GPS for a car

I'm taking a long road trip. Any recomendation for good GPS's under or around $250?

Preferably one that has an SD slot for map updates.

Do you own one? How do you like it?

 

i own a Dell X51V Pocketpc with an external GPS receiver....(if u want, u can buy a dell x51v on eBay for ~$200, another $100 for a GPS receiver with GPS application[Tomtom...])..... its nice having a device that is portable and usable, 3.7" screen, SD AND CF slot

if u just want a standalone GPS receiver.... those $200 GPS units may lack some features(text to speech for streets, lousy GPS chip[find one with the SiRF III Chip, its probably the best]

 

I've got the Garmin Nuvi 350 and it has never failed me. Used it for many road trips and works like a charm And yes, it has a SD slot!

 

I got a deal on a Lowrance 250 and it is great, very quick and has worked in both cali and VA. I would suggest the 350 as it has WAAS, but great products none the less.

 

Thanks for the recommendation! What has your experience been with battery life and picking up GPS signals in stormy conditions or remote woodsy areas?

I'm looking at that on Amazon right now. $230 with free shipping! And it has Canada too! Thanks for the thought.

The 350 looks very nice. It is still pretty expensive though. My searching is finding it is the $300 range. WAAS is definately worth it though... Thanks for the input .

 

I toss something "outside the box" at you. You obviously have a laptop already so you may want to look into this:

http://www.microsoft.com/streets/default.mspx

75$ + the cost of a inverter (like 50$ if you dont have one) and turn your laptop into a state of the art GPS system. No worry about a SD slot, you can update it every time your near a wi-fi hotspot.

 

I've been considering doing that for a long time. I saw that package with the sofware and GPS in a store a while back. It is a great price.

My main concern is that my satellite radio won't seem to work when other things are consuming power. I don't know why, since it requires very little power to run. My 150w inverter should be enough to handle it, but no dice. I can't even use my phone charger and radio at the same time .

Other than that is is just where do I mount the thing! It would be a fun mod on my car though after I resolve the power issues.

 

Online is always an option, but I always see it in the computer games section at walmart when I go shoping.

as for power issues, sounds like your car has a overload protection or wiring issue. To solve that run your own wire from the battery for the inverter.

I used to do professional car audio installs, its cake work and you can get what you need at any car audio place, plus the really good inverters hook direct to battery anyways.

edit: sounds like your saying your radio is also using the inverter, i thought it was installed into the car and the radio stops working when you use the inverter. In the case of what you just said it sounds like the inverter sucks or has a short or something strange to that effect.

 

Amazon sells the Garmin nuvi 360 for $10 more (compared to the 350, that is).