Budget GPS

What you can get for less than $200

Recently, budget auto GPS units have gotten cheaper and better. Garmin and TomTom have both introduced new under-$200 units, with features you could only get on luxury units a few months ago. The Garmin nuvi 205 (*Est. $165) is the experts' new favorite budget GPS navigator. Experts say its faster processor cranks out routes and maps more quickly than the older Garmin nuvi 200 (*Est. $150), and its HotFix feature grabs onto satellites faster in tests.

And then there are the extras. The nuvi 205 comes with "Where am I?" -- a feature that quickly tells you the closest hospital, police and gas station, along with the nearest address and intersection -- and photo navigation, which allows you to download geotagged photos and navigate toward an actual picture of your destination.

For an extra cost, you can add MSN Direct, a service that warns you of traffic tie-ups and routes you around them. The Garmin nuvi 205 also transmits current local gas prices, weather conditions, alerts and forecasts along with local movie show times, stock quotes and news headlines. The service is available in 162 metropolitan areas in the U.S. and Canada. After the first three months, MSN Direct costs $49.95 a year or $129.95 for a lifetime subscription.

Finally, testers say the nuvi 205 and its widescreen version, the Garmin nuvi 205W (*Est. $195), are even more intuitive to operate than the already dead-simple older Garmin nuvi GPS. "The Garmin nuvi 205 is a joy to use," concludes Rich Owings at GPSTracklog.com. "Garmin has set a new standard with this product line." Both Owings and Scott Martin at GPSLodge.com recommend the nuvi 205 and its siblings in the nuvi 2X5 lineup as the best entry-level navigators on the market now.

On the downside, the budget-priced nuvi 205 omits the most important extra feature, according to experts: "text-to-speech," or the ability to speak street names. Testers say hearing a GPS unit announce "Turn left on Elm Street in 300 feet," rather than just "Turn left in 300 feet," really does make directions easier to follow. For that reason, writes GPSLodge.com's Martin, "I would urge you to upgrade to the nuvi 255 for its text to speech (TTS) capabilities." Martin adds, "It makes the navigation simpler and easier to follow in an ever more complex world of driving."

The text-to-speech Garmin nuvi 255 (*Est. $200) otherwise includes all of the same improvements as the nuvi 205, reviews say. It doesn't have a widescreen, although experts say that isn't as important as spoken street names. As of press time, you can't buy a Garmin nuvi with both a widescreen and spoken street names for under $200: the older Garmin nuvi 260W (*Est. $230) and new Garmin nuvi 255W (*Est. $235) both climb into the middle price range.

In August 2008, Garmin discontinued its own nuvi 300