium priced Garmin (such as GPS-V, GPS-60C,
GPS76CS,
StreetPilot III(*), StreetPilot 2610/2620/2650/2660(*), GPS276C, GPS295, iQue
3600(*) and Quest(*)) and the Magellan RoadMate 500/700,(*) Sportrak Pro, GOLD and PLATINUM models. Models without the (*) require optional at extra cost mapping software. The new TomTom "GO(*)" (a competitor to the
Roadmate and StreetPilot 26xx) also has automatic car route generation.
Alpine
and Magellan
PathMaster (750NAV(*)), VDO Dayton(*)
and other automobile built in
navigation systems ($1800 and up)
have this feature. The Garmin StreetPilot 2610, Magellan 500/700,
Magellan Meridian/Sportrak
and
StreetPilot III, G60C, G76C, and Vista/Legend Color, iQue, Quest and
GPS-V have the
address
to address routing and at a price of about $300 to about $1200
depending on model. Garmin's GPS-V, G60C, G76CS,
Vista/Legend (COLOR only) and the Magellan
Meridian and Sportrak models all have optional address-to-address
routing,
but with "beep" prompting and no voice
prompts. Units providing VOICE PROMPTS for turns and
guidance include: Garmin StreetPilot 2610/20/50/60, StreetPilot III,
Quest, Magellan RoadMate, 750NAV, TomTom "GO", VDO Dayton,
Alpine, and many OEM automobile navigation systems.
Delorme StreetAtlas 2004, has a good
implementations
of address-to-address routing and can be used stand alone at reasonable
cost IF you already have a laptop computer. In the Delorme case
we recommend a standard handheld GPS in place of the Delorme GPS
receiver.
2) Built in road Maps: Built in and detailed road map displays of your area of interest are an essential
feature of a good Automobile GPS receiver.
3) Route capability: Automatic Destination Routing is a standard feature on any good (modern) Car Navigator GPS.
4)
Waypoints: Some Car Navigators use ONLY street addresses, road
intersections, Points of Interest, Restaurants and such. This is
a pretty good minimum requirement. All Garmin models offer "mark waypoint"
capability for locations and the ability to "point" to a desired
destination on a map. We like these a bit better, but this
feature are not essential.
5) Datums: Many if not most Automobile GPS receivers (SP
and ColorMap among many others) have only WGS-84 datum. (-and they
do not need anything else when they are loaded with ref datum WGS-84 maps.)
6) Mounting: Make sure the unit you select is capable of being
mounted neatly and securely in/on your vehicle.
7) Turn Here: Make sure the unit gives you the signal you
want for a "next turn". The best units have voice and visual prompts for turns.
8) 12 channel parallel receiver system: Needed for best reception
in difficult terrain and tree cover.
9) Dead Reckoning: Most of us do not drive often in high rise
central city areas. If you do, you will want to consider
units with a built in Gyro capability as the best GPS will loose lock
in dense high rise areas. Garmin's SP2650/2660 and the VDO Dayton are examples of these.
10) Maps: Make sure that the unit you select has user uploadable
maps (or maps on its built in CDROM, CF card, MiniHD, or other memory) for the area you need.
11) TrackBack and other "standard" GPS features are not universally
available in Car Navigator units. When you think about it,
"tracking back" the same way you came can be hazardous in a car
navigator! These units are designed to generate a new route for
you on each new route selected.
12) The OEM car navigators are "engineered into the dash", look great
and perform the basic car guidance functions reliably. However,
these OEM units generally cost more and offer inferior features
and performance as compared with the StreetPilot 26XX and
Magellan RoadMate units. We have had a number of reports of users
unable to obtain map updates for OEM car navigation systems.
Others have complained of the high cost of map updates for the OEM
installed systems. We
suggest you try and obtain a written guarantee of map updates for 5
years as a condition of buying an OEM car navigator. We
suggest a discussion of the price of map updates is a good idea as well.
Useful but not essential features:
1) An external amplified antenna can be useful to allow full sky
view and maximum position accuracy for a GPS used in your car. BUT:
Most modern GPS receivers work OK without one. Try without before
you buy. If you think you might NEED this feature later, make sure
to buy a unit with external antenna port.
2) Screen: A larger Screen than available on handhelds is a nice
option. Color Screens are useful for getting more map information
from the unit "in a glance". Some models have "transreflective"
screens and these models do better in bright sunlight than other screen
types.
3) We think that "almost" everyone will want at least 64 megs of
map memory in a car navigator. Many will want much more map
memory either in the form of a DVD drive, Hard Drive or large CF memory
card. Sixty-four megs will hold the map of California or New
York. It takes about 1200 MegaBytes to hold detailed road maps of
the entire USA. 1450 Megabytes for Garmin's 2610 for all USA and
(available) Canada maps.
More expensive but nice: Magellan 750Nav(@!+), VDO Dayton (formerly Philips-Carin)(@!+), Alpine(@!+)
Notes:(@) These units offer automatic address to address routing within the unit.Discount Internet
GPS Vendors> HERE
(Note: Joe and Jack do not permit vendors with unresolved
customer complaints that we are aware of to advertise on our
website.)
If you have a suggested unit that you think should be added to my list, please let me know.
Email to: Joe Mehaffey