GPS's with life time maps

Submitted: Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 08:21
ThreadID: 98594 Views:3476 Replies:10 FollowUps:10
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Doing some research on GPS's lately and was given some interesting information from the manager at one of the leading electrical stores.
Getting a GPS with life time maps (in his opinion) is a waste of money.
Reason behind this, is that a GPS is only expected to last around three years. On average. They die.
He did admit that a fair few he had seen returned did not look like they were looked after, and were in continual use.
He gave me some examples on pricing.
One of the new Garmin Nuvi's is $300.00 with life time maps.
The same unit without life time maps is$89.00
He gave other examples, but as i'm only interested in Garmin the price did not stay in the memory cells....

If a GPS is only expected to last this long, whats the point in paying an extra $200.00. Are the roads going to change that much in three years? Four? Five? Sure, large city streets can change, but unless your a courier and neeed the new streets/suburbs for work.
Most of us are travelling away from the cities anyway.

Whats your opinion?
Worth the extra money or not?

BTW. My Garmin is about four years old, and the only time it has trouble is where the new bypass is just north of Gundagai. Keeps telling me to get back on the road.
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Reply By: Notso - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 08:24

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 08:24
I don't know about your experience, but I bought a Nuvi with Lifetime (3 or 4 years updates) for $88.00. Now I reckon that's a good deal.
AnswerID: 496837

Follow Up By: SDG - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 09:04

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 09:04
Where was that from, and when?
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Follow Up By: Notso - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 09:46

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 09:46
The Good Guys, about a six weeks ago. Had to register for the lifetime maps and had the first update almost immediately.
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Follow Up By: Allan B (Member, SunCoast) - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:12

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:12
"Lifetime (3 or 4 years updates)"

So what is it? "Lifetime" or "3 or 4 years"?

Is "Lifetime" the expected 'Time to failure' of the product?
Sorry, I'm being cynical again.

Cheers
Allan

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Follow Up By: Notso - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 16:33

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 16:33
Yeay, I don't know really, my original Garmin Nuvi 250W is still going fine after about 6 years, but I wanted to update the maps and that would have been around $150.00 for lifetime? updates

So $88.00 for a new unit about the same spec + a few extra bits (Nuvi 40) with maps updates for at least 3 or 4 years sounded pretty good.
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Reply By: Member - Toyocrusa (NSW) - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 08:33

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 08:33
G'day SDG. I recently bought one after having a Tom Tom for 5 years. The Tom Tom cost me around $200 over that time to upgrade but even then the upgrades were never accurate for Sydney City. So far the Garmin has been far ahead of the Tom Tom and I paid $240 with extended warranty so I am very happy. I guess time will tell. Bob
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Reply By: AdrianJansen - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 10:15

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 10:15
I dont know where you get your lifetime figure of 3 years. I have owned 4 Garmin receivers ( 3 handheld, one car unit) . The oldest is a Garmin 12XL, still works after 15 years. All of the handhelds are used extensively camping and hiking, often wet. The car unit ( a Nuvi 255 ) has been in the car about 4 years. Never had a problem.

Map updates are useful, more so in city areas with development, but even in country areas, things change. And the mapping itself is improving, aligning the map with existing roads better.

My pet hate is that many places in the country have gazetted roads, but never actually built, not even as a track. The mapping should never assume that because a road is gazetted, that it exits.
AnswerID: 496843

Reply By: olcoolone - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:26

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:26
In my opinion most car based GPS are only good for metro and major regional areas anyway, as soon as you get out of these areas the quality of the map is very poor.

Suppose I'm a bit bias as we run a laptop for mapping outside metro areas and for metro we use TomTom on our Iphones if needed.

Metro maps a constantly changing.
AnswerID: 496850

Reply By: Member - Rod N (QLD) - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:39

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:39
Garmin has switched from Whereis to Navteq maps, a backward step in my opinion. In my area of Toowoomba Navteq seams to have more trouble than Whereis with the unmade roads. Also Navteq road names are a bit hopeless. I submitted error reports a couple of months ago so will see what happens.
AnswerID: 496851

Reply By: member - mazcan - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:40

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:40
hi sdg
the sales manager is looking after his sales figures stating that 3 yrs is the life of a gps dont believe sales talk they make a living out of selling to anyone who will listern to their bs
i have 2 mio units a c320 and a 300moov the 320 is 4.9yrs old and is still a very good gps had map update in 2009 does need a new battery but still operates off 12v vehicle source
the 300-moov is 3.9yrs old and hasnt had a map update but are availuble and i am waiting for a replacement battery due here thursday
( mio and navman are the same company now)

although neither has the new forrest hwy them and a few new subdivisions in perths northern region i hon ave very little trouble navigating with eitherit is quet an easy task for any handyman to put a new battery in one and if you google the topic for your brand there are you-tube vidio's on how to pull them apart
i get my batteries from this site
www.codabatteries.com.au
paypal/credit card etc
and very reasonable postal charges
they have a smorgasbord of batteries for every known brand
no affiliation just a happy customer
cheers
barry
AnswerID: 496852

Follow Up By: SDG - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 14:50

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 14:50
While I understand the sales hype, as an ex salesman myself, this bloke was not selling as such. We are friends personally and we were just talking in general. He even told me not to buy at that particular shop, and if I was going to buy, wait till Saturday where the competition is going to have a 25% off sale on GPS, which has not been advertised, and only a runour based on two managers talking to each other.

