Best value GPS unit?

[Scott86]

Parents are going on a trip across Canada soon, so they need to pickup a GPS. I dont keep up with these things so i dont know whats the best brand, value, or what features are really important.

Could someone point me to a simple to use, reliable(but still as cheap as possible) GPS unit for a car that has bluetooth? Anything thats on sale or has exceptional value would be greatly appreciated. No maps outside of Canada would be used, and i dont think traffic congestion or map updates would be needed either.(I'm sure they'll lose or break the thing long before anything substantial gets changed around)

They're in Winnipeg and have to pick it up locally, so i think they're pretty much limited to visions, staples, futureshop and bestbuy.

Budget is around $120, but if they can get what they need for significantly less, all the better.

Thanks

[rageking]

Blutooth is a pain to setup with most GPS. There can be pairing issues, and the speaker and mic usually is of too low quality to use it on a regular basis.

I believe visions was had a sale on a refurb of the Garmin 1350 for $79 not long ago. You should check if they still have it on sale. At least one of the big retailers, FS or BB has or had a sale on this for $99 brand new. The 1350 is more than fine.

One word of caution - test out the gps for your parents, do a complete route of where they wish to go. You may find that the gps routes them out of canada into the US then back again. This is a common problem with Garmin and TomTom machines, with no fix that I know of. If this happens, to bypass this, they have to manually input a path they know is in canada and ignore the path set by the gps.

For example, if i wanted to drive from Toronto to BC, it will route me to the US highways for a bit before bringing me back to Canada. That was 3 map revisions ago, I havent tested that again since then. Im just alerting you to a potential problem you should be aware of.

[mebiuspower]

Any Garmin units are fine, bluetooth are useless on them so don't bother. Maps are free to download if you know how to use bittorrent, regardless you do get a free update anyway if you buy new.

[tiknak]

garmin nuvi 255 or 260.

not sure what msrp is but seen them on sale for about 100

EDIT - or the nuvi 265.. They're all pretty much the same thing. A quick search yields prices around $150 but shop around and something better should come up.

[tiknak]

Here you go

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...479&CatId=3422 EARN CASH BACK

$79 refurb

I have this with the Traffic info (mostly useless) and it is a marriage saver :P

I use it in the map view (not 3d view) and have been mostly happy. Few complaints but definitely worth it for the price. Check Amazon reviews - very highly rated.

[DavidY]

WM has the 4.3 inch Garmin 1350 for $98 during it's Anniversary Sale.

The Source: Circuit City has the Nextar Q4-07 for $60:

http://www.thesource.ca/estore/Produ...roduct=1918887

FS has the 4.3 inch TomTom XL for $80:

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ.../10149584.aspx

London Drugs has the 4.7 inch Magellan for $90:

http://www.londondrugs.com/Cultures/...9&ProductTab=3

I think that the Garmin 1350 at WM is the best deal at $98 (price good until Sept 22nd).

Dave