To Nuvi or not to Nuvi?

[boren]

It actualy did suprisingly well. The british names of course were really good, and out of town it was better than I expected. When it went to say "Waipara" or "Hokitika" it was kinda close.

Then again I don't tend to expect much from TTS, so sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised.

 

[Old Baldy]

While I agree that finding a destination address (map quality) is important, for me it's often less important than the unit being able to route me to a point close by on a reasonably efficient route, and this routing is where I have found the Garmin is very CLEARLY superior to the TT. By often finding faster routes in the order of 30-50% quicker arrival times.

If every time I used a GPS was while on vacation and I did not need to be somewhere quickly, it wouldn;t be an issue, but am I the only one to whom this routing is pretty damned important?

Run a Garmin side by side with a TT, and you WILL see the routing efficiency difference.

I do agree, though, that the TT has the much nice UI - and LOVE the customizations and display info flexibility and everything else. The TT is MUCH nicer for me in this respect.

It's just a pity that we can't have a single device with a really great routing engine AND all the nice features....in ONE (sic!).

If I was able to, I'd take the Garmin routing engine, the TomTom UI and wonderful feature set, and the Magellan detour features and build a truly stupendous device....but I'm dumb so I can't.

 

[Smokiewolf]

While I agree that finding a destination address (map quality) is important, for me it's often less important than the unit being able to route me to a point close by on a reasonably efficient route, and this routing is where I have found the Garmin is very CLEARLY superior to the TT. By often finding faster routes in the order of 30-50% quicker arrival times.

If every time I used a GPS was while on vacation and I did not need to be somewhere quickly, it wouldn;t be an issue, but am I the only one to whom this routing is pretty damned important?

Run a Garmin side by side with a TT, and you WILL see the routing efficiency difference.

I do agree, though, that the TT has the much nice UI - and LOVE the customizations and display info flexibility and everything else. The TT is MUCH nicer for me in this respect.

It's just a pity that we can't have a single device with a really great routing engine AND all the nice features....in ONE (sic!).

If I was able to, I'd take the Garmin routing engine, the TomTom UI and wonderful feature set, and the Magellan detour features and build a truly stupendous device....but I'm dumb so I can't.

Tom Tom beat Garmin and Magellan in side by side tests on Boston. As see on the Today show.http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23460293#23460293

 

[Old Baldy]

Tom Tom beat Garmin and Magellan in side by side tests on Boston. As see on the Today show.http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23460293#23460293

Cool! I'm very happy for my fellow TT users in that part of Boston, but I'm nowhere NEAR the place.....

 

[Smokiewolf]

Cool! I'm very happy for my fellow TT users in that part of Boston, but I'm nowhere NEAR the place.....

Maybe if you moved...You'd like your Tom Tom more!

 

[Old Baldy]

Maybe if you moved...You'd like your Tom Tom more!

LOL!

Hey, I LOVE my TomTom already! I'd just love it even MORE if it was more efficient in routing.

PS I'll tell my wife we're moving to Boston....

 

[Smokiewolf]

LOL!

Hey, I LOVE my TomTom already! I'd just love it even MORE if it was more efficient in routing.

PS I'll tell my wife we're moving to Boston....

That's what I'm saying!!! It was more efficient than Garmin and Magellan in routing trips in Boston!!! So, tell your wife, if you are to be truly happy, you need to move to Boston!

 

[chipichape]

Run a Garmin side by side with a TT, and you WILL see the routing efficiency difference.

I did test both the TomTom 920 vs. Garmin 750 in Richmond B.C.

The TomTom took the route from my home in Stevenston to my office in Fraserwood via the freeways (99 and 91). The Garmin took me via the slower Westminster highway (traffic lights, 50km/h speed limit).

So the TomTom routing engine worked much better to me...

BR, Chip

 

[Smokiewolf]

I did test both the TomTom 920 vs. Garmin 750 in Richmond B.C.

The TomTom took the route from my home in Stevenston to my office in Fraserwood via the freeways (99 and 91). The Garmin took me via the slower Westminster highway (traffic lights, 50km/h speed limit).

So the TomTom routing engine worked much better to me...

BR, Chip

So, I guess B.C. or Boston are your choices now, Baldy!

 

[boren]

There's an obvious quality difference in maps depending where you are in the US and the world.

My (ok her) garmin nuvi 200 doesn't explicetely have speed limits on roads. But based on it's routing and ETA estimates it probably does or can guess really well.

In this part of the US the Tomtom maps do not havy any speed limits. Not on state highways, US highways, etc. The assumed speed for all country roads appears to be 35mph except interstates. The nearest interstate is an hour drive away. This makes the routing engine really pick poor routes. It favours highways, which is fine, but it will go 10 miles out of the way to use a highway when you could take country roads and save half the distance.

In NZ all roads had speed limits and it did REALLY well there. ETA was as good as you could hope for, and directions went pretty direct. Most major AU roads had speed limits and it did well there as well.

I look forward to Navteq improving the maps with speed limits. IMHO we would see a huge improvement in the routing engine with that single (though not simple) change.

 

[DarkPuma]

I was really surprised to see the GPS "competition" on the Today Show, but I am glad they did it. It was really a good chance for TomTom to show off, not only did it beat out the competition but they used the ONE 3rd Edition, which is a lot cheaper than the Garmin and Magellan they tested it against.

 

[Old Baldy]

There's an obvious quality difference in maps depending where you are in the US and the world.

My (ok her) garmin nuvi 200 doesn't explicetely have speed limits on roads. But based on it's routing and ETA estimates it probably does or can guess really well.

In this part of the US the Tomtom maps do not havy any speed limits. Not on state highways, US highways, etc. The assumed speed for all country roads appears to be 35mph except interstates. The nearest interstate is an hour drive away. This makes the routing engine really pick poor routes. It favours highways, which is fine, but it will go 10 miles out of the way to use a highway when you could take country roads and save half the distance.

In NZ all roads had speed limits and it did REALLY well there. ETA was as good as you could hope for, and directions went pretty direct. Most major AU roads had speed limits and it did well there as well.

I look forward to Navteq improving the maps with speed limits. IMHO we would see a huge improvement in the routing engine with that single (though not simple) change.

This is probably THE most important aspect of routing efficiency. (The lack of speed limit data).

I do believe that both Navteq and TeleAtlas actually have speed limits in their maps, but that some navigation system providers have not purchased these data elements, which cost extra. Further, I understand that Magellan have paid for the speed limit data in their map implementations, which is why their routing engines seem to generally be quite good in most comparison tests I've seen (just behind Garmin). My TomTom does not show ANY speed limits in map v 7.10 USA & Canada map data....so clearly the routing engine CANNOT pick routes that are most efficient in terms of speed (fastest route).

All of the above is taken from my limited research on the topic while trying to understand why there are such vast difference in the routing efficiency between my wife's C330 Garmin and my own TomTom One, running in parallel in the same car, to the same destinations, in the Detroit area.

If indeed the TT maps do not contain the actual speed limit data, then my assumption is that when/if TT actually makes the jump & purchases the speed limit data (at least for the TT One lower quality maps such as the USA & Canada maps), then we should see a significant improvement in the routing for the "fastest" route. The "shortest" route should be unaffected by the speed limit data....but I always use the "fastest/quickest" routing option.