GPS Auto Navigation

Overview of Portable GPS units.
Last week I purchased a Garmin GPS unit from Circuit City. The salesman said it was the "Top of the Line" for GPS units.
Actually, the Garmin is probably the easiest to use, and does a very decent job, if all you want is to get from point "A" to point "B".
After I used it a few days and then did my own comparrison, I purchased the Magellan Roadmate 2200T. It does everything the Garmin c340 did and MUCH more.
The Magellan (Maggi) us a bit more confusing to navigate around its menu's, but all in all it was a much better deal. Maggie also can be a music player, and a picture viewer if you insert as SD card. There were also other things I liked better, such as "Route Simulation" where it would drive the route and you could view it and make changes if you want.
Price was better too. Garmin c340 $399.00, Magellan 2200T $249.00 at Costco. I had to pay a 15% restocking fee at Circuit City, but I felt it was worth it. (There would not have been a restocking fee at COSTCO).
Hope this helps some of you out there that are considering picking up a GPS unit. Other members may want to post their comments on their units to help others to make a better decission.

If you are looking for the high end feature with the low end cost you may want to consider the Mio 310x. It has most of the high end GPS features such as MP3 player, automatic routing and rerouting, built in U.S. maps, 1 Gig internal memory, SD card slot for memory expansion, touch screen, voice guidence, preloaded points of interest, rechargeable battery pack, etc. Here is a link to there website. www.miogps.com
I got mine last year on black Friday. I was at a CompUSA store waiting in line and looking through the flyer and happened to see it. I wasn't even there to buy a GPS but the price was right so I grabbed one. I was not disappointed. I have since then searched forums for other peoples likes/dislikes on the GPS. Some people have had problems with theirs although I have had none with mine, so you may want to search the forums before buying to make sure this one is right for you.
As I said though, lots of high end features for around $180. They may even be a little lower then that now.

Stnb4ever
I looked at the 310x on their web page, just now, and it appears to be a pretty decent unit at a very nice price. They did not state if it came with the "text to speech (tts) feature". TTS is the feature that allows the unit to narrate in voice commands ie; "turn left on "Main" street" instead of "turn left in 300 yards". Saying the names of streets is a feature we wanted in our unit as it makes finding the right street easier, and that helps when I am wondering around, half lost, in the motorhome and a tow vehicle behind me. I have been down a dead end before and it wasn't pretty.
I say all this mainly to give insight to others that are considering the purchase of one of these gadgets.
Thanks for the info about the 310x, I did not even see it when I was looking, and I see they are carried at Circuit City, and a lot of other big box office stores.
Another feature in the Magellan is a personal POI (Point of Interest) file that I can build on my PC and upload to it. I tried it last night and put in 4 military CG's that I plan on visiting in the near future. It appears to be a neat feature, I will begin road testing it next week as we start our trek east from Oregon to Virginia.

Frank,
No, it does not have the TTS function, that is one drawback. I guess I never really missed that function since I went from a street map to the Mio GPS. It would be a nice feature, but it is not included. Other then that it is a great little unit.

We use a Tom Tom 510. It has all the features that I will never use. ie: bluetooth that hooks up to our cell phone, connection for iPod etc.

We just wanted to go from A to B and it does that quite well. You can program fastest, scenic, shortest, avoid tollways, even walking. a feature we like is when you disconnect it from the mount and start walking around towns, we never been to, it remembers the last time it was attached to the mount and touching the return it brings you back to your RV (mount).

Also if you travel to Europe you can get the memory card for Europe that just slides in.

There is only one button on/off, everything else is touch screen menu.

We got it on line last April for under $200.

travler
Thanks for the info on the Tom Tom. For the price it appears to be a decent unit. I like the feature about knowing when it was last removed from its cradle. I can do pretty much the same thing by touching the current location screen and then touch save. Then when we want to find our way back to the car I can find it fairly east. Does the Tom Tom have an actual walking option? The Magellan does not, but the instruction say it can be used as a portable unit when not in the vehicle. I have yet to try it to see how usable it is.
Frank