GPS, Ask Engadget: Which GPS rules both North America and Europe?
By Darren Murph 
posted April 17th 2008 9:19PM
posted April 17th 2008 9:19PM
Yeah, you definitely have our permission to be incredibly envious of someone who is actually going to be motoring about in both Europe and North America on a frequent basis, but in all seriousness, we're betting Sneaker isn't the only chap out there looking for the best GPS for intercontinental travels. "I'm headed to Europe in the near future and will be doing some extensive driving. Thus, I'm wondering which GPS units your readers have found to be effective for cruising on the back-roads of Europe, while still getting the job done in North America as well? Would appreciate some recommendations."
You'll notice a budget is glaringly absent here, so feel free to toss out your recommendations from low-end to princely. Meanwhile, you can beam in a burning question of your own by writing us at ask at engadget dawt com -- who knows, you might find your very own words in this space next week.
By far the best of all the GPS's for North America and Europe is the Garmin Nuvi x70 series. I personally own a Nuvi 670. I have driven in way way way back roads of France (all roads are in this unit, including towns of only 20 people), Stockholm Sweden and 70 miles outside the city, Copenhagen, Genoa (every tiny walkway in Genoa is in here), Zurich, Paris and suburbs, Geneva, and Munich. Since I live in the US, I've not found a single road missing in any town or city I've driven in. Montreal, Toronto, and middle of nowhere Ontario are equally detailed and accurate.
If you plan on driving in both North America and Europe, there is no other choice. The "safety camera" (read fixed and mobile radar traps in Europe) database is wonderful, and works very well. Traffic reception is on par with all the other systems that receive this information. Since all the GPS's pretty much work off the same data, there's no real advantage to one system or another. Bluetooth works great for hands free phone. The MP3 player is nice when you miss your tunes (the FM transmitter is great in some cars and useless in others). The screen is clear, easy to read in bright sunlight. There is a huge number of languages this things speaks and displays. You can have the GPS display in English, but read in Italian, French, or a number of other languages. The text to speech works very well and is completely understandable in whichever language you choose (I can attest to Portugese, French (and Canadian French), Italian, and Greek being accurate).
There is one downside to the Nuvi's, sometimes the routing it chooses is odd. You will always get where you need to go. But the routes can be a bit strange at times. Between Geneva and the French Alps, it directed me to leave the highway a few times for no apparent reason. Sometimes I followed, sometimes I ignored it. The best part of rerouting when you ignore the Nuvi - the device just says "recalculating" and then directs you to make real live legal road turns to reroute. It never tells you to make a U-Turn, make illegal turns, or turn around in parking lots. Unlike Neverlost or a Mercedes nav system I once used. You do have navigation options, car/motorcycle, avoid highways, pedestrian (it even knows when you are driving but have the unit set to pedestrian and will ask if you'd like to change back to car), and off road (routing as the crow flies - think airplanes).
I would totally avoid any of the 200 series of Nuvi's. They have built in attennas that are not very sensitive. The 300, 600 and 700 series all have extremely sensitive antennas. I see no reason to spend the extra money on a 770 versus a 670. The added features (mostly a more sensitive antenna, and multidestination navigation) on a 770 are just not worth the extra $100 or so.
The difference between a 600 and 300 series number for number is pretty much screen size. I've seen and used a 300 series, and own the 670. The extra screen space is well worth it to me.
If you are truly looking for a North American / European GPS, the Garmin Nuvi 670 is the unit to purchase. All others are a long far second best to this device.
the nuvi 770 is what i have... its freaking sweet!
i wish it had mexico, australia and russia though
I use the Garmin nuvi 660 great GPS unit, lots of features very portable great battery life, and best of all easy to upgrade!!!, you have realtime traffic alerts, expandable with sd card slot jpeg photo viewer and a wide screen display. it switches easly from North America to Europe and so far has been very accurate. I highly reccomend this unit!
TomTom: they are the only company with a MOTORCYCLE/SCOOTER unit, ttbomk.
Also, their software rocks, compared with the isolated-device attitude from the competition.
The things I don't like about TomTom software? UI, as usual ( why not let us jack in? - oh, yeah, that was only in Wintermute's day, right )
Garmin Nuvi 370. Works quite nicely both in the US and Europe; integrated traffic information receiver works in Europe (for free!), too...
The best one for both US and Europe is Garmin NUVI 370. I have done many research on the web. Nuvi 370 is the one to go.
I travel extensively in North America, UK/Ireland, Northern & Western Europe.
A problem is the map provider: I found that in old quarters of old EU cities Teleatlas is better, in US suburbs the NavTeq is better, in newer areas of all cities both were about equal. In Ireland & EU countryside Teleatlas was better as well as in souther Europe, NavTeq & TeleAtlas seemed about equal in UK and For some reason NavTeq did better in Northern France, Netherlands and Benelux (go figure!) Both are perfectly capable of telling you you are driving 1-2 miles from where you are (I guess if they get a poor signal). Another map relevant factor is the storage required for the map: the slower the processor, the more physical memory is required to provide a given rendering speed. We are entering a new generation of compression (expect some patent wars) together with a new generation of power efficient and powerful processors. This will lower the cost of providing multi-content maps without resorting to a hard disk.
Historically the US map supplier relied more on government provided specs whereas Teleatlas did more driving-around based map validation. Both map vendors are madly fighting to improve their map bases so by 2008 (2009?) map versions we will see much less differences. Also prices are dropping so quickly that one may consider throwing out the old and simply replacing. Especially if you don't have the version iii satnav acquisition chips, 200-300mhz processors, etc.
Following in importance after the map provider is the satnav processer and cpu's processoing power. There are two main satnav signal processor vendors madly competing. The SIRF StarIII seems to be the fastest satnav processor based on what I have found over the past 6 months. I am sure there will be a change. There is a bit of a fight between Samsung and Intel are fighting it out in the cpu arena. Not much difference but it seems that Samsung may use a bit more power, reducing battery life. Again this is changing.
And now the OS wars: some use Micro$oft CE (Navigon), some use LINUX RTOS, while TomTom & Garmin (so far) use their own proprietary OS's. Each has a licensing or support cost that affects product stability.
The revenue model until very recently relied on expensive GPS's and (frightlfully expensive) map upgrades. It is nearly always cheaper to buy a unit on sale than to upgrade the maps every 2 years.
I now have a Garmin Nuvi 650 and a TomTom something, both have 2007 maps for US & EU respectively.
Prices for models in the US tend to be cheaper (especially after being on the market a few months), European maps are expensive and generally not available at a discount. All the vendors are trying to grab market share from each other by offering a few models with both maps. Note also that it costs a LOT of licensing money for the GPS vendor to buy maps. The more areas covered, the more of what you pay went to the map provider. The current competition is on features, but we are already seeing more manufacturers providing multi-continent maps as the storage costs drop and competition intensifies.
So, a year from now I will probably have a waterproof unit (motorcycle) and a car version. Both will come standard with US, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Not sure about the Middle East. But since I will be working there next ...
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