no longer use the Garmin

With the increase in the number of vehicle accidents attributable to hand held use of smartphones, comes an increase in the number of laws prohibiting their use while driving. My fear is these laws will eventually expand in scope to ban all electronic devices, including dash mounted GPSr’s, not built into a vehicle.

While many dash mount their smartphones, the fact is, they are difficult to see and operate at a distance. Many times on the road, I’ve seen a driver take a phone from its mount and hold it in their hand. This alone is a violation in many states.

These anti smartphone laws have already affected other electronic devices. For example; I often drive with a group of others using separate vehicles. We use handheld FRS radios (walkie talkies) to keep in touch. On two occasions, a member of our group was pulled over for using a handheld electronic device while driving. One resulted in a warning, the other a ticket which was eventually thrown out of court.

It is interesting to note that in some states, a corded microphone attached to a dash mounted CB radio is legal while a handheld FRS radio is not! As a result, our group now uses corded microphones and dash mount our FRS radios! This is how ridiculous some of these laws are getting!

I guess what I’m saying here is, if you use a smartphone for navigation, please do it legally and be SAFE!

Garmin goes up 146 to I55 as default. Secondary is Rte 3 to I55.
Google Default is the opposite.

{quote]Then replace that END with either one of these:
204 Largo Dr, Nashville, TN 37211
1530 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139

I still like the Garmin - for adding destinations to the route and never, saved favorites, the larger screen, turnoff view, which lane to be in, and my phone is never tied up. But, I'll admit it's a like pricey for those benefits.

I hold the handwriting on the wall is not that the Garmin's will go away, but that their price will drop even more.

I love my smart phone. I don't typically have my Garmin with me on short trips in relatively familiar areas, and my phone has provided good guidance when it proved necessary. I trust its ability to route as much as I do the Garmin, and it (with its apps) provides better info regarding eateries and hostelries than the Garmin.

That said, on any long trip I wouldn't be without my Garmin. My wife and I just finished a tour of the Ozarks (we live in Michigan). We encountered a number of spots where we had no service on our phones, but the Garmin worked fine. I suppose it's 'belt and suspenders' but they complement each other very well. Further, I prefer not to use data for simple navigation tasks when I know I'll be needing it a lot. I'd replace my Garmin if it failed, but wouldn't be looking for one with a lot of bells and whistles as phones can do so much. I would look for the best deal on a reconditioned unit. I would agree that the market for standalone GPS units has to have contracted.

I use both depending on where I am and what I'm doing. I see no need to limit myself to a single platform.

yes, I agree , use both depend on ..

and how it takes traffic into account and reroutes very quickly if necessary. Also find Waze timing for arrival more accurate than GPS

This can't be true -- the bands used are the same (in fact, modern smartphones should have BETTER coverage than older dumb phones because they have access to MORE bands, e.g. TMobile's Band 12).

I think it wise to have both systems.

Stand alone gpsr units have run thier course. Almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays, with screen sizes most of the time as large or larger than stand alone units.
There are gps apps that dont use data, so if your phone plan has a set amount of data or your traveling through a cell dead area you dont use data or lose guidance.
Some of the apps even load your custom poi files.

However, sometimes you just can't teach a old dog new tricks. Even if as easy as reaching in your pocket.

... about old dogs, fact is my Garmin does what I want, my phone doesn't ... simple as

And yet even Garmin realizes the writing is on the wall. In recent years they have focused more on fitness trackers than automotive GPS. They wouldn't have shifted their focus if they believed the automotive GPS had a future. Marine and aeronautic GPS on the other hand will likely be around for a while after the automotive GPS is driven to extinction.

different systems simultaneously to see if there are any differences.

On a recent trip my Garmin, automatically rerouted me twice because of major traffic hold ups, it corrected the ETA also. I used the new ETA to advise the restaurant that we would be arriving late and got there to withing one minute of the said time.

Google does not warn about REDLIGHT or SPEED CAMERAS! I live in NYC and traffic is the main problem. Generally Google Maps, WAZE if you can stand the interruptions and pointless re-routings, offer usable traffic information that is better than my Garmin 3590. My Garmin is still a backup for when cell service dies or in NYC's 25 mph nightmare of cameras. I need Red Light Camera warnings.

On a long trip,time wise, I often find the Garmin superior for trips over an hour length. Traffic changes rapidly and may be gone by the time you get there. In NY it is best to call 511 when using the bridges, especially at late night when there are closures.

Traffic has gotten much worse since the universal use of texting by drivers. On the 495 people immediately go to their phones on a slowdown, often stopping and ignoring everything while they text. As accidents and fatalities increase I suppose there will be stricter legislation and penalties. Ultimately it may be necessary to blank out cell service on the roadway with frequency jammers.

Too much of a good thing always kills it.

How about when you touch your phone and it cancels the route, or butt dials your mother in law?

I use both but I will never give up the Garmin, it has saved on many ocassions

but mostly my Garmin. I don't really have a dedicated mount for my phone & the Garmin is easier to read even though both screens are about the same size.

Will give Google Maps a try when I get a smart phone. Until then I will stick with my Garmin.

I agree with you.

Never saw the need for texting and stuff, Garmin gets us there so no need for fancy stuff.

Good, that means Garmin does that correctly too.

Not sure what "only added the route to Nashville to It in the above section." means. "added the route to Nashville to It"? the Whitehaven Welcome Center?

