I've got a Garmin c330 and want to get European maps for it. I find I can get either Garmin MapSource Europe Metroguide DVD or a similar-sounding (but twice as expensive) Garmin MapSource City Navigator Europe NT on SD. Other than the fact that one is a DVD and one is an SD card, what is the difference? I've looked and looked and found just about zero information. Is it the same data with the the difference being that the SD card in the more expensive version is included and pre-loaded?

Good question, Garmin doesn't really make it clear what the differences are.

Checking the forums and reviews on these, it looks like City Navigator (the more expensive one) has some additional routing features over City Select/Metroguide. I'm not sure there is much of a practical difference and would look seriously at the cheaper alternative.

There's some discussion of this on the Brighthand forum:

http://forum.brighthand.com/archive/...hp?t-9661.html

Is this street nming feature on all of the tomtoms or just that model? I was thinking of getting the portable system.

OK so this thread has piqued my interest in buying a GPS system. I currently live in LAX, thought probably don't need it for driving around the LA area. I often travel to Europe with mainly walking but also driving in countries such as Italy, UK, Finland. Will also be moving to Australia. We will be on a driving holiday in Ireland in July where it would also come in useful.

So I am interested in something I can use in both cars and handheld, have maps for US, Europe, Australia, and be the most cost effective balancing basic functionality (though the street naming feature sounds nifty).

Given the above considerations, and over and above the comments already made in this thread any other suggestions (especially given cost of acquisition plus additional maps or whether maps included).

Thanks

You never need directions to travel around LA? I live in a small town and use it when I'm going somewhere I've never gone before.
I have used my Garmin Nuvi 660 in the US and Canada in pedestrian mode. It even puts a realistic ETA for walking. Since i'm walking and not driving, the direction of a one way street doesn't matter.

I can't say anything about Europe though since I haven't been there since getting my Garmin. I think getting the removable SD card would probably be the easier option since I don't want to wipe out my US maps.

I'm a Garmin fan (don't work there or have any stock in the company, just a happy user.) They've got a lot of different models and I think their underlying mapping is hard to beat.

Some of their models also can get real-time traffic info if you wanted to get around those LA traffic jams!

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who found this confusing.

I asked Garmin what the differences were between these products and which I should use with my StreetPilot c330:

• City Navigator Europe
• City Navigator Europe NT
• MapSource Europe City Navigator
• Mapsource MetroGuide Europe

Here is their reply:

I echo the excellent reviews of the TomTom 910.

I bought one as a Christmas present for my wife and we immediately took it to England for a three day ride around the Cotswalds before going to London. It took us in the rental car exactly where we wanted each time. Had all the roads, and even the speed cameras in memory.

In one case we had absolutely no idea where we were and we just asked it to take us back to the B&B and it found a route, with no name, that took us back quickly and directly. Very useful when it gets dark at about 4pm this time of year.

The really cool part was I bought the John Cleese voice from the website and I felt like he was right there in the car. I suspected that we might be re-routed to Fawlty Towers, but alas, no.

I found the device excellent for those traumatic "roundabouts" (traffic circles) that are used in the UK. Before even getting to the circle, Mr. Cleese advises what to do. "Enter the roundabout, second exit". The unit also shows you visually what to do, so the co-pilot can help by screeming directions at you. Great fun. IF you miss the exit, he waits patiently for you go "go around".

Looking forward to using it locally in Houston, too.

My new TomTom One arrived a couple of days ago. I love it. It is fast, doesn't keep telling me it is recalculating when I ignore it, it just does it. I have loaded points for geocaches by latitude and longitude and it works great for that.

I noticed that several of the GPS units I looked at only have the lower 48. I'm heading to Alaska in a couple of days and am glad the TomTom covers it as well. The TomTom also comes with a Guam map. I have spent a couple of months over there for work and hope to go back. Nice that this will cover it.

In the box there was a slip of paper for one free premium voice. I was thinking about getting John Cleese as well.

Over in the Nuvi section of GPSPassion someone has posted a link to a Garmin webpage where you can download a World basemap for free. It looks like it would be absoutely useless for navigating in any city (no city streets, just major highways), but for navigating between cities it might be passable. I was mostly interested in having some sort of general map if I happened to use my Nuvi in Europe so this might do. Garmin also sells a worldwide map CD for $116 list that's a little better in cities but still not very good. You can view the maps (zomm, scroll) online before buying them.

My dad, a retired LEO, is in his mid 60's. He currently owns and operates a repo business and bought one of the Tom Tom One's. He loves it! He's never been known as being on the cutting edge of technology , but it's so simple to use, he thinks it's the neatesat thing since sliced peanut butter

Sounds like a good plan for part of my tax refund. I want one now

Safe travels
Tim

Based on mostly some of the posts in this thread, and the $100 rebate, my new TomTom 910 came in a few days ago. I have to say that even though I haven't used it for more then the most basic point A to B stuff yet, I totally love this unit. I figure that any GPS that has my street built into it can't be all that bad.

It's pretty intutitive, though some of the menus are not where you would expect them, it's dead on accurate so far, it's quiet when you want it to be (for example, it doesn't constantly beep or annoy you when it's recalculating), and it's incrediby fast at it's route selection.

It will be coming over to Europe later in the spring, having those maps build in were a huge plus.

is there still a 100$ rebate for the tomtom?

I think it ended last Saturday.

You had to be careful where you got it, as some stores were authorized to sell it with the $100 off already and not eligable for the rebate (amazon for example).

Buydig had it for less then Amazon (after Amazon's 100 rebate) and then you get another $100 from TomTom.