Garmin GPS anyone?

[jmilk]

I'm sick of the TomTom's utter inability to pronounced the name of my home state (and many other issues), and I've been shopping GPS units. I like the Garmin Nuvis' interface, and the maps seem to be a lot better than TomTom as well. Garmin recently introduced EcoRoute. Is this something that's worthwhile? Has anyone here used it and been able to confirm that it provides more FE routes? Curious.

[wyatt]

I have a Nuvi 650. It's nice and has lots of different voices to chose from. If I use Australian, St. is pronounced "saint" and Dr. is "doctor". Not sure how those got missed... Overall we really like it. As far as the map goes, I was under the impression that the TomTom and Garmin had the same map, just different software for looking at it.

[TomO]

I have a friend that has the Nuvi 600 or 650 but he says he's happy with it as well.

[Piwoslaw]

I recently bought a Nuvi 250W, yesterday came back from my third trip with it. The first two trips were just fine, but yesterday the Nuvi sent us out into the middle of a field. Came close to getting stuck in the sand. Maybe it's the map's fault (Europe), not the Nuvi's.
Earlier I borrowed my brother-in-law's PocketPC with AutoMapa (v3.8) GPS software. That was fun!! Instead of staying on the highway, it got me onto some super-rural road where I had to watch out for dogs, chickens and drunk locals in the middle of the road. All because that route was 100 meters shorter than the highway. Since then, I use the 'fastest' option instead of 'shortest'.

The ecoRoute seems like a good idea. There is an EcoModder blog and thread about something similar.
One step further would be the GPS unit telling you when to accelerate, coast, etc. This was discussed somewhere here, but I can't find it now.

[UfoTofU]

Good Housekeeping's Guide to GPS systems

[stevet47]

Myself, my wife and both of my parents all have different Garmin Nuvi's and we love them. I cannot stand to use a GPS that isn't a Garmin. I have never had one pronounce anything wrong.
The one problem I see with all of the Garmins I have experience with is that the Point of Interest or whatever it is called is sometimes wrong. For example, if you search for the nearest gas station, I have had it take me to a house. But I'd say 95% of the time, this feature is reliable.
Also, once it got me to a wedding late, because it told me to turn right on the street, but it was a left. Not Garmins fault though, the church's street number was out of order, and based on the address it SHOULD have been a right.

[i_am_socket]

I just use the GPS navigation software built into my phone. Only 1 bizarre trip out into the middle of nowhere in the past 6 months.

"Get on highway, turn right off highway and go 2 miles into <town>, make U turn, go 2 miles and get on highway..." wtf?