gps systems

are these things worth investing in, have been thinking about it for a while, but all the reports i have read seem to lead to total confusion??

We did 4,500km driving from Melbourne to Bundaberg 12 months ago almost totally guided by our GPS. This trip would have been so much different without a GPS and we would have seen far less and had a far more stressful trip. We did purchase large scale maps (i.e. 1 for VIC, 1 for NSW, etc) and used these to identify long distance destinations and points of interest, then just loaded the destination and waypoints ('via'), and enjoyed the scenery as the GPS told us where to go

Interesting to note the great number of other vehicles on the road now both in NZ and Oz with a GPS being used.

As well as navigating and acting as a handsfree for our cellphone our GPS had 400 music tracks loaded onto the same SD card as our Aussie maps so provided 3 weeks of shuffled music.

If you're contemplating buying go for Garmin (ours is) or Tom Tom and shop around for some bargain prices at present. Cheap brands are definitely a waste of time and money.

If you're talking about the in-car GPS then they're essential for people like me who are geographically challenged []

It saves heaps of time looking for properties when you're going somewhere new. I just wish I'd had one years ago

Travelled through the UK/Ireland with one it was magic and very accurate get one.

I use an old Etrex "yellow terror", Quite good as a backup for a paper map if I need to find a hut or get to that spot I saw an animal and it's now fogged in.

Oh, you mean car types, not hunting? sorry can't help there

I use several GPS for both hand held tramping and driving. Its important to realise what features you want first, before making a purchase. From my experience of using these I can give you the following information:

Navman: Great NZ company, nice units, unfortunately let down by the lack of realtime map updates. When they come out they are usually considerably out of date.

TomTom: You can update certain scenarios on the unit directly - road speed, junction priority, new roads etc. Newer maps are available at a regular basis to take into account those "shared" changes that have been verified and released. The one feature I wanted was the "speeding alert". TomTom is the only one to offer this feature on some of its units and its proved invaluale.

Garmin: Also has a mapshare, but for the ultimate update map update scheme, you remove the default maps and upload the community maps. These are updated every week by a modding community and you can join in if you like. The only thing is that the garmin range is missing some of the features of the TOMTOM, such as speed alerts.

Other things such as routing types are similar, although I must admit I find the TomTom routes the most sensible and accurate. Navman was the worst by a considerable margin, some of the routes it gives me just dont make sense.

Forgot to mention that both Garmin and Tom Tom have online user groups that have user input databases for free map updates.

Our Garmin Nuvi 760 cost $400 s/h on Trade Me and is a widescreen, Bluetooth enabled (it 'talks' to my cellphone), top of the range model which is very user friendly

I have a navman which I'm quite happy with, hubby has a Tom tom and he has had no problems with that either. wish they had been around years ago.

Have a Tomtom, bought 3 years ago, works perfect.
I only had problem with charging it and dont know if it was the carcharger or,,
Sad days to and from different hospital I did listen to Ozzie,,he did curse and had a real bad language,,but he did help me find my way and also kept me company,,

We all have them and have used extensively here and in Australia and wouldn't be without them.

I've been on a few trips with vehicles with GPS. They're so boring!!! . When you turn in the wrong direction, it doesn't yell at you, or scream or anything. A friend and I reckon we should develop one which yells when you turn the wrong way: "Wrong way, that's the wrong way. You idiot" "Oh no we're all gonna die" "look out, look out, stop, stop, (rising crescendo)" "I feel sick (blurgh sounds)" "I need a pee" "Are we there yet?" " I'm hungry"

Do you think anyone would buy them?

A friend has a toy one that does that...it's so funny

Anne;325277 wrote:
Do you think anyone would buy them?

Kids you mean :eek:?

P.

The biggest problem I have with the in car GPS system is that they keep getting stolen!! We have had 3 Navman's - everyone been stolen Now I have an IPhone that I am never without. Best gadget I have ever had and the GPS onboard does everything I need it to do. I actually like the fact that it doesn't talk to me, I used to find that quite annoying. Anyways, that mtcw. Good luck!

They can tell you to make a right turn down a no right turn street. Ours did this to me in the middle of Auckland CBD. Signs everywhere and this thing say 'Turn right'... so I did, the half way across the road I see a no right turn sign amongst all the advertising signs. There was a lot of car horns going off and the inside air in the car went blue and was still being turned blue hours later. I was so damned ticked off..... According to our Navman, we live in a paddock and depending on what sort you buy, upgrading maps can cost you a fortune. Some roads aren't on it and some have changed so much you are being told to go one direction and that way doesn't exist anymore so you end up in a lane you don't want to be in and you can't always make a U turn.

There aren't any voices on ours that can pronounce Maori names so sometimes you have no idea what road they are talking about, it certainly doesn't sound anything like the name written on the sign.....

"make a right turn in 300 metres" and there are two roads forking off from the one you're on or very close together.... I got lost, using the Navman, finding Blimeyvickys place, ended up down a no exit road that I think may have been meant to be a through road but ended in a shingle road that came to an end and on the Navman was a checkered flag at the end of the road on the map... I had to do a U turn and it kept telling me to do a U turn and head back in the same direction, towards the end of the road..... I ignored it and found the road another 100 metres or so off the main road..... same road name, different road. Even though I'd found my say that far it still couldn't tell me when I was at the right address. I was driving really slowly and kept thinking, someone is going to call the police seeing me crawling up this road, no exit, strange vehicle etc.....

Don't totally trust them!!!!

Yakut