Which GPS system for Germany (& Europe)?
 

I’ll be moving my family to the Frankfurt area in March and we’re looking for a GPS system that will work while we’re there. This will be for driving. I’m curious to know which ones FTers are using and which ones they might recommend.
Thanks,
Jeff

So far I used 3 different (built in) GPS in cars from my employer, the radio navigation (Traffic Pro) from Becker was the best, by far. This was three years ago, though. So I can't say to much about what's going on now. Anyways, if I had to buy one for my own car, I'd go for a Becker, as the sound is also very good.

If you have an existing one in your car (mobile), just bring it over and get the German/European maps! That might be cheaper than buying an entire new system.

The Garmin Nuvi 370 comes with European maps pre-loaded (along with NA maps). Real portable too.

I have a Magellen but when I emailed them asked asked if my model worked in Europe all they said "no, it doesn't". I was surprised they didn't recommend another one of their models. I'll check out the Garmin Nuvi 370 and the Becker.

Thanks

I have a Nuvi 360 with European maps loaded ( the 370 is basically the same
with maps preloaded which makes it cheaper than having to to buy the 360 and purchasing the maps as I did)

I used in Germany Nov 14-26th and it was absolutely fantastic.
All you have to do is just put in your destination ( in the case of a site like castles etc that have no specific address a nearby location)
We drove Frankfurt/Berlin/Munich/Nueushwanstein/Nurnburg/Bamburg/Wurzburg/
Frankfurt and many points in between. It was particularly invaluable in the rural areas of Bavaria were the entire landscape (not to mention roadsigns if they existed) was covered with snow.

The only problems I had was when I thought I knew better and thought it best to ignore the instructions.:D
I just cannot get over how useful it was in the cities telling you to keep on a specific side of a highway or road that was going to be eventually divided for example, or directing me to addresses which though seemed pretty easy on maps but were hard to access because of one-way or pedestrian streets.

The unit incidentaly, which is no larger than a pck of cigarettes can be used in a pedestrian mode.

mike

p.S. the Garmin website allows you to check out any area in Europe which you might be familar
with or plan to use it in to demonstrate the unit as it is being used. ( I had a friend try out a local area where he has a home in Spain and he promptly went out and bought the 370)

I just bought the 370 on Amazon.com for $406. Thanks for the help everyone and thanks Mike for the excellent review!

TomTom
 

Loaded the western Europe maps on my TomTom and they have performed flawlessly throughout Germany and Austria.