My wife and I are looking to purchase a GPS navigation system?

My wife and I are looking to purchase a GPS navigation system to travel with. Does anyone know which brands are better or what I should look for? We don’t want to spend more than about $175. Also, I notice they come preloaded with maps but is there anyway to connect them to the internet to get the most updated routes? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

$170 will buy an excellent unit from any of the major manufacturers. You just won’t get some features such as automatic traffic updates, spoken street names or bluetooth connectivity, most of which are unimportant in my opinion. Garmin has about 50% of the market with Tom Tom and Magellan dividing most of the rest between them.

I’d suggest that you begin by looking at the Garmin Nuvi 200, the TomTom 140 and the Magellan 1220. All are excellent devices which can be purchased for well under $150.

The manufacturers usually provide one free map update when you activate the warranty so that you have the latest maps if your unit happened to have been manufactured some time ago. Map updates after the free one cost $70 or more, almost the price of a new unit, so I just bought a new unit to replace my 3 year old Garmin to get the latest model with a new warranty and a fresh battery rather than update the maps. Map updates come out 3-4 times per year but roads don’t change that frequently. Even a 3 or 4 year old map database will get you most anywhere you want to go to.

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