Where I am living, cell and wi-fi connections are far from ubiquitous. Without that universal connectivity like you have in Seattle, most of the advantages you state are, well, less advantageous.

Besides, I am weird, I despise telephones (I don't own any kind of cell phone, much less a smartphone) and the only thing I want a GPS for is to have it give me turn by turn instructions on how to get to the address I told it to go to.

In any case, the whole situation has lost much of its relevance for me. Contrary to my expectations after reading Amazon.com reviews, I got prompt and useful response from TomTom technical support. They showed me how to RESET the device, and now it works again!

tanstaafl.

BTW, Tony, that was a great post you made!