Is a GPS neccessary?

[sowen]

I have very limited knowledge of it, sorry if my questions are too naive.

If I plan to have only one road trip every year, is the GPS neccessary? It means, most of time I stay in my city, I guess I should be OK without losing my way.

My another concern is, is there any following fee after I purchase a GPS? For example, if I purchase a GPS machine, do I need to buy a map? or do I have to pay for the renewal of map subscription annually? If so, how much to purcahse the map? or is the map for the whole canada very expensive?

No clue.

Sorry, I know I should go to futureshop and ask them directly, cos I am just sitting in the office now and have nothing to do at this moment :D

[QuasarCav]

No,

But alot of folks disagree with me, a paper map is usually all that you need. Unless you are hopeless with directions or you just cant read that well it would be fine.

[hussein]

GPS is awesome. Say you are driving around and its dinner time, and want to check where all the nearest restaurants are? Look up all the restaurants near by on the GPS map, and it will give you directions / tell you how to get there. This senario can be used for anything you are looking for, movies, groceries, fuel, liquor, etc.

You will probably even find yourself using it locally, atleast I do from time to time.

And last but not least, say you get stuck on the road in the middle of the night, and you aren't exactly sure where you are, when you call AMA or whoever to come help you, give them your coordinates. :thumbsup:

There is no monthly fee, only a fee for maps which usually come together as a package with your GPS.

You can get them for your PDA, cell phone (depending what kind you have), laptop, and a stand alone for your vehicle.

EDIT: Saw your question if it is expensive, and no its not, very very cheap, the laptop/computer GPS I bought which is Garmin was only 150$ IIRC and it has the maps of North America I beleive. This was about 1.5 years ago.

http://www.gpscentral.ca/ I bought mine from there, the sales rep was very friend and helpful to demonstrate it for me.

[Xtrema]

Cost of GPS is usually the hardware unit and map updates.

Map prices are different vendor to vendor because they have different features.

$10 worth of maps is still the cheapest way to go espeically if you only go out of the city once a year. With the price of GPS and map updates, you probably can afford 30 years of paper maps.

But it is pimp to have one.

[Obscura]

I use a GPS constantly on road trips but for some areas nothing beats a good map (like when you're driving down "Bob's Road" that's not showing on a GPS).

I use it to mark spots that I camp or anything else thats of interest that's too small or obscure to be on the GPS base map.

[sowen]

sounds really fun

I did have a co-worker who always changed his GPS, last time he shown me the latest model he had, which was quite cool but a little bit silly, it seems sometimes it will insist on one routine. For instance, if the GPS asks me to turn left now, but actually I know I can turn left in the next street, and which can lead me to the same place. So, if I don't follow what it says, it will ask me to turn right in the next street so that I can go back to the left turn it wants. That's really not very smart.

OK, I will take a look at that website and study it a little bit (when I have time).

thanks! folks

[Thaco]

i bought a GPS receiver for about $100 and i use it with my laptop, that was i have the functionality of a laptop and a GPS, it works very well and i could survive without it, but i'd rather not :D it makes life so much easier.

But before you go buy one for a trip, you should see if you can find a place that rents them, if you're only going on one trip a year it might be better just to rent ebcause then you dont have the big initial cost and you'll always get the latest and greatest.


Originally posted by sowen
sounds really fun

I did have a co-worker who always changed his GPS, last time he shown me the latest model he had, which was quite cool but a little bit silly, it seems sometimes it will insist on one routine. For instance, if the GPS asks me to turn left now, but actually I know I can turn left in the next street, and which can lead me to the same place. So, if I don't follow what it says, it will ask me to turn right in the next street so that I can go back to the left turn it wants. That's really not very smart.

OK, I will take a look at that website and study it a little bit (when I have time).

thanks! folks

That depends on the device and software, i use a program called iguidance in my laptop, and it's usually pretty good for re-calculating routes if you go off the route, if i pass a street that i know the next one will take me to the same place, or i am tryign to avoid traffuic, it'll re-calculate the map to the enxt best route, not making me go back to the turn it thought i should have initially taken.


One main thign to look for with a gps is make SURE it uses Sirf III technology, it's the newest GPS chips and it's much better than previous versions.

[CappyMcSlappy]

GPS may not be necessary, but the same could be said for cell phones. I have TT ONE in my car and its amazing. The maps for it are great and comes with it. They use a company called Tele Atlas, they provide maps for phones and other things too, you should check them out.

[dragonone]

an important point that ppl always miss is how important the map updates are, especially in a growing city like calgary

so....
any recommendations? (sub-$500)

[CappyMcSlappy]

Well, TeleAtlas has a feature called Map Insight, where users can provide feedback and any changes that you see you can submit and they will check them out so the maps can get updated asap. Its a really innovative idea and its just getting out of its beta phase, I don't think there's any way to get more up to date info for your maps than that. The tomtom ONE that I've been using is on it and you can get one for under $500 - good to go.