What GPS devices DON'T suck donkey balls for their search?

[Doppel]

My experience with GPS devices is mainly Garmin and the search on them is absolutely, unbelievably worthless. Can't find anything and takes hours and hours to find things in any case (and it's not what you want anyhow). This forces me to use a smart-phone to find something with google maps (love it) and then shove in the address.

I recently bought a brand new car with nav and its search is stellar in how worthless it is. It's fast, but complete crap. For example, let's say you use one of its preset categories (you'd expect this to work, right?) for hospital. A REAL hospital is on like page 5, with the first dozens of results stupid stuff like spa treatment. If I'm bleeding out I don't want a back rub and a facial.

All these devices are very excellent at guiding when they have the correct address, but are maddeningly pedantic on what you need to do to find where you want to be.

Also, I was in a new Mercedes R-class a few weeks back and its nav screen looked like something from 2003.

 

[homercles337]

Why dont you get one of those smartphone mounts for your car? I also have nav in my car and i NEVER use it because it is absolute rubbish for all the reasons you outline.

 

[Ferzerp]

My in car nav runs the Garmin software (so it's not so bad). I agree that phone search is much better (duh, because it is offloaded to a huge farm of servers actually doing the search), but phone nav is trash compared to stand alone or in dash nav.

 

[JCH13]

Older Garmin units are pretty good... in recent years Garmin and other GPS makers outsourced their map updates and thus suck the big one.

Tomtom is garbage all around in my experience.

 

[rh71]

The Merc COMAND system is pretty poor for what you pay for their product. The flip-open screen is neat but the system behind it is mediocre at best. It does feature a decent voice recognition system though.

I have the old idrive ('08) and the NAV is terrible too - so is the voice recognition. Not only is it slow because it's DVD-based, the search requires you select what category the business is in and if you get it wrong, you have to type it all over again and typing on that thing isn't exactly quick. I can't seem to figure out what category some businesses are either and I just give up if the 1st search fails because other categories usually don't even apply. It's just a terribly-thought-out system and you wonder if they even user-tested it.

I got a loaner of a '13 X3 last week and the new idrive is MILES ahead now. The huge screen is HD-like and it's been hard-drive based the last few years and I knew it was going to be quicker, but the search is remarkable. Start typing in the letters and it will start finding the closest businesses at the same time, very much like what Google does. I am extremely jealous of the new idrive.

 

[Doppel]

Why dont you get one of those smartphone mounts for your car? I also have nav in my car and i NEVER use it because it is absolute rubbish for all the reasons you outline.

I have a blackberry, it's crap. Can't wait to ditch it But, yeah, a smart phone mount really is probably just the best way out.

Not only is it slow because it's DVD-based, the search requires you select what category the business is in and if you get it wrong, you have to type it all over again and typing on that thing isn't exactly quick. I can't seem to figure out what category some businesses are either and I just give up if the 1st search fails because other categories usually don't even apply. It's just a terribly-thought-out system and you wonder if they even user-tested it.

That sounds WORTHLESS. I'd have my fist into the screen inside of a day dealing with something that bad.

(duh, because it is offloaded to a huge farm of servers actually doing the search)

Agree that is part of it, though not all. There is, for example, no reason to send me to a physical therapist if I clearly put in hospital as a category. Also my new system cannot find a local Lowes that's been in place for about three years.