Garmin GPS Buyers Guide

March 21st, 2010 | Articles

Garmin has quietly become the leader in all things GPS, location, and communication based. Gary Burrell and Dr. Min Kao co-founders of Garmin in 1989, have surrounded themselves with currently over 1000 employees worldwide with a singular purpose- to create innovative and quality products.

When looking into GPS (Global Positioning Systems) units, you must first look at how you will be using the product. First, Garmin does not only make GPS units but positioning units for bikes, boats, airplanes, trains, runners, and for the trail.

By the year 2000, Garmin had reportedly sold over 3 million GPS units comprising over 50 different products. This is an amazing statistic. Literally, Garmin has and continues to dominate the market.

October 2005, Garmin released the StreetPilot i-Series, one of their most popular GPS models which was designed to bring enhanced features under an affordable price point. The StreetPilot i-Series used a compact flash card with preloaded maps and featured a compact size and color screen. However, while the StreetPilot Series succeeded, Garmin's next offering in 2006 has been even more successful. In October 2006, Garmin began shipping the nüvi 660, featuring an even smaller size with sharper screen revamped processor, and built in maps. It also included for the first time, support for Bluetooth and FM frequency transmitters.

One of the best things about a Garmin GPS unit is the fact that it can acquire (and keep) a GPS signal faster than many other GPS units (TomTom we are looking at you). It is important to have a clear signal processor due to the fact that you will always be traveling in different terrain, such as deep valleys, heavy tree canopy, and city buildings.

How Does GPS Work?

GPS, or Global Positioning System, was first a technology limited to military applications. President Ronald Regan signed an executive order in the 1980's which allowed for GPS signals to be used by consumer electronics, thus ushering in a whole new era of consumer electronics. GPS units triangulate your location using signals which are located in satellites orbiting the earth. A GPS chip is specially designed to acquire and search for these signals which transmit coordinates. Your location cannot be determined using only one satellite, but many. Essentially, by using the coordinates of many satellites, a GPS unit processes this data and can get your exact location within a few meters.

GPS Satellites only transmit their location signals every 30 seconds or so. Thus, if you are not using a GPS unit with a strong processor, it may take 3-4 minutes to acquire your signal because of problems finding the signals which are only transmitted every 30 seconds.

What Features are Necessary for a Good GPS Unit?

With technology getting cheaper and more affordable on a daily basis, it is important to figure out which features are necessary and which features are not needed. Basically, lots of GPS units these days have been touting live data information which can be pulled from your cell phone and breath additional information into your GPS unit, such as weather, traffic, and accident reports. These features rely on bluetooth technology in order to sync with your cell phone. If traffic information is important to you, you should look for a bluetooth feature on your GPS unit. All current Garmin Nuvi lines feature bluetooth connectivity.

Next, some higher end GPS units features MP3 capabilities. This may be the most useless feature of all. While it may seem cool that your GPS unit can play songs, it is highly unlikely that you will ever use this features. Again, as a rule of thumb, good features will be directly supportive of communication and navigation features, rather than doing things which are not at all related to navigation and other features.

Other popular features include fm trasmission, and multiple maps work.

Screen Size and Resolution:
While there are tons of different sizes and shapes to GPS units, the key question to ask is how large of a display you need. Basically, a smaller display may be harder to read while driving, but has positive advantages such as easier carrying and a larger battery life while disconnected, since the battery has less of a screen to render. A larger screen is ideal if you are not going to be taking the unit out of your car very often and will enjoy the larger screen real estate, just keep in mind the above suggestions.

Holders and Accessories:

Obviously, you will need an effective way to charge your GPS unit right out of the box. Unfortunately, not all GPS units include car chargers. Most, however, will include them but as a marketing scheme, other companies only offer a wall charger and thus require you to go ahead and purchase a separate GPS car charger.

Other accessories include handy cases, extra external battery chargers, and various types of car dashboard mounts. Essentially, some people refuse to stick anything to their windshield. In out COMPREHENSIVE TESTING, we found that most individuals have had slipping problems with their GPS windshield mounts. Other nonstick options have become very popular in recent years; these dashboard mounts use weights (sand or something heavy) to rest the unit upright on your dsahboard without having to be stuck to your windshield and without the risk of falling over.