Need to buy a GPS.

Boo Boo,

I can only give you a biased opinion:-)

I have used CoPilot Live on both a PDA and my smart phone and it's not a bad product, however it is not sold as a "stand alone" device. Having said that it is a benchmark to compare with other devices I come across.

I looked at Route 66 which was part of the original Hema Navigator and found it to be "clunky".

I purchased a Tomtom Go 720 some 5 years ago and still use it as my primary street navigation device. It has undergone battery replacement and regular map updates and I find it simple, user friendly and flexible in providing accurate voice guided navigation in metropolitan areas, as well as some country trips along major routes.
When the battery next determines the need for replacement, I intend upgrading to another Tomtom and I have selected The Go Live 2050 World as the most likely replacement.

Now this unit probably has all the "bells and whistles" features you say you don't need, but just maybe, after using a device for a while you may find you wish you have such and such a feature and wish you had paid a little more for the extra flexibility.

As a comparison, the XXL 540 you mention is an OK device BUT:
It does not come with "life time" map updates and will become less accurate over time, as road constructions change.

My suggestion (again I'm only focusing on the Tomtom devices) is to look at as a minimum, the Via 220 which includes 4 map updates per year, or, if you want a 5" display, the via 280 or via 620, or one of the two Go Live models.

I am a great fan of the Tomtom device and do not need to change to another brand.
Some brands may give the added ability to run an "off road" app, but no device currently available will allow you to run 2 applications at the one time.
So if you are traveling the country and recording your route for future reference, you do not want to have to shut it down, to activate a street navigation program while in a major country town, then restart the "off road" application again.
(My old Dell Axim PDA enabled me to run both OziExplorer and CoPilot live concurrently, with the aid of GPSGate, enabling multiple applications to share the GPS input).

For this reason, I now run a Tomtom device for street guided navigation for both metropolitan areas of our major cities, as well as some of the major cities and towns throughout the Country, and at the same time, my Hema Navigator (or Galaxy tab 10.1) running OziExplorer for more complete countrywide travel, recording the track I take plus any waypoints I may enter along the way.

Think hard on not only what your current requirements are, but what the additional features (such a "life time" map updates) will give you for a little more investment.

Working in the Sydney C B D and surrounds have found Garmins products to be the best at finding address and giving you plenty of warning about turning and what lanes to be in.

I am a Garmin voter as well. I have a tom tom at the moment but a garmin before and in the US, I have a Garmin as well. Easy to use and much easier than a Tom tom. Both my cars have in built GPS and they are to complicated to use.

Another approach might be that Dick Smith and others now sell 5 inch units at $98 dollars so they are throw away / give away to the kids items now after a year or 2 and just get a new one.

Saves a lot of the hassles I see with upgrades etc and allows me for instance to kept my Garmin 276c with its unmatched features for off road use - and also have a basic backup - I like this idea Boo Boo.

Why go for a dedicated GPS.

I use a Samsung tab 7.7 (model not now available but their are lots of others.)

With it I can use either the auto routing software that comes with Android, or OziExplorer

The supplied software is fairly basic but does the job OK, and I have lots of other software including phone, email, web browsing etc etc all in one unit.

I have a Seasucker to mount it on the windscreen and the 7" screen is a good size I find.

Just buy a Garmin nuvi 50 and an Garmin TOPO Australia NZ MicroSD V4 . Put the card in the GPS and you have turn x turn mapping for the whole of australia with 1:100 000 map . I dont bother with updates . When a new TOPO Australia NZ map comes out i just buy that . The advantage of the MicroSD rather than the DVD is the MicroSD is transferrable to other garmin compatible devices . I just put the MicroSD card in and the GPS is ready to go .