Good points. If I ever was a passenger, it would be fun to play with.

I completely agree with you.  Those things are annoying, distracting,
and worst of all make you lose your sense of direction.  People are
becoming robots these days, taking all their directions from machines
instead of using their own wits.

My limited experience is the polar opposite of what you said. I've only had
my GPS for a couple of months, so my experience is very limited.

But I can give it an address while parked, and it will take me to within a
few feet of the address I told it I wanted to go to. I once gave it an
address that was on the other side of the median strip. As I completed my
left turn at the intersection, I was confused by an immediate instruction to
make a U-Turn as soon as possible. The confusion was that I was told to make
a left in a half mile, then make it now, then as I was making the left, the
damn thing was screaming at me to make a U-turn -- I was stuck on, why make
a U when you just told me to make a left?

I went a block or so and parked, got out and looked around and saw my
desitnation across the median. As confused as I was, the GPS was right.

It tells me the lane assignments on the exit ramps and at freeway
interchanges. It displays all sorts of stuff like Starbucks, McDonalds and
Home Depot. I have a model with AAA destinations in it, so I can ask for
information about the auto club discounts and so on.

Granted, it's not an exact science, but neither is the Thomas Guide.

I have a Magellan 1340 that I got at Costco -- they beat Fry's price by a
country mile -- but when I push the buttons on the key pad, it calls out the
character but doesn't always display it. I have to type the character more
than once. I think it's a firmware issue, but I plan on returning it and
getting the Garmin 265w, which has traffic monitoring built in that is
supposed to guide you around construction zones and hopefully accidents. The
Garmin is a wide screen too, the Magellin is not.

We have 2 of the garmin265wt and love them. Excellent gps!

The GPS is a marvel of technology, but it can be very distracting for a
motorist, plus it does not show the big picture at a glance.  Plus you
have to update ($$) it otherwise it won't pick up road changes and
detours and road closings which happen very frequently around here
especially in the summer months.  Like I'm in 3 lanes of rush hour
traffic, pushing along at 75 or 80 miles an hour and the GPS tells me
"I'm going in the wrong direction turn right here".....duh.......where??
--

On Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:57:02 -0500, Scott in Florida wrote:

On the field trip to Taunton we had my singer's Alpine and my TomTom.

Both were set to female voices. He was surprised at how cool the TomTom
voice (Jane, with a British accent) was, and I was surprised at "how
mec-han-i-cal th-e al-pine" was. I expected one of those soothing Japanese
women's voices like on the answering machines.

I set both of them up, and the TomTom gave us a direct route, rt 2 to rt
495, bay road to wilton rd.

The Alpine wanted us to get off rt 2 before 495, and then when we were on
495 it kept telling us to get off at the next exit, and was going to route
us through city centers! Even when we were 3 miles from the place, it was
saying 5 miles and 25 minutes, and the TomTom was telling us three miles
and 12 minutes.