So I picked one of these up last week. Yesterday was the first real test when I took it to downtown Louisville. Before this, my only experience with a car GPS unit was an older Magellan Roadmate 300. There is simply no comparison.
The RM-300 would sometimes take a minute or two to acquire or reacquire satellites (which is awfully annoying when you know your next turn is just up ahead somewhere and the RM300 happily announces that it's searching for satellites again). In contrast, the c550 acquires satellites in 3-5 seconds. Hurray for SiRF III chipsets.
Another big improvement is route recalculation. It would usually take the RM-300 a few seconds to notice that you missed a turn and another few seconds to come up with a new route (which, more often than not, would include instructions to "make a legal U-turn..."). The c550 seems to notice missed turns and recalculates routes almost immediately and so far it hasn't told me to make any U-turns.
The audible street names feature generally works well but the thing I really like was the audible exit ramp numbers. Especially useful when you're downtown and have 2 exit ramps within a couple hundred feet of each other. Much easier to hear "Take exit 5B..." than to hear the RM-300's *ding* and have to look at the screen to see which exit it wants.
The RM-300 would sometimes take a minute or two to acquire or reacquire satellites (which is awfully annoying when you know your next turn is just up ahead somewhere and the RM300 happily announces that it's searching for satellites again). In contrast, the c550 acquires satellites in 3-5 seconds. Hurray for SiRF III chipsets.
Another big improvement is route recalculation. It would usually take the RM-300 a few seconds to notice that you missed a turn and another few seconds to come up with a new route (which, more often than not, would include instructions to "make a legal U-turn..."). The c550 seems to notice missed turns and recalculates routes almost immediately and so far it hasn't told me to make any U-turns.
The audible street names feature generally works well but the thing I really like was the audible exit ramp numbers. Especially useful when you're downtown and have 2 exit ramps within a couple hundred feet of each other. Much easier to hear "Take exit 5B..." than to hear the RM-300's *ding* and have to look at the screen to see which exit it wants.
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