i have a garmin unit, ill have to look to see which one, but the feature i like most is the lane assist, it actually shows you how many lanes there is, which ones become turn lanes. this helps with towing the trailor and going through cities, you know ahead of time which lane you need to be in and can get there in advance. one thing i do not like is the search feature, you can find gas stations but it does not say which ones have diesel. i know there is an app you can download from garmins web site that is suppose to be for truckers but do not know if this app will tell you or not.

 

Well, I am a little late to the party, but I went out and bought a Garmin Nuvi 1450.
Battery is charging and the latest map pack is installed.
Thanks for all the input guys.

 

I suggest the windshield suction mount just to the left of the rear view mirror.

 

Well the rest of my advice is now worthless at this point since you've already made your purchase, but I will offer this advice.

Determine what type of personality you have in regards to navigation. Do you want to see where you're going, or do you want someone to tell you where you're going?

For me, the turn by turn directions got very annoying, and when I first got my GPS and used it on a long highway trip, I almost messed my pants when after a couple of hours driving some voice suddenly shouted at me to take the next exit. I have mine on mute now.

Then there was the time that I was running on battery power and just as I was taking an exit it gave me the 60 second warning that the battery was low and was about to shut down unless I plugged the unit in (you can't plug the GPS in while driving and it still mounted to the windshield.

I bought one of those cigarette lighter sockets and wired it in (fused) up under my dash and plugged the GPS wiring in there so it's technically still portable. I then snaked the wiring up out of the dash by the A pillar and keep the GPS in the lower left corner of the windshield.

Make sure to get whatever updates are available to you. A handy feature is the POI search where you can find a place to eat near you.

 

I hope you enjoy your Garmin. I think you will be satisfied. I have a Garmin and Magellan and I like the Garmin better. The ONLY issue I have with the Garmin is the touch screen is hard for me to use. I seem to have trouble touching the correct area of the screen so the proper letter or number is selected. I ended up using my old stylus from my Treo cell phone and that works much better.

Other than that, it works great.

One thing I wish for is a feature that plans your route based on the size of vehicle you are driving. Sometimes it's not so easy to drag a fifth wheel around on the same routes as a regular vehicle. My Garmin Nuvi is an older model...maybe yours will have the 'trucker' feature. (if that even exists....)

Have a safe trip!

 

If you can keep it pluged in the liter you will enjoy trouble free operation. Batterys do go out. Good luck and save the receipt just in case you waht a more permant model I think you made the right choice,

 

kwik,

I have a Garmin, and I mounted it directly in front of my speedometer. It has a speedometer mode which is more accurate, so I don't need to see the analog speedo any more. I can still see the other instruments on my panel, the exception being the turn indicator arrows.

It mounts about an inch and a half behind the plane of my steering wheel, and I touch the screen by poking it through the wheel.

It's not in the windshield's field of view at all, and the built-in antenna still "sees" the constellation.

All it takes is a simply-made bracket.
SpringerPop's Nuvi Mounting Bracket

See if it might fit your needs.

Pop

 

I have a Droid X from Verizon. I have the windshield mount (uses the cig plug in for power). I put the phone in easily and it "knows" that it is a in the windshield mount.

The navigation in the Driod X is great. Voice by Voice turn instructions, traffic info. You have to be creative if you want to go via a specific route. You can create your route via Google Maps, save the map, and then have the droid use it for navigation. I use Google Maps to plot my routes anyway, so that isn't an issue for me.

If a phone call comes in, push the answer button and talk. The voice commands still work while you are talking on the phone.

Nice option on a phone.

 

Let us know how you like it.I'm interested in one also.

 

one thing I noticed about all brands is how fast they become "discontinued" by the manufacturer. Buy all the add-ons you want now. They may be difficult to find later.

 

I'm going to hard wire mine in too, to both my truck and the Jetta.
This trip that I'm planning is going to be in the Jetta.



Thanks.
I went up to Sam's Club where I have a membership and they had two choices.
Garmin or TomTom.
The TomTom was giving me trouble and took about 5 minutes to calculate a route.
I went and looked at the Garmin while it was calculating and made a route before the TomTom was done.
Choice at that time was pretty clear.
The Nuvi 1450 has the larger 5" screen vs 4.3 and is very easy to read.


That's a nice place to put it.
I will be mounting mine next to the gauge pod.

I could have gotten nav on my phone as well, but I didn't want to have to squint at that rather small screen.
Son in law has a droid and it's really nice, but I wanted the larger screen that the dedicated units have.

 

I also tried the TomTom and it seemed to stay lost most of the time

I think the 5" screen is a good feture also although I seldom look at the screen on my older Magellan.I just wait for it to tell me which lane to be in or where to turn

I'm still trying to figure out which unit to replace my aged Magellan with

 

Dan, like Gregg was saying. Program your home address under a different name, not the home option. God forbid someone steals it, at least they wont know where you live. I have a coded lock on my Tomtom, its a bit of a pain sometimes, but its there for a reason.

 

That's a good idea!

 

So this is where I mounted it.
It's not glued down or anything, it's held in place by a zip tie going around the steering column.
The thing is crazy accurate, you could use it for a missle guidance system and if the proper coordinates were entered it would hit within inches of it's intended target.
See squiggly blue line on the screen, that is the Garmin fully zoomed in and it has recorded the movement of the unit as I had it in my hand and in my shirt pocket as I was installing the thing in my car!



Oh and Frank I can program a code into the Garmin as well, but in the process it tells you that it has to be in a certain location before you can "unlock" it if desired.
I was going to do that today, but I don't want to have to come down to the shop to unlock it if I ever need to.
I'll save that task for when I am home and sitting in the driveway.
I'm definately going to engage that lock as soon as I get home.