Garmin 5" GPS with Lifetime Maps/Traffic Price: $99.99 Shipping Options: $5 Standard OR $9 Two-Day OR $12 One-Day Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Monday, Jan 06 to Tuesday, Jan 07) + transit Condition: Factory Reconditioned
Even though I have a smart phone, when I travel out of town and off the freeway, I find a GPS handy. Smartphone GPS do not carry a full map, and don’t have to, but when you lose data connection, you are relying on cached data. Provided you do the regular maps update, a standalone GPS is great for a backup.
I was actually considering this to replace my Navigon 2100 that I bought here on Woot many, many years ago, but looking through the reviews I decided against it for the following reasons:
This device brand new only runs $120 at Wal-mart and Amazon. The refurb costs at Amazon have several at the same cost, so this one is not that good of a deal, especially after tacking on the shipping here.
The maps that Garmin is providing seem like they may have switched map providers for the worse. Many reviewers commented that their several year old Garmin worked great, but this one could not find their own street or those in their neighborhood. There are numerous issues cited with Garmin’s update tools as well.
The GPS lock time is apparently significantly increased from previous models, leading to 5 minutes or more to get a lock for folks. That’s fine for your neighborhood, but while travelling in an unfamiliar area, that means you are waiting around for quite a while before you can go. The accuracy of the receiver was also called into question putting buildings it the wrong place. This was often attributed to not being able to lock more that 8 satellites, but with that kind of lock you should be accurate to within about 10 meters. This also calls into question the map accuracy.
If this was $50 I’d roll the dice as it would be an upgrade to my ancient system, but too many questions for this price.
Really? You enjoy toggling and/or un-mounting your GPS every time you leave the car for five minutes, get a call, change music stations or rewind a podcast, want to Yelp for a place to eat, research or Priceline a hotel for the night, need to text people you are coming, take a picture of a roadside find, put your feet up in a rest stop and play a game of backgammon, or do any of the thousand things a smartphone can do?
Separate navigation and communication devices are an excellent idea, especially since you can pick up a darn good used GPS for $50 on craigslist, and leave it mounted full-time without expecting your window to be smashed when you get back (location dependent).
My sister had her window smashed for a six year old garmin nuvi that is probably currently worth about $15. Heck, I know someone who had a window smashed for the change in the ash tray. Don’t leave anything of value visible in your car.
That being said, I agree with you that a separate navigation device is a good idea. I know the gps on my windows phone and my girlfriend’s android are about 50% as solid as the gps on my ancient garmin that hasn’t been updated in three years. Plus, I ride a motorcycle and I’d much rather mount one of these on the handlebars than a $500 smartphone. Also, I don’t know about this model, but the touchscreen on my old garmin works through even thick riding gloves.
True dat!!! I recently purchased a newer vehicle (2011) and decided that the navi wasn’t important enough to me for the dealer to tack on another $2,500. Soooo… The alternative was my older Nuvi and I can leave it mounted and still use my “cellular device” for any number of other tasks without having to babysit it mounted in the car. For the cost of portable GPS’, it’s worth the hassle of not using my phone, especially when Google maps is trying to talk to me over my pandora, email and text alerts… UGH!
I agree with the others. I use my smartphone nav for walking in an unfamiliar city, or when riding as a passenger in a vehicle. When I’m driving, I much prefer the standalone, maybe with Mireo Don’t Panic as a backup on my tablet. I also use M$ Streets & Trips for my trip planning, along with POImegafile, then transfer routes to the garmin. Oh, I can also plug in the $20 USB GPS into the laptop and use Streets & Trips for navigation - the laptop makes for a huge nav screen, but can be hard to see in bright sunlight and even harder to mount on the dash.
A note about traffic services. Garmin’s service and info is not as good as TomTom. On a Garmin, even in the super busy New York/NJ area, traffic incidents often do not show up. When they do, it comes up as a bubble that you have to touch and read. It may show info for the area around you but not the route you are traveling on. Also, it does not offer rerouting around traffic jams. On the other hand, TomTom has traffic showing up continuously on the right side of the screen including any incidents/delays. If the delay is more than a couple of minutes, it looks for alternatives and asks you if you want to change the route to the faster one it has found.
I love the beautiful hardware of some Garmin models (look like an expensive smart phone) but the software including routing is no longer the best.
Considering how Google Maps is constantly changing and far more accurate than stand-alone GPS, yes I will take it. BTW, you know these companies are now offering free maps and traffic after years of gouging because people are now just using their phones, right? There are some limitations to using the smartphone, but I have free backup maps on my phone that don’t require a data connection. In the extremely rare event that I’m in the middle of nowhere, I think I can figure out where to go on a manual map rather than need turn-by-turn. Actually, it’s never happened. Even in cell-phone dead zones, Google Maps Navigation has always had enough saved to keep me going. As for the inconveniences, it’s not really that hard to take my phone off its mount, and I don’t find multi-tasking particularly difficult, and often when I’m driving with my wife, her phone is available too. Woot is for cheap people. Also, people still GPS all of the time.
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