I should have been clearer in the two things that interest me. And honestly, maybe a GPS isn't what I need.

I can read a map (very well), but maps don't usually help you around town.

For example, last week I was going from VoxJr's school to the uniform store. I know that I could drive out to 295 up to the black horse pike, but that is longer than taking the back roads. So, I wanted a route that was shortest.

Or, I'm out at my friends house in DE county, and I want to know where the nearest Target is and how to get there.

Second, if I'm taking a long trip with the kids (I'm thinking about driving down to my folks' in SC in a couple weeks), I'd like to know where the hospitals are along the route I'm driving, in case it's needed.

I've heard that TomTom has better maps than Garmin, but then that you have to pay for updates?

Can't you just call up Google maps on your iphone

It's a PIA to do that, at least for finding a route. THe touch screen gets in the way of moving the map around.

I think all GPS-type thingies are generally going to function in a similar fashion, though

I can rent one for a week for about $80 - $90, so I'll try that if I can get the SC thing together. One place has Magellan, Garmin, and Mio units.

You can get a basic Garmin for around or under $150 these days. And one with more advanced features for about $175. As for the maps, Garmin and TomTom pretty much leapfrom one another these days, so I'd consider that aspect a wash. And you will want to purchase new maps every couple years as the roads and waypoints change. No way around that, unless you do the google maps thingy.

So what I'm saying is you'd be better served buying a cheapy that paying 80 bucks to rent one for a week. Here's a factory refurbished Garmin C330 for $129 on Amazon.

It looks like if I want the hospital info, I need a unit with MSN Direct, at least for a Garmin.

Funny that the nuvis and the street pilots seem identical, at least on paper (according to Garmin's compare feature)

and of course, everyone (at least on amazon reviews) says that the MSN Direct feature suxxors

MrsVox wrote:and of course, everyone (at least on amazon reviews) says that the MSN Direct feature suxxors

do you know anybody with costco? you can just get whatever theyre pushing for a sweet price and you're done.

drsmooth wrote:This technology has won the enduring admiration of the Russian people

Hard to fathom

So I went to Best Buy to actually see these GPS things in action. Only Garmin and Magellan get signals inside the building. But the Garmins I was looking at couldn't tell me where I was. The graphics on the Garmin was nicer than the TomTom One that had the menu up -- the One XL just said "searching for GPS signal"

I didn't really look at the Magellans. OUt of all the ones that were working, I liked the 260w. From Garmin's site, it looks like it skips the MP3 player and instead gives better graphics.

And it's $100 more at BestBuy than Amazon. Guess the markup is to pay the asshat who stood over me the whole time I was checking things out.

MrsVox wrote:It looks like if I want the hospital info, I need a unit with MSN Direct, at least for a Garmin.

Funny that the nuvis and the street pilots seem identical, at least on paper (according to Garmin's compare feature)

That's seems illogical to me. I'll check it out in a couple minutes. A hospital is simply a point of interest. They all come preloaded.

MSN direct isn't great, but it's OK. Traffic has saved me a couple times (it also has missed a couple times). Gas Prices is pretty cool to have. Weather- meh. I can get it from KYW (but the current temperature is OK since my car doesn't have an external sensor). Movie times- worthless. I tried using that feature once. Went to the theater at the time it said- not only was that movie not playing at that time, that movie wasn't even showing at that theater.

I've got a great little gadget that connects XLR microphone jack or quarter inch audio/phone jack to a small device that does analog to digital conversion and connects via fire-wire to a small Mac laptop as a way to record high quality audio source. It's called the duet. Small, simply to use, easy software to operate. Very good quality recordings.

Bucky wrote:

MrsVox wrote:It looks like if I want the hospital info, I need a unit with MSN Direct, at least for a Garmin.

Funny that the nuvis and the street pilots seem identical, at least on paper (according to Garmin's compare feature)

That's seems illogical to me. I'll check it out in a couple minutes. A hospital is simply a point of interest. They all come preloaded.

