Allen, some comments in-line. But, bottom line: get a new one with free map updates.
On Thursday, November 21, 2013 10:43:49 am Allen Beddingfield wrote: > I have an aging (about four years old) Garmin Nuvi that has not had a > maps update since that time. I had considered replacing it or updating > the maps on it. Given that the maps update costs over half what I > could buy a new one for, I'm leaning toward replacing it. I'm > wondering if they have improved very much in the past few years? <SNIP> > 1. If I'm zipping down the highway at 50mph, and I miss the turn, it > will say "recalculating..." and start counting up the percentage > finished... if the next turn is in 1/4 mile or so, it may not have > finished calculating by the time I get to it, it says recalculating > again, and at that point the thing's mind is blown...it will > perpetually recalculate, unless the next possible turn is miles down > the highway. I have to pull over and let it "catch up" or power cycle > it. The newer ones do a much better job of this. Combination of less buggy software and faster CPUs. > 2. If I select a destination while sitting in a parking lot near a > street, it will highlight the street and say "please drive to > highlighted route". The problem is that when I get on the street, > sometimes I've gone a few blocks before it "figures it out" and > realizes where I am. The display will spin around, zoom in out, say > recalculating a few times, etc.. then all is well, unless the next > turn is nearby, and then I get into the situation I mentioned in #1. > 3. It doesn't handle detecting which road I am on if they are both > side by side. For example (I've seen this one in Atlanta a lot), when > you are on a frontage road that runs right along the highway, it will > get confused and recalculate, thinking that you have magically jumped > onto the highway. I think these two headaches both stem from the same problem: GPS is, at heart, a military program and the Pentagon controls just about all aspects of it. Commerical GPS units can only receive a degraded signal that is accurate to 50 feet or so. More expensive units (available to surveyors for example) are capable of near millimeter accuracy. Another possible cause of these problems is the number of satellites your unit is tracking. There <should> be six or more in the sky over you nearly all the time. Unfortunately not enough money has been put into the program over the past few years and failing satellites are not being replaced as quickly as they need to be. > 4. Sometimes when I select a destination, it just > doesn't calculate the time to arrive..there is just no value on the > screen. Usually when this occurs, it also doesn't show the current > speed. Some bug in the software, I'm guessing. This bug still haunts the newer units -- at least I see it every once in a while. Reboot seems to fix it fairly reliably. I think this has happened to me maybe twice in the past year. You might also look at your default settings. > > In summary, the thing is super-laggy, and takes a long time to deal > with recalculations. Are they any better now? Is this just a Garmin > thing, and should I look at another manufacturer and just deal with > getting used to a different interface? Are GPS unites better now? Yes, they are. The high cost of map replacement pushed me to get a newer unit (with free map updates) for the car and I moved the older unit over to my scooter, where it does just fine with the (somewhat) slower speeds and a default setting of "stay off highways/intersates." HTH Sean
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