No argument from me on that point. I'm on my 3rd Garmin unit in 9 years. I've purchased 5 sets of maps in total, spent $750 the maps alone. And still the maps on the third unit, a 76CSx, leave a lot to be desired. It regularly uses road names instead of the highway route numbers, and in cities in Vermont it doesn't know most grocery stores or gas stations.

From having been frustrated too many times out on the road, if I absolutely want the unit to know a POI, I look it up on Google Maps ahead of time, and download it as a waypoint. That's the only way to be certain a POI is there. Have learned the hard way on this, over and over again.

But it's still better than the alternative of having nothing to guide you.

BTW, you are correct on the you pay for map updates for every standalone GPS unit. That doesn't mean I have to like it. GPS units themselves are on the path to become commodities, almost loss leaders, and the big source of revenues will be the maps and associated content and information. Garmin is forced to head in this direction, they lost out on acquiring two major map (i.e., information) suppliers in the last 6 months (NavTeq, Nokia bought, and Tele Atlas) and their stock lost half it's value since. I'm becoming suspicious they purposely design things to encourage you to buy more hardware, on top of being forced to continually buy newer maps.

Well I had and still have a number of them, eMap, GPS V, Streetpilot III, Streetpilot 2610, 2620, 2650 2730, Quest, eTrex Venture Cx, GPS 10 Bluetooth pug for the many cars in the whole family.

The Streetpilot 26xx/27xx are great for cars but a little to much for traveling. The Quest has long battery life but small map memory. The latest is a eTrex Venture Cx. It is perfect for traveling since it has 30 hour+ battery life, Micro SD card map memory, auto routing, and compact size. It had recorded many flight paths in the air, finding a house in Japan, occasional use in a rental car.

So far no Nuvi yet, primarily due to the short battery life.

I really like my laptop with MS MapPoint and a Sprint EVDO card with real GPS(12 sats locked normally) it works perfect and I can get realtime updates.

Some of the new google map integrated ones are nice too my palm does live traffic flow road/sat/hybrid mapping etc on google maps, but the centro is currently lacking the GPS.

True. On the other hand, it will work in poor GPS coverage areas (canyons, urban jungles, indoors) because it uses cell tower locating if it can't get GPS.

Note also that Verizon (which I have) seems to have better cell coverage than AT&T.

I really haven't ever had a problem with poor gps coverage except indoors & in parking garages - either with my phone GPS or my nuvi. Needless to say, if I need a GPS to get out of the parking garage, I must have bigger problems!

Before I had AT&T I had Verizon (which used to be GTE, which I got after I had Sprint then CellularONE and I also have a prepaid TMobile phone as well...) and there are just some places you won't get coverage with any of them.

As I recall, you'll get one map update CD for free when you register with Garmin.

I have a Garmin Nuvi 650 that I bought from Costco for about $300 just before Christmas when they had a sale going on. I love it. It is small and easy to pack in my briefcase. My business takes me to hospitals all over the country so it is great that they are already programmed in to the unit. Also, of all the hotels I've stayed at only one (this week in fact) was not preprogrammed. I'd recommend this unit to anyone, but keep in mind that European maps are not important to me.

See, here again is why I use the Verizon GPS nav software. A hotel I stay at frequently (Hyatt Santa Clara) changed from a Westin a year or two back. The brand change was noted fairly quickly in the POI data base, which uses the vendor's DB.

Yes, it's 10 bucks a month for the service.

So much useful information here.

Re: Garmin nuvi 350, does the antenna need to be raised for it to function? See the picture at http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=4407763 . It will be nice to be able to use it in a shirt pocket while walking in a city.

Doesn't really make a difference at all. The GPS chip in the current Nuvi generation will pick up a signal just fine with it flipped down.

I have the Garmin Nuvi 660 and have been happy with it so far. Got it on a very good deal at Costco last year.

I have a nuvi 680. When the antenna is flipped all the way closed, the unit turns the GPS receiver off and goes into "simulation" mode. Having the antenna partially down works just fine.

I like the Navigon 5100 (or 7100 if you want a bigger unit) because it has free lifetime traffic - no subscription required.

Unless their policies have changed fairly recently, this is not correct.

Their wording for software map product updates, for several years, has been '...if a new release of the product is out within 30 days of the original purchase date you may be entitled to a no charge update'. You have to fax in proof of purchase to get this . . . otherwise you pay fill price.

They have always honored request for an update, as long as the new update happened within one year of your purchase. I did it many times. If you enter your serial number in myGarmin.com, it will show you whether the unit is entitled to an update.