If you added Nashville as a destination AFTER the Whitehaven Welcome Center, that's not the test, and it doesn't prove anything.

If you added Nashville as a destination INSTEAD of the Whitehaven Welcome Center, and if Garmin maintained the same route for the first part (to Paducah), then it did what google did and the others did not.

The worst offenders (not google or Garmin, apparently), default to google's THIRD choice, "via I-64 E" which is more than 33 miles farther, any time the destination is much farther than Paducah, even if they chose a reasonable route IF Paducah was the end of the trip. Wild changes in routing whenever the otherwise exact same route (to a point) is extended further, do not exactly shout "routing you can depend on" to me.

Which may explain why you don't understand what the test shows.

As mentioned, I don't have a Garmin PND to test, so when I said all the others except google did something, that group did not include Garmin.

It's all right there, in these two posts. I already cited the first one, but here they are again:

http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/5658-who-wants-help-design-all...
http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/5658-who-wants-help-design-all...

Even easier: view these two images of Here default routing:
http://imgur.com/RJx5Wgm (294 miles to Nashville)
http://imgur.com/rxP3gqV (228.6 miles to Clarksville)
and google's correct routing:
http://imgur.com/YpMLsDp (184 miles to Clarksville)

There should not be any doubt that the first two are wildly inaccurate, and that google's routing is accurate.

Here's routing on the first part of progressively longer routes change drastically depending on the distance to the destination. That's what's wrong. Some others do that too, but not as bad as Here.

If you use Garmin, it doesn't matter if some other system produces wacky routing, that (in the first two tests I cited) take the driver 30 or 60+ miles out of the way, for no good reason. Here is even worse on the last one (Oak Ridge, MO to Clarksville TN or Nashville, TN)

Of course they use different routing algorithms; that's the point, in particular, that some of them don't work too well, and my testing provides plenty of evidence of that.

As far as ETA or elapsed time, the tests I did were not oriented toward that, and I not take any issue with the elapsed time estimates or ETAs.

Good for you, and I respect your choices.

I just don't trust Google OS.

Since I have it and it's paid for, I still have the Garmin unit sitting on my dash and turned on all the time.

But the traffic reports are very flakey, and I turn on WAZE on my phone if I see, or suspect, some traffic problems ahead.

I have the Garmin Dezl 760 and I paid for the traffic feature that connects to my phone via Bluetooth. I drive anywhere from 100-300 daily for work, all around the DC (MD-VA) metro area, in and out of new sub-divisions, mostly during rush hour.

The only reason I use my Garmin is because it's there and I love that big screen. It also does a great job of showing the highway exits and what lane(s) you should be in where it's often more than 6 lanes. Voice command is pretty cool too, when it works. That's about it.

I put the same address into Waze and Garmin (when Garmin has a new home address-often it doesn't) and then drive the route Waze tells me. The Garmin is USELESS for traffic, although I once thought it was helpful before I had Waze. The updates are way too slow for dynamically changing traffic and choosing and new routes are not offered in time, if at all.

The fact that the information actually comes through my cell phone then to the Garmin makes it even less impressive than just using Waze. So many times when I was travelling down a highway Waze suddenly instructed me to exit, taking me on a meandering route over side roads somewhat parallel to the highway, then back onto the highway maybe 3 or 5 miles down. A quick look back often shows traffic nearly at a standstill for that 3 or 5 miles stretch. I've really come to trust the directions and re-routes especially.

I love my Garmin for that last few miles into a subdivision, or where traffic is no factor. I have it setup to draw track lines making it easy to get out again (very easy to get turned around and almost trapped in new subdivision hell), even where it doesn't show the newer streets, the lines are still drawn. And I like it when the directions agree with Waze, allowing me to look at the big screen instead of my phone, or freeing my phone up for other things.

I've used GPS mapping since 1999 but I now feel like this is the end of an era for the likes of Garmin, TomTom etc. My driving is all about traffic in this area, much more so than directions to my destination. Until they can offer real time traffic, re-routing, and the kind of information about delays that Waze offers I feel the gap between the two will only get larger. The same for map updates. For my purposes, calling on people in new homes in new sub-divisions, the frequency of Garmin map updates will never be adequate.

Well first off you shouldn't be trying to make adjustments while driving, and if your using a smart phone you could use a blue tooth speaker or head set to hear it just fine some can even pair with your car radio.

Just don't get nabbed making the adjustments while driving it's not a very safe thing to do.

Reading the above comments, it seems like most people have traffic as their highest priority, which is not my personal preference. Most of the time my usage of a GPS has routing as my first priority, and my experience has been that my TomTom still does that better than the phone apps.

In addition, I prefer a phone of a modest shirt-pocket size, not a phablet, so the phone screen is much more difficult to read than the GPS screen.

Different strokes for different folks . . .

- Tom -

Tom if you ever get stuck on an interstate behind a bad wreck, you will know why traffic is so important. I got warning on my Garmin from my phone and avoided sitting in traffic for two hours one trip. Our friends who got stuck in the traffic said they just turned their engines off and sat for two hours. We were home eating dinner.

We had to drive to the Eastern part of North Carolina just a few days after Hurricane Mathew, I used Smartlink for traffic. It recalculated a number of times due to road closed and wrecks. Was very impressed till we got caught behind a wreck about 100 yards in front of us! I will say that when the police opened a lane and we got to move some 45 mins later the ETA was spot on when in fact we did get to our destination.