Is Tom Tom Or Garmin The Better Gps Device?
I also have a Tom Tom One 3rd edition GPS, which I got at Radio Shack for $162 incl. tax.
The GOOD: It got a satellite signal quickly. Compact, easy mounting. Easy menus, choice of voices. Seemed to have POI’s that were useful. Price was good too.
The BAD: The routes it gave me to certain destinations weren’t very good. For example, for two separate test locations (Starbucks and the Bank), it gave me very inefficient and slow routes. And I live in the city. Also, the Tom Tom One does not support Mac OSX. One thing I hated was that it had no AC Adapter, only a car charger and a USB cable, unlike other GPS products.
The VERY BAD:
When you power off your Tom Tom One and try to turn it back on, you will get the WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH. (Google this, it’s a problem many users have.) I got it too. The only thing you can do is a soft reset…EVERY time. Very annoying. And it wipes out my clock every time I do that. Also, it didn’t even know what my street name was. It always says, “Unnamed street”. (Haven’t had a chance to update the maps, but hopefully that will fix it.)
Before I bought the Tom Tom One, I bought the Nextar C3, which was a horrible choice despite its reviews. Got no signal, and the menus froze. When I called the manufacturers on both the Tom Tom and Nextar, they said they knew about these problems, but they shipped the products out anyway. Pretty dispicable if you ask me.
Out of all my research, the Garmin Nuvi 200 seemed to be the best. But It’s about 250 and I didn’t have the money. If I had to do it over, I would skip the Tom Tom, which isn’t even an American company, so who knows if its knowledge about US geography is as accurate as other companies. Good luck to you!
I don’t have a Garmin,but I use the Tom Tom One 3rd Edition and I like it (it’s on sale lately for about $150.00). Before I bought mine, I did searches and saw very few bad comments about it — mostly that there should be more information in the quick start guide (the full manual is on their website — not in the package). The unit is ready to use out of the box without updating, and the maps are detailed — I even found one-lane gravel roads were named on the TomTom maps. If you want to, you can easily connect this GPS to your computer and download updates from TomTom for free (as often as you want — every week if you want to). They may charge after 1 year but I don’t know for sure. In October a consumer magazine rated it a best buy after testing over a dozen units (there were several units that were rated higher — but they were more expensive).
It is both powered and charged by the car cigarette lighter or computer USB cable (included); the GPS is small enought to fit in your pocket and will run for several hours on the internal battery (longer if you turn the brightness and volume down / off). The speaker (you have a choice of several different voices) is clear and loud — there is also a setting to have the volume increase as your speed increases. Businesses are included in the points of interests (gas stations, car dealers, hospitals, parks, police and fire stations, etc.); you can select to show one type of interest, or as many as you like. You can set it to warn you (with a choice of sounds) when you get near one or more of these points of interests. It can tell you how fast you’re driving, and can warn you if you speed. When you plan a route, you can have it avoid toll roads, or whatever. There is a “where am I” button that finds you on the map with just that one touch. You can enter a PIN number so a thief won’t be able to use it.
This unit doesn’t speak the names of the streets (the more expensive ones do). This unit will say “turn left 1/4 mile” and not “turn left 1/4 mile at Main Street.” Also, as with any GPS brand, there will be some minor mistakes on the maps, but on this unit you can correct errors, and then you have a choice to share your corrections with other users the next time you connect the GPS to the TomTom website.