I've used GPS units that my friends have before, but until now I've navigated myself around purely from Google maps on my desktop and then remembering the general route. I feel it's time to actually get my own unit, as I waste a lot of time sitting at my computer making sure I know how to get there before I actually leave. Here's what matters most to me:
1) Smart (or at least more advanced) routing. One thing that annoys me about the GPS units I've used in the past is that their calculation of the best route is pretty dumb - it will choose a route that may be a bit more direct, but not take into account the fact that the route it chose has many traffic lights. For example, there's a route straight through the city, but it would take quite a while due to inner-city driving, versus a route around the loop outside the city that is quite fast as long as it's not during rush hour. Routing based on speed limits is very unintelligent, in my opinion.
2) Modifying or selecting from certain routes. It would be real nice if when I enter the address where I would like to go it would give me a default route, but allow me to choose a few other possible routes (which could assist in the inner-city vs highway decision I described above... often I know better than the unit does). To go along with this, having the ability to easily see the route it will take you on and compare the routes visually is a big plus. Additionally, creating your own route by using waypoints would be nice as long as it is easy to do and flexible (like Google Maps).
3) Computer interfacing for setting particular routes. Due to how important it is to me to have an optimal route, I would like to be able to use something like Google maps to lay out a route and then have the navigator follow it instead of whatever route it would use. Is this pretty standard now-a-days?
4) POIs. I do not have a data plan on my cell phone and don't intend to get one, so when I do need to look up a particular location (often a store) and I'm not at home it would be nice if most of what I would need would be available for lookup as a POI. Do most have sufficient POI databases?
5) Battery life. I do a lot of walking around the city and so pedestrian-friendly features and specs are appreciated.
Optional:
-Traffic: I'm not sure how useful this would be for me. I live in the DC metro area where there's a ton of traffic, but that's pretty much a constant - no matter what if I'm driving during certain times there's going to be a lot of traffic.
-Bluetooth: Not a crucial feature for me, I may not even use it w/ my cell phone.
Completely non-needed:
-Multimedia: mp3, pictures, whatever... just not something I'll be using.
I've done some looking around the last few days and the TomTom "IQ Routes" feature sounds pretty cool (on the XL340S) - instead of using speed limits on roads it'll use actual data to determine how fast travel is on a certain road at a certain time. This could take care of my complaint about routing that takes you on roads with lots of stoplights. Are there any other GPU units that feature similar technology? Essentially, if you can't tell, my top priority has to do with the routing and being able to select optimal routes.
Any input is greatly appreciated!
1) Smart (or at least more advanced) routing. One thing that annoys me about the GPS units I've used in the past is that their calculation of the best route is pretty dumb - it will choose a route that may be a bit more direct, but not take into account the fact that the route it chose has many traffic lights. For example, there's a route straight through the city, but it would take quite a while due to inner-city driving, versus a route around the loop outside the city that is quite fast as long as it's not during rush hour. Routing based on speed limits is very unintelligent, in my opinion.
2) Modifying or selecting from certain routes. It would be real nice if when I enter the address where I would like to go it would give me a default route, but allow me to choose a few other possible routes (which could assist in the inner-city vs highway decision I described above... often I know better than the unit does). To go along with this, having the ability to easily see the route it will take you on and compare the routes visually is a big plus. Additionally, creating your own route by using waypoints would be nice as long as it is easy to do and flexible (like Google Maps).
3) Computer interfacing for setting particular routes. Due to how important it is to me to have an optimal route, I would like to be able to use something like Google maps to lay out a route and then have the navigator follow it instead of whatever route it would use. Is this pretty standard now-a-days?
4) POIs. I do not have a data plan on my cell phone and don't intend to get one, so when I do need to look up a particular location (often a store) and I'm not at home it would be nice if most of what I would need would be available for lookup as a POI. Do most have sufficient POI databases?
5) Battery life. I do a lot of walking around the city and so pedestrian-friendly features and specs are appreciated.
Optional:
-Traffic: I'm not sure how useful this would be for me. I live in the DC metro area where there's a ton of traffic, but that's pretty much a constant - no matter what if I'm driving during certain times there's going to be a lot of traffic.
-Bluetooth: Not a crucial feature for me, I may not even use it w/ my cell phone.
Completely non-needed:
-Multimedia: mp3, pictures, whatever... just not something I'll be using.
I've done some looking around the last few days and the TomTom "IQ Routes" feature sounds pretty cool (on the XL340S) - instead of using speed limits on roads it'll use actual data to determine how fast travel is on a certain road at a certain time. This could take care of my complaint about routing that takes you on roads with lots of stoplights. Are there any other GPU units that feature similar technology? Essentially, if you can't tell, my top priority has to do with the routing and being able to select optimal routes.
Any input is greatly appreciated!