May be time for a new car GPS

[Two Goth Geeks]

My Navman has been sending me the wrong way recently so I thought rather than upgrading the maps I might look at a new Tomtom.
The Navman only supports ASCII so it can't sync properly with my iPhone. I just get gibberish for the contacts names. Navman support don't know what 'an ASCII' is and suggested a map upgrade may fix my issue... :-/
Besides, even the good folks at Tandy mentioned a Navman rep saying the new versions were difficult to use hehe.

I don't want to spend $500 again as I did with my Navman, but everything is much cheaper these days.

What I'd like in a car navigator:

* Enter Long/Lat. My Navman does not support this. Do any Tomtom's?
* Text to Speech
* Sync contacts with my iPhone nicely. Or, alternatively, just work well with my iPhone through bluetooth so I can use the navigator for hands-free
* I know most (all?) Tomtoms support customisable voices.

I'd like the ability to use the navigator to enter Long/Lat as a backup second-opinion to my iPhone with Geosphere. The iPhone's GPS is not terribly accurate.

Any other suggesions for brand/model?

TIA!

[Mr Router]

Anything Garmin is good

[solomonfamily]

Anything Garmin is good

You are going to find here people are passionate about their brands. We too like our Garmins and intend to stick with them.

But....
I have a current issue however (and I have tried to bring this up in other forums). We love our Gamin Nuvi310 but its antenna is on the blink and the cost to repair is pointing us to get a new unit - the criteria has to include that the GSAK will talk to it with the export macro - there seems to be no answer to this - any suggestions welcome - we are looking at the Nuvi1390 anyone tried it?
We want to still keep the N310 functions Bluetooth/Text to Speech functions.

We also use the Oregon300

[tronador]

My Tom Tom Go 720 can do all the things you mention but I'm not sure about the iphone cause I don;t have one but i can use the blue tooth function on my phone to synch with the tom tom and use it for hands free communication

[ma77hew]

I'm loving my TomTom One v3 but, as the not-so-current entry level unit, it won't tick all your boxes. However, if you're a GSAK user, you can easily export caches as TomTom POIs. You don't even need the TomTom Home software, you can have GSAK generate the file straight into the appropriate directory on the device.

I also use the TomTom One v4 at work and find that it won't create a route to a waypoint that is more than about 30m from a road - pretty much useless for anything other than drive-bys - but the latest generation of maps & software may have that sorted.

[Two Goth Geeks]

Thanks for your replies

[Two Goth Geeks]

Wow! The Nuvi 1390 looks really really cool!

[solomonfamily]

Wow! The Nuvi 1390 looks really really cool!

It does, but the unanswered question that I have is will the GSAK macro work?

[Yurt]

I hire a Garmin when interstate with a hire car. They're only as good as the map updates and Avis obviously haven't paid lately. Many a road is not in it. Perth airport, Geelong bypass, industrial areas, even streets in Frankston from the 60s it can't find when you search. Had no record of Mount Waverley.

Actually they are pieces of rubbish. With that horrible whingey voice "Please drive to highlighted route!!!"

I'm about to buy a car GPS so I can take that with me instead. The Garmin Etrex isn't much good on the road!
Probably go Tom Tom if it will tell me where all the speed and red light cameras are in Melbourne. Don't need a GPS in Sydney.