Choosing the Best Garmin Nuvi GPS System For You

Let me tell you straight up. I truly believe that Garmin GPS Systems are the best on the market. No other company provides the features and quality of product that Garmin does at their price points. However, There are so many Garmins on the market right now that it could be hard to figure out the best one for your needs. While all are good choices, each is separated from the other by their features, styling and upgrades. Choosing the right one for you basically comes down to the upgrades that you want. Upgrades might include more intensive map regions, bluetooth capabilities, speech recognition, and voice turn-by-turn directions. To me the progression in price is comparable to other electronics. The thinner, lighter, sleeker the product - the bigger the ticket that will come with it.

If you aren't sure where to begin, take a look at the Garmin Nuvi 700 series. While not the cheapest Garmin choice, the Nuvi 700 series should be looked not as an expensive portable navigation system, but as an entry level device comparable to high-end in-dash car navigation systems. All 700 series Nuvis are wide and sleek, have sunlight-readable displays, and options like route planning and an emergency locator. Additional features such as Bluetooth compatibility, mp3 player, pre-loaded street maps for Europe and North America, and local and custom points of interest ( POI ) are enhance this outstanding product. With MSN direct services, the Nuvi 700 series becomes a virtual travel helper, with the facility to update traffic, stories and weather in real time.

The biggest difference between the Nuvi 700 and 800 series models is that 800 series have advanced speech recognition capabilities. While 700 series gives you mostly hands-free control, the 800 series gives you complete hands-free use for you to navigate menus and use voice commands (which is really helpful in "hands-free" Washington, DC). While the 700 and 800 series gps systems are considered the "luxury" class in portable gps, the Garmin 5000 is definitely the working man's gps.

It has the biggest screen of all Garmin Nuvi products and is designed to be a dedicated car gps unit. These products are superb for in your RV or Wagon . Real tech heads can connect the gps with a camera to help with safely backing up a big automobile or wagon. They are particularly helpful for pro salespeople or pro drivers. The navigation features are the other reason this unit is valuable to the dedicated traveler. Nuvi 5000 incorporates Town Navigator NT street maps, 1,000,000 POI and up to three thousand programmable favorites. Some added extras include Garmin games, jpeg picture spectator, and mp3 player. The wireless FM transmitter broadcasts voice prompts, mp3 and audio through your automobile stereo system. Hands down, this is the best unit for a dedicated automobile user, particularly at a cost of 5 hundred bucks.

Well, if you read this far, you've got a handle on this complete Garmin Nuvi thing. If you simply need to find your way around the city and save gas by not getting lost, you will potentially be fine with the entry level models. You can add features or get downloads to upgrade for global travel if you'd like to use it while on holiday. If you need a sleeker design and more professional look with upgrades like voice commands and bluetooth, then you'll be better served with a more sophisticated system.

Trying to decide on the Garmin GPS System that's right for your needs? Check out My Garmin GPS System.com for articles, videos, and other information on all things Garmin.

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Garmin Nuvi 885T - Talk to Your GPS

The Garmin Nuvi 885T solves the safety problem created by most GPS since you have to take your eyes off the road to enter information into the GPS. You can now speak to the 885T and it will obey your voice commands. With the innovative Garmin voice recognition, you can speak pre-defined voice commands to the Garmin 885T and it will perform your commands. The unit includes a button that attaches to the steering wheel that alerts the 885T that you are speaking to it.

The voice recognition feature of the Garmin Nuvi 885T is just the icing on the cake. This GPS gives you all the benefits that you expect in the top of the line Garmin GPS.

First and most important, the Nuvi 885T speaks the street name on which you are to turn. This keeps you from having to take your eyes off the road to read the street name on the display. If you have to read the display, it is easy to read since it is the wide screen model at 4.3 diagonal inches.

The 885T has Bluetooth® so you can pair it with your cell phone for hands free calling. It has an FM transmitter so you can hear the output from the Nuvi 885T over your car stereo. This includes audio output from the built in MP3 player and audio book player.

The 885T includes MSN® Direct and a three month subscription to the service. You can check on the status of your flights, detour around traffic jams, check gas prices, check the weather, receive stock information, and more.

The Nuvi 885T uses Lane Assist to show you the proper lane to be in for an approaching turn.

To learn about the many other great benefits you can realize from the Garmin Nuvi 885T, check the information in the resource box at the end of this article.

John V. W. Howe is an entrepreneur, author, inventor, patent holder, husband, father, and grandfather. His degree in physics makes him curious about how things work and he was naturally fascinated with early GPS units and has followed their development.

