Gorgeous day in Antalya, Turkiye.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Antalya, Turkiye.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Paris, France on May 1st.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Need a new GPS

Just before our drive to New York on Saturday, our GPS conked out! We had just got on the highway, and I pushed the button to turn it on. Nothing happened.

The day before I had it on, but didn't have it plugged in. I think I forgot, and left it on. So the battery would have been totally dead. That shouldn't matter...you just plug it back in, and it should work again and recharge the battery. But nothing worked.

Then yesterday morning, I tried it again, and it turned on! Doesn't make any sense.

This is an old Garmin 330...one of the original models when these things first started to become popular. We think it's about 4 or 5 years old. And of course the maps are older style, and getting outdated.

As with anything electronic, GPS units have come way down in price. We want to get a new one that includes maps of Mexico, although most of the ones I've looked at so far don't have very good coverage. One of the reasons I'd like to wait before buying is to see if they come out with some better maps in the next 6 months.

The Source has a nice little unit, the Tom-Tom 140S on sale for $99 CAN. It's a great price for this unit, but given that our old one has come back to life, I think we'll wait it out and see if the maps improve for Mexico.

3 comments:

  1. Have you found the GPS you do have to be pretty accurate?

    We have a newer garmin and still it's not as updated as we like.

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  2. I've noticed that some of the Tom Tom units sell with lifetime map updates. I'm leaning towards one of them for that reason. I was always bothered by paying for updates on my old Garmin

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  3. Rascus...Overall, we have been happy with the accuracy of our Garmin 330 over the last 4 years. Some areas are better than others though. When we went to visit our daughter in Nova Scotia we had some problems, and in some of the towns of upstate New York we had some problems. I am leaning towards NOT going with Garmin for our replacement.

    Brent, I've also read about the lifetime map option with the Tom-Tom. Going to look into that further. Apparently Tom-Tom also has a user map update system online that is free.

    I am leaning towards a Tom-Tom unit...

    ReplyDelete

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