For those wondering about navigation....

[car guy]

My wife and I made a trip up to northern Ohio Saturday. We decided to compare the Our Garmin Nuvi and Droid X navigation. We used the both on the drive up to compare, but used the directions the garmin gave us. Then we used the Droid X for the trip home.

We did get differing sets of directions from each. The Garmin took us on a 3 hour drive and ended up in some kind of obscure places. At one point seemed to be in a amish area where we had to slow down a few times for horse and buggies, had to be careful going around curves and over hills and the roads were winding as well.

For the return trip, the Droid did not take us on those back roads, and the trip took us about 2.5 hours. We were happier with the directions of the Droid over the Garmin.

Our only two complaints of the Droid was the speaker volume and some streets aren't named correctly. For example, on a trip home we are supposed to turn left onto Johnson rd. But were told to turn left onto River Rd. River Rd is the road directly across from Johnson, but not the same road.

I'll continue to use the Garmin, though for most trips. It does have more features and options on it.

 

[tiwags]

Thanks car guy... I was wondering how well it worked. Where you using google apps?

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

The Garmin Nuvi has settings you can change to make it route as the Droid did. Sounds like you had the Garmin set to "Shortest Route" or did not have it avoid secondary roads.

 

[car guy]

The Garmin Nuvi has settings you can change to make it route as the Droid did. Sounds like you had the Garmin set to "Shortest Route" or did not have it avoid secondary roads.

I'll have to double check it, but I'm certain that when we first got it we set it up for fastest route.

 

[RW-1]

Even so, you have to take each with a grain of salt. Just playing both sides:

Was your nuvi updated to the latest navteq database? Firmware?

Although to me that is the largest advantage of the Google map/nav system, we won't have to pay for it (yet).

However Sunday I had to go to a computer call, and google maps didnt have that subdivision in yet, concidentally, My GPS496's mapsource did.

I believe for most users, they both are on par, it comes down to features and what you want.

 

[dangerous]

I used my Droid X for Navigation while on Vacation last week. It's AWESOME (in most cases) Google maps is not always right. but it will get you there.

 

[car guy]

Even so, you have to take each with a grain of salt. Just playing both sides:

Was your nuvi updated to the latest navteq database? Firmware?

Although to me that is the largest advantage of the Google map/nav system, we won't have to pay for it (yet).

However Sunday I had to go to a computer call, and google maps didnt have that subdivision in yet, concidentally, My GPS496's mapsource did.

I believe for most users, they both are on par, it comes down to features and what you want.

We just got it for Christmas 09 and updated I think in February.

I plan to play with it more, but this was my experience in dueling GPS'.

 

[RW-1]

I hear you. My wife's is an outdated (cough cough) 660, it has the 2010 update, and I'm abnout to replace it's battery myself later on this year.

I've found in the last year that as far as places, it's all in the database used, none are perfect, and you have to remember who's navigating whom hehehe.

 

[teresagranger]

Does anyone else hate the quality of the voice directions? It sounds somewhat blotchy, unclear, and just downright lame. At least with my garmin, the voice actually sounds real and human. Any way of fixing this???