recomendations for a car unit

[Lloyd Smale]

i want something resonable priced that has voice commands. New ones come out everyday and i dont know what features i need. Im not a wiz at this stuff so it doesnt have to have every bell and whistle just enough to get me to my destinations.

[Siskiyou]

The recently discontinued Garmin 760 http://www.tigergps.com/garminnuvi760.html is feature rich.  A couple of friends have them, one for two or three years and the other two months.  Friend #2 and his wife immediately made a 50-mile trip followed by a 500-mile trip.  They are not gps experts, but they love their new unit.

They ordered the Garmin 760 from Wal Mart on line and had it shipped free to the nearest Wal Mart store.  I believe Wal Mart has the lowest price.  http://www.walmart.com/Garmin-nuvi-760-Bluetooth-GPS/ip/7958704

The 760 is a better unit then the one I have.  My unit does great.  I plug in an address and it takes me there.  The problem is that it does not always take the route I want to take.  A while back I was taking a couple hundred mile trip and my unit selected the most direct route.   Mileage was shorter and the time frame in theory is shorter.  I did not like the route because it put me on a dangerous river road with a high accident rate.  I got by when I selected a City on the safer route and first navigated to it.  Once I was near there I had my wife selected the address I had programmed into favorites for are final stop.  An automotive gps that allows the user to create a pre-planned route at the start of a trip is better.  The 760 allows the user to create ten routes.

I recommend the 760 because it is a full feature gps being sold at a discount price.  You can spend twice the amount of money on a current model that has fewer features.

Tom Tom and Magellan make good units.  I like the Magellan manuals.

I happen to like the Bluetooth feature because I can use the speakers in my gps with my cellphone as a hands free device.  Tickets for using a cellphone while driving, along with court cost adds up to more than $200 in California.

[Lloyd Smale]

i dont need the bluetooth phone thing. Is the 750 the same unit as the 760 just without it? I see it listed for 50 bucks less.

[Siskiyou]

Here is a comparison link of the 750 and 760.  Two items are missing from the 750.  Bluetooth is one of the missing items.
 
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare.do?cID=164&compareProduct=37419&compareProduct=37420

Link to 750 description.
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=&pID=37419

The Where Am I feature is nice.

Link to 750 manual.

http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/nuvi750-GPS-Atl_OwnersManual.pdf

The nice thing about these units is that you can power them up and they are ready to go.  When my buddy picked his up at Wal Mart he told his wife to drive and he set in the passenger seat playing with the unit.

The unit has a battery that is good for up to five hours.  I spent sometime in the house plugging in addresses in the favorites and just learning about the unit.

Bluetooth is a nice feature to have when state laws dictate hands free devices when using a cellphone.  But it gets complicated because all cellphones with Bluetooth and not compatible with all Bluetooth gps units, a fact of life.  I understand that some auto insurance companies are also taking a stand on drivers using cellphones.  I am caught in the State Law web.

Bluetooth can be a pain at times.

Lloyd I do have to advise you of possible conflicts.  Wives who had the power and the skill to navigate may feel displaced by the female voice telling her husband what to do.  This results in a “power-shift” and may result in moments of glea when the gps unit is wrong.  At times the unit will be wrong, rarely, but at times.  Keep the maps in your rig.  They are rarely used.

[Lloyd Smale]

thanks pal thats the info i needed.

[Ole Man Dan]

I've been lurking in the shadows while Greybeard & LLoyd were searching for and buying Garmin units.
I got pushed over the edge last week.  I was returning from working at my hunting lease and Highway 278 was blocked by a major accident.  Traffic was routed out a side road with no street signs.  A couple of mile out this road came to a 'T' and a gas truck was blocking the road and a tired guy was waving everyone to the right.  Gadsden & Hokesbluff were to the left.  Several Miles later I found a landmark I knew. 
I was coming up to the Leesburg Dam.  I came home by 411. 
(There was about 20 minutes in the Ballplay/Kershaw Quarters area that I did not know where I was.) 
When I got home I started hunting a GPS.  It turns out that Amazon had the Garmin 760 on sale.  It had most of the features I wanted, so I pulled the trigger.  It arrived and I must have made a mistake while programing it because I did everything right.  (That's never happened before)  Everything worked the way it was advertised.  I've made a couple of trips 25-50 miles into the country and it worked great.  It even sent me down a dirt road that was a shortcut thru the mountains.  The selected route was one I've driven for the last 45 yrs or so...  Best of all I didn't fuss at my wife for not being much of a map reader. 
I'm still going to carry a compass with me.  Old habbits die hard.

Like Greybeard, I have issues with traffic in the Memphis area.  I keep missing the turn off to get to Corridor 'X'.  (It might be because I'm uptight about the dumb ass drivers speeding and cutting in and out of traffic, or it could be my 'Navigator' was drinking coffee and 'zoned out'...)
I also bought a beanbag mount so I can move the unit between my old Toyota truck, her SUV, and my Silverado.   It turn's out the Garmin 760 is user friendly and I found it easier to use than my old Garmin 72.

[DalesCarpentry]

I love my Garmin Nuvi 205. It is a bottom of the line unit and it works great. I just uploaded about 75 family pictures to it today and think that is a neat feature. It is wierd not being able to get lost anymore. The only problem I have run up on is the other day on the way home from work it was pouring down rain. I mean it was really comming down. It lost satalite reception for about ten minutes. I do not know if this is normal because this is my first GPS. Dale

[Siskiyou]

A friend has a Garmin 760 and he likes it.

[kiddekop]

The recently discontinued Garmin 760 http://www.tigergps.com/garminnuvi760.html is feature rich.  A couple of friends have them, one for two or three years and the other two months.  Friend #2 and his wife immediately made a 50-mile trip followed by a 500-mile trip.  They are not gps experts, but they love their new unit.

They ordered the Garmin 760 from Wal Mart on line and had it shipped free to the nearest Wal Mart store.  I believe Wal Mart has the lowest price.  http://www.walmart.com/Garmin-nuvi-760-Bluetooth-GPS/ip/7958704

The 760 is a better unit then the one I have.  My unit does great.  I plug in an address and it takes me there.  The problem is that it does not always take the route I want to take.  A while back I was taking a couple hundred mile trip and my unit selected the most direct route.   Mileage was shorter and the time frame in theory is shorter.  I did not like the route because it put me on a dangerous river road with a high accident rate.  I got by when I selected a City on the safer route and first navigated to it.  Once I was near there I had my wife selected the address I had programmed into favorites for are final stop.  An automotive gps that allows the user to create a pre-planned route at the start of a trip is better.  The 760 allows the user to create ten routes.

I recommend the 760 because it is a full feature gps being sold at a discount price.  You can spend twice the amount of money on a current model that has fewer features.

Tom Tom and Magellan make good units.  I like the Magellan manuals.

I happen to like the Bluetooth feature because I can use the speakers in my gps with my cellphone as a hands free device.  Tickets for using a cellphone while driving, along with court cost adds up to more than $200 in California.

Check www.tigerdirect.com they sell refurbished units in fact I rec'd an ad this am from them about tom tom gps & garmin gps.

[Blue Duck]

I just bought a Garmin 265 wt from Costco for $219.  They also has a 260 for $149.  Both have voice commands.  I like mine.

[rebAL]

I love my Garmin Nuvi 205.  Dale

   Ditto;  I got mine @ Target for ca. $150.  It does everything you asked for & more.