The one supposedly having a sale is owned by a bloke that flies around in a helicopter and also owns a company that sells biscuits.
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Follow Up By: Member - John and Val - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:25

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:25
Hi SDG,

Just a minor point - the fella who flies around in a helicopter no longer owns any part of the company that bears his name. It was for some years owned by Woolworths, now (2012) is owned by private equity firm Anchorage Capital Partners .

Cheers,

Val
J and V
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein

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Follow Up By: SDG - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:37

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:37
I did not know that, but at least you knew who I was talking about.
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Reply By: Allan B (Member, SunCoast) - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:07

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 15:07
Well SDG, I think I have to agree regarding the costs of upgrades, whether purchased later or included in the product price.

After reading your post and some responses earlier today, then doing some research online, I just went out and bought a Garmin Nuvi 50 for $132, RRP of $159. I did not want lots of 'Bells & Whistles', just a simple-to-use, clear-to-read, inexpensive device, and the Nuvi 50 seems to be all that.

Whilst the "life" (i.e. the time until it carks") of a navigator may be many years it is often not so. In any event, the product quality constantly improves so it can be attractive to upgrade regularly. So the "life" may well be viewed differently.

An additional advantage of regular product upgrade is that the product is always within warranty and I need not bother with map updates.

There are probably valid arguments either way but 'product replacement' suits me.

Cheers
Allan

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Reply By: mischief - Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 23:32

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2012 at 23:32
Hi Allen, Am a bit curious ,does the nuvi 50 have coordinates for a gps search or only street mapping.
Mischief.


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Follow Up By: Allan B (Member, SunCoast) - Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 00:01

Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 00:01
Hi mischief, Yes it does. From the opening screen and "Where To?" you select either an address or other function including an option to insert coordinates.

You can also determine tour current location coordinates by touching the vehicle icon on the map.

Cheers
Allan

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Follow Up By: mischief - Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 16:35

Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 16:35
Thanks Allen, have an old Mio (palm type) with copilot in it. Swapped over to a free garmin OZ map on sd card.It's a pain to use,so was looking for something cheap with coordinates...Just for free camp spots. Might go scrounging tomorrow.
Thanks again,, Mischief.
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Reply By: Member - John and Val - Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 10:41

Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 10:41
A bit at a tangent to your thread, but Navigator FREE - which is a OpenStreetMaps based free turn-by-turn GPS navigation by mapFactor for Windows, Windows Mobile devices and Android devices is well worth a look.

It can be downloaded for free. We loaded it onto an older style HP tablet that we use to run OziExplorer (a bit bulky but easy to read), gave it a bit of a test on local roads and on that basis took it to England where it worked very well.

It uses OpenStreetMap which is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world.

It seems to be targetted at truck drivers but there is a basic version which is the one we used. Link is here

Cheers,

Val
J and V
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- Albert Einstein

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Follow Up By: SDG - Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 12:02

Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 12:02
I could just imagine my old man driving his truck with one of them. It would have gone out the window... Lucky he retired last January. To be honest he would probably never use the GPS as a mapping feature. Mum as the navigator would a little, but mostly it would get used for the extras that are on it. ie where is the nearest hospital, shop, pub, etc. Occasionally it might get used to find a street or caravan park etc that they are booked into.

I personally also have never used a GPS to tell me where i'm going. I look at it occasionally to find how much further to the next town/destination, speed, time, fuel millages etc.
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Reply By: rocco2010 - Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 15:11

Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 15:11
Gidday

I used to be like SDG's old man ... not any more. I have just returned from a holiday in England which involved a couple of weeks driving in the west country. My Scots heritage got the better of me when the car hirer offered me a Tom Tom navigator for five pounds a day. I don't need one I thought, managed last time. It took me about half an hour of making my way out of London on the infamous North Circular Road to realise I had made a mistake. Travelling solo over unfamiliar roads in heavy traffic is certainly a test of concentration and no matter how much planning you do with maps in advance the double roundabout with eight exits is a challenge! The narrow lanes in Cornwall and Devon are not always that well signposted and having advance warning of which way to go at the next intersection (not to mention knowing it is coming up as you twist and turn among the hedgerows) would be a great advantage.
As they say, you live and learn.


Cheers
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