Posted on 07/31/2009 7:13:49 AM PDT by Alberta's Child
Sorry for the vanity, folks . . . but I'm looking for some advice from knowledgeable Freepers about an on-board GPS unit for my vehicle. I've checked out various models and have come across a few that look worthwhile, but there are a couple of minor things I haven't found in them and I'm wondering if these features are even available.
I just have a couple of questions for anyone who has knowledge and experience with these:
1. Any preferences for a certain brand (Garmin, Magellen, etc.)?
2. Anything I should be looking for in terms of well-known flaws in specific brands or models?
3. How much does it cost to update the mapping data in these things, and how frequently is this typically done? How easy is it to do this?
4. One important consideration for me is that the unit should be a "two-way" interface if this is something that can be found among the popular brands. In other words, I'm looking for a unit that will track my routes internally and allow me to download the GPS data via a USB port or something similar to the process for downloading digital photos.
Cost is obviously going to be a consideration for me, but depending on features and options (especially with regard to #4 above) I have a lot of flexibility with this, since this is a business expense for me and my company will pay a substantial part of the cost.
I'm surprised how few of these have any "trip log" capabilities. Many of them are set up to upload routes from your PC to the GPS, but the ability to download a trip log from the GPS appears to be pretty rare. The ones I'm looking at have capacity to log 10,000 data points, which sounds like a lot but is less than three hours worth of driving if the GPS unit logs a reading every second.
That’s a great resource, TSmith130 . . . thanks!
Back when these were expensive, many people would "buy" a GPS to use on a vacation, then return it. Another scam was when flat panel TVs were dropping fast in price. Some customers would return them periodically to get a nicer or cheaper model every few months. They don't think so but this is theft, driving up prices for the rest of us. This is mostly Obama's voter base, although I did know one communist-country foreign-born/now conservative that did this.
They should use strong encryption for that. It could be used against the owner in an accident, for speeding, in divorce court, or placing an innocent person near a crime scene. But cell phones already do much of that.
A latitude/longitude and speed reading every second for 3 hours could have come from anywhere -- including someone else's vehicle.
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