It looks like I'll be changing jobs, and this one will involve a lot more travel, and in my case getting lost
Can any one recommend a GPS system?

I have a few friends that use CoPilot on a laptop but they looked into GPS systems 5 or 6 years ago so maybe something else is better.

I've used several of them and all of them have worked just fine. The most recent one I used is the TomTom One and it seems more than adequate.

Honestly, I'd just look at features and price and pick whichever one suits you best. I doubt you'll be disappointed.

The new Tomtom 520 is real snazzy. It does text to speech (can say road names) and speech recognition (for destination input), bluetooth telephone handsfree, ipod control on the screen, fm transmitter, widescreen display etc etc.

Its not the top of the range and not all that expensive either.

I've had the Garmin 60csx (Color screen, Sensors(compass and elevation), eXpandable w/micro-SD card) for a few years now. I love the thing.

this is more of a hand-held unit, so the screen may not be as big as you like.

and you should know up front that the maps you'll need are not cheap. figure ~100.00 usd.

my only beef with the system is that if you take the time to plan out a map on your computer, telling it what roads you want to take and what stops / waypoints to use, it'll ignore your roads and route you based on the stops / waypoints alone. this is a bother if you like back roads, especially if they're not on the most efficient path.

other than that I use it in the car, in cities I don't know my way around, and hiking.

the base map that's pre-loaded doesn't do much good, so you'll really want at least one map package.

it uses 2 'AA' batteries that'll last over 12 of solid use.

I'm not sure if they're all like this now, but I can fire mine up inside a room in the middle of my house, without any windows, and it'll locate in about a minute.

it was on sale last week for just under $300 usd.

Yes, most new GPS devices have chipsets that manage that now.

I have an older Garmin iQue 3600 I like very well. The combination Palm + GPS is a great convergence, IMO. The Palm operating system opens it up to a lot of applications.

However my next GPS will have text to speech. Pronouncing the road names would be great so I can keep my eyes on the road in unfamiliar areas.

The "Turn in 500 feet" announcement works OK in less congested areas but when your on the highway and one exit has multiple ramps a road name would be nice.

All of the GPS systems I've used have had complete maps of the entire US (and maybe Canada?) included. Additional cost to get maps for outside that area, though.

The Garmin 60csx Dan was talking about is primarily designed as a hand held device for hiking an the like. So you have to buy additional maps if you want to use it from on-road routing.

My eTrex Vista HCx can do the same thing, but I really wouldn't recommend it as compared to the TomTom for on-road routing. It doesn't make very good routing decisions, in the UK at least.

Dedicated devices for specific tasks still make most sense when it comes to GPS.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I've done a lot of reading and thinking about my needs and planned usage, and keeping an eye on price. Here are some of my thoughts:

* Text to speech has become a must have requirement, so that pushes me to the Garmin nüvi 260 ($268) or TomTom One XL S ($350) at minimum.
* Bluetooth has fallen to "meh" status because I am still going to need an earpiece for long phone calls outside of the car - so why pay twice? Yes I know it would still have some use, but I've also spoke to some users & read reviews that give it a thumbs down on quality.
* Traffic is something I'd like to investigate more, though it would be $60/year for the service. For those considering traffic, you might want to purchase one with the antenna already included as they list for $160 to $214 as an accessory, while the delta between comparable units with and without is pretty small. Unfortunetly that feature would bump me up to the nüvi 370 ($454) or 750 ($420, for some reason the 750 is much cheaper then the 680 ($625) or 760 ($557), it is only lacking bluetooth).
* Screen size: TomTom wins here with 4.3" diagonal, with Garmin having 3.5" and 4.4". But getting 4.4" with text-to-speech would run $70 more then a TomTom.

I am at the stage now where I need to play with a few in Bestbuy to see what the interfaces are like.
Thanks all.



*All prices are from Amazon, there might be cheaper prices out there.

One thing I'll note about the TomTom is that its keyboard defaults to an "ABCD" layout, but there is a configuration option to shift it to QWERTY.

Thanks for all the advise, but I won't be buying.

While I did get offered the job, they were not willing to budge on their WalMart style vacation policy, and this was for a consulting job.

Oh- I'm late to the party, then.
Well, anyway, here's a GPS forum that I've used before to review pro/con arguments about features and models.
http://gpsinformation.biz/phpBB2/

Good luck with a different new job!