His website, The-Best-GPS.com, helps readers identify the best GPS units. For more information about the Garmin Nuvi 885T, go to http://www.the-best-gps.com/Garmin-Nuvi-885T.html

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The Best GPS System - How Do You Figure This Out?

Finding the best GPS system is like buying the perfect car. It's all relative -- to you! The perfect car for me would have to be able to survive two rowdy kids, a dog, sometimes two cats, and a wife who routinely picks up junk (Oh, excuse me, they're called collectibles) on the side of the road. It would have to be roomy and maintenance free. For someone else, the perfect car would only need two seats, a rag top, and be able to do 120 mph easily.

In order to find the best GPS system, you have to first understand what they generally do and what are the usual features, then define what you want it for.

By GPS systems, I'm specifically talking about the after-market car variety. You know, the kind you see perched on people's windshields at the grocery store. I'm not talking about the in dash kind that come with some cars, nor am I considering the hand-held varieties you would take on a long hike. The after-market systems are usually called portable GPS receivers, or systems, and that's what I'll call them here.

Basically, all of these portable GPS receivers do exactly the same thing. They show you where you are on an electronic map, and they tell you how to get where you want to go, be it down the street or somewhere across the country.

All GPS systems work off of the same network of satellites that ring the earth, and most of the portable ones even use the same types of receivers. So, the differences between makes and models are not in how they work or what they do, fundamentally, but in the bells and whistles that come with them.

Virtually all GPS systems come with the following:

• Voice prompts that tell you where to turn
• Touch screen
• Large database of "Points of Interest" (locations of hospitals, ATMs, McDonalds, etc.)
• Choice between 2D "map view" and 3D "bird's eye" views
• Automatic route calculation
• Choice between shortest and fastest routes
• Come preloaded with maps of the 48 states

The main optional features to consider when buying a GPS system are these:

• Does it actually say the names of the street you need to turn on as you approach it?
• Do you need a widescreen version (4.3-inches diagonally as opposed to 3.5-inches)?
• Do you need maps of Canada, Mexico, and/or Europe?
• Does it support Bluetooth technology, which allows you to use your GPS system in conjunction with your cell phone to make hands-free calls? (Which essentially makes it a windshield mounted version of those little ear clips people walk around with.)
• Can you enter multiple routes into the unit and have it calculate the best route to get to all of them? Say you were in an unfamiliar city and you wanted to go to the cleaners, the grocery store, the movies, and a local dentist all on one trip. Could the GPS system calculate the shortest possible route to get to all of these?
• Does it have real-time traffic and weather report capability, and can it use that information to re-route you around traffic jams?
• Can you use your device to listen to music (mp3) or to look at digital pictures?
• How big is the Points of Interest database?

There are a few other features that major manufacturers include. Magellan, for instance, has hooked up with AAA to offer their Tourguide information actually on the GPS itself. Tom Tom has this neat feature where users can make map changes and upload those to Tom Tom's computer database which makes them available for everyone else. And Garmin is coming out with a new unit in 2008 that will learn to recognize your voice so you can enter commands by speaking instead of typing on the touch screen.

So, in order to find the best GPS device for you, you need to first decide which of these optional features are necessary, and which you might like if you can afford it.

You can get a basic GPS system for under $200. The Garmin nuvi 200, for example, has all of the basic features I listed above. It comes preloaded with regional maps (not the entire United States). If you want to spend slightly more, how about the Tom Tom One, 3rd edition, which at the time of these writing (early '08) costs slightly less than $200 at Amazon and comes with real time traffic capability and Tom Tom's MapShare (where you can uploaded changes).

Virtually all of the Magellan Maestro series is currently in the $200 to $400 range. You can get the more basic 3210 for around $250, which has millions of points of interest and, of course, the AAA Tourbook, or you can spend about $100 more and get the 4250, which includes all that the 3210 does and adds Bluetooth, voice recognition, and real-time traffic.

One of the most popular units is the Garmin nuvi 350, which does all the nuvi 200 does, but includes Garmin's "Travel Kit", mp3 capability, picture viewer, world travel clock, calendar, and more.

Deciding can be difficult, but to help out, I've created a website where I've collected all of this information plus links to appropriate pages on Amazon. There you can easily compare makes and models side by side and figure out which is the best GPS system for you. You can get to it from my link below.

Don't put off buying one, though! GPS systems are great. Once you have your first one, you'll wonder how in the world you got along without it.

Lee Cole is a GPS enthusiast who has spent countless hours learning about and using GPS devices. He runs an informative website called http://www.hotgpsdeals.com There you can get more information to help you compare GPS systems.

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