I also have 2 units; I run a Garmin Nuvi 750 on my windshield and a much older handheld Magellan eXplorist.
I carry the magellan for search and rescue with the fire dept. because it is waterproof. It only has major highways in it, but it works great for coordinates. I have also used it connected to my laptop with microsoft mappoint software; this gives spoken turn by turn directions and always worked fine. I havent used this feature in several years, and never did try it with any other mapping software...
The Nuvi 750 has been awesome for me. It has an expansion slot for a SD card, and the ability to play MP3's. I actually use it frequently as an MP3 player when I'm not in my own vehicle. It also can download traffic data and reroute away from congestion, however that is a service with a monthly fee that I have never used. It has been quite durable; it endured one car crash that totalled my wife's XJ, has been dropped many times, spent days in my pockets, fell off of the windshield several times during a trip up to Alaska (the alcan highway is incredibly rough), and even got left out in heavy rain for almost 4 hours with zero lasting damage (the touchscreen didn't work until it spent a few hours inside a bag with some desiccant). The points of interest that it comes with can be very handy, but I have noticed that they are nowhere near complete. It often misses gas stations and stores that have been around for a long time, and lists some that have been out of business for more than 10 years. However, If I had to assign an accuracy number to it I would say 95% so it is still very useful and I do rely on it occasionally. It does do a great job of providing directions, but there have been 4 or 5 times where it took me down a dead end road or the wrong street. In these instances, it does work to simply pull up the map on the touchscreen and find your way to your destination manually. One feature I never thought about until I owned it was the speedometer screen; it has a dedicated speedometer and trip odometer that has large digits; this is perfect for that rig with oversize tires or deep gears and a speedometer that is off. It is also very useful when you're in a country with speed limits and distances with metric units; just change the GPS to metric, and you can just ignore the speedo in your dash. Battery life was about 6 hours when I first purchased it, but it doesn't last more than 2 or 3 hours now. Still quite useful...but don't rely on it for a week-long hiking trip. The signal sensitivity is great...it only loses service in multistory parking garages and long tunnels. No problem in the woods or urban jungle.
A few things to look for when you're buying a GPS:
- Does it have TTS (text-to-speech) capability? If not, the voice in the GPS won't be able to speak road names
- Does it have an FM transmitter? If not, make sure the speaker is loud enough to be heard clearly over road noise, or you can hook it up to a line-in on your stereo. My Nuvi 750 works fine with the fiberglass hard top on my sami, but if the top is off there is no way it can be heard unless it goes through my stereo
-What maps does it come with and what can be loaded into it, and what is the cost of these maps? Many GPS units only come with US maps, and limited or no canada or mexico maps (at least they did a few years ago when I bought mine). Just make sure it has maps for the area you will be driving
-if you're going to be geocaching, or following somebody else's GPS track, make sure you can upload waypoints from your computer into the GPS. Coordinates can be entered manually, but it is very time consuming.