MSN direct isn't great, but it's OK. Traffic has saved me a couple times (it also has missed a couple times). Gas Prices is pretty cool to have. Weather- meh. I can get it from KYW (but the current temperature is OK since my car doesn't have an external sensor). Movie times- worthless. I tried using that feature once. Went to the theater at the time it said- not only was that movie not playing at that time, that movie wasn't even showing at that theater.

I did find that you can get hospital info without MSN Direct, although how "on-the-fly" it is was difficult to tell.

MrsVox wrote:

Bucky wrote:

MrsVox wrote:It looks like if I want the hospital info, I need a unit with MSN Direct, at least for a Garmin.

Funny that the nuvis and the street pilots seem identical, at least on paper (according to Garmin's compare feature)

That's seems illogical to me. I'll check it out in a couple minutes. A hospital is simply a point of interest. They all come preloaded.

MSN direct isn't great, but it's OK. Traffic has saved me a couple times (it also has missed a couple times). Gas Prices is pretty cool to have. Weather- meh. I can get it from KYW (but the current temperature is OK since my car doesn't have an external sensor). Movie times- worthless. I tried using that feature once. Went to the theater at the time it said- not only was that movie not playing at that time, that movie wasn't even showing at that theater.

I did find that you can get hospital info without MSN Direct, although how "on-the-fly" it is was difficult to tell.

Three "clicks" on the GPS (Garmin Flavored): 1- "Go To" 2- "Food/Hotels" 3- "Hospitals".

Extremely simple and very on-the-fly. Did Mr. Best Buy tell you that you needed MSN Direct to do this???

Bucky wrote:

MrsVox wrote:

Bucky wrote:

MrsVox wrote:It looks like if I want the hospital info, I need a unit with MSN Direct, at least for a Garmin.

Funny that the nuvis and the street pilots seem identical, at least on paper (according to Garmin's compare feature)

That's seems illogical to me. I'll check it out in a couple minutes. A hospital is simply a point of interest. They all come preloaded.

MSN direct isn't great, but it's OK. Traffic has saved me a couple times (it also has missed a couple times). Gas Prices is pretty cool to have. Weather- meh. I can get it from KYW (but the current temperature is OK since my car doesn't have an external sensor). Movie times- worthless. I tried using that feature once. Went to the theater at the time it said- not only was that movie not playing at that time, that movie wasn't even showing at that theater.

I did find that you can get hospital info without MSN Direct, although how "on-the-fly" it is was difficult to tell.

Three "clicks" on the GPS (Garmin Flavored): 1- "Go To" 2- "Food/Hotels" 3- "Hospitals".

Extremely simple and very on-the-fly. Did Mr. Best Buy tell you that you needed MSN Direct to do this???

I got the assumption about needing MSN Direct from the Garmin website -- I think that it gives you a "Where Am I?" feature, giving you that info based on where you are at the moment -- which would be most ideal for my situation, but, from what I gathered from the trying out the unit, it wouldn't be too hard to get this on a unit without it, like you said.

The guy at Best Buy didn't do anything for me except tell me that the TomToms couldn't get a signal. Then he went away, and came back later, whereing the same angry, can't be bothered with you look he had earlier, and grunted something else about wanting to help me.

It was just completely frustrating that the units that did have a signal thought we were Kansas City or Maryland. It's really a piss-poor way to showcase/sell a product.

GPS isn't supposed to work indoors. It needs line-of-site to the satellites to calculate precise distances to each and triangulate your location. When they do work inside, it's as a result of either being near a window that has a view of the satellite, or bounced signals. Either way, it's usually pretty imprecise.

There is "aGPS" which is incoporated into some cell phones. It uses triangulation from the cell towers. That usually works indoors. I think.

Bucky wrote:GPS isn't supposed to work indoors. It needs line-of-site to the satellites to calculate precise distances to each and triangulate your location. When they do work inside, it's as a result of either being near a window that has a view of the satellite, or bounced signals. Either way, it's usually pretty imprecise.

There is "aGPS" which is incoporated into some cell phones. It uses triangulation from the cell towers. That usually works indoors. I think.

The government has satellites that can go through the walls and roofs, why not just hook the GPS to one of those.