Paja

I am new here and know very little about GPS's. I am researching on-line and learning, though. I would like to get a GPS for my husband who loves to garage sale. I think I would like to go with Garmin because of their good reputation. Currently my husband has a laminated map and he marks the locations of the garage sales on that. Am I correct in thinking he could do the same sort of thing with a GPS? I saw, on this site, that you can connect MapQuest and your GPS? My question is, which Garmin and/or which features would you recommend? There seem to be so many models and the Garmin website is very clear so once I settle on 2 or 3 models i can search around for the best price. Thanks in advance for any advice!

MTalvola

Check your post over on gpsreview.net. You got your answers there.

Paja

Thanks for alerting me to that. I was just about to see if there were more replies over there. I have the automatic e-mail disabled so my husband doesn't see it. The article on route optimization was what I was looking for.

HumVee

Paja, that's a good discussion going on in the gpsreview thread. The only thing I can think to add is that if you're hubby might like to have the largest view possible (I have no idea about his vision needs), you might consider the new nüvi 1490T and 1450 models. They have 5" diagonal displays, which makes them the largest of Garmin's current offerings for automotive use. They have the same resolution as Garmin's 4.3" models, so everything would be slightly magnified by the .7" increase in screen size.

Your question regarding MapQuest wasn't addressed in that thread. Yes, you can create routes in MapQuest, and then send the route to your Garmin GPS unit (so long as it's is Route capable model - otherwise you can only send waypoints). You would need to have the Garmin Communicator Plugin installed. Garmin supports using Internet Explorer and Firefox with the plugin (in Windows - for Apple OS X, they support Safari and Firefox). Recently, there have been reported issues with trying to download routes from MapQuest to Garmin GPS units - but hopefully that issue will be resolved by the time your husband gets his gift.

Also, I didn't see any discussion of the "T" designated models. Those models come with a traffic receiver (with advertising supported "lifetime" traffic subscription), which updates the nuvi's map with reported traffic issues, so that you can opt to take a different route. If you don't feel you need that feature, you can generally save a little bit of money by purchasing a non-"T" model. Good luck!

Paja

HumVee, thanks again. And thanks for explaining the "T" to me.l You guessed correctly that I didn't know what that was and have been wondering about it.