GPS things

I just changed this week my old sat-nav system that was based on the TOMTOM for smart phones (I Have an E61i) and a bluetooth GPS receiver. Although good for the price‚ I felt the need to move on to something better.

The cons of the above system are that you can not receive calls while navigating‚ (actually you can‚ but it switches to the phone. It is a nice security feature also)‚ your mobile battery is killed within hours‚ and you need always two charges in the car‚ one for the BT GPS module and other to the phone.

After some researching‚ I went to a Garmin Nüvi 300T. Garmins is producing GPS to a varied range of uses since ever‚ and its GPS to the sat-nav market is really good. Even though everybody talks very well about tomtom sat-nav devices‚ about its interface‚ I decided for the Garmin simply because it is broader in coverage and their traffic detection system is truly the best technological solution.

They use a technology called TMC‚ and from their web page:

"FM TMC Traffic
Our FM traffic receivers receive TMC digital information (where available) on traffic and road construction tie-ups. Your compatible Garmin unit uses this information to minimize trip delays.

In most areas, depending on the service provider, TMC traffic broadcasts are continuous — there's no waiting for scheduled traffic news updates or random alerts. Because traffic broadcasts are received via a "silent" FM data channel, you can still listen to music or news programming on your car radio without interference from incoming FM traffic data transmissions."

The good things bout this sat-nav system are that their maps are cheaper and have more coverage than TOMTOM‚ and they use TMC instead of the tie up system TOMTOM makes you pay monthly.

Cool links:
http://www8.garmin.com/traffic/fm/index.jsp
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=339