Thursday, April 17, 2008

Which GPS..

There was a question on Engadget about which is the best EU and US GPS device, I commented, but it was as long as a post. So here it is...

In our work we travel a bunch and have even done a trans-continental USA trip (don't mention the rental that got wrecked in Montana when it hit a bear) and have driven most of Europe. You need a good GPS. It is never easy to find one. Firstly it is down to the maps - better maps, better experience. Second, when you get "lost" you need it to help, not give you dumb directions. A lot of the routing is just dumb. We also want good POI support - need to find lunch!

We have a Tom Tom which works excellent in Europe, not so great in the US. That is down to map quality. Also have a Magellan, it sucks, it couldn't find itself let alone a destination, I need to dump it. We have a Garmin handheld and a Nokia N810 with GPS, they are OK - I used the N810 to get around a freeway shutdown today. It is an occasional tool, but satellite acquisition is slooooww.

But when you are doing 100 MPH down the Autobahn. I want that TomTom with me. It is so natural to understand, clear UI, good maps (in Europe) and good routing.

But what do we know. We didn't even get a picture of the bear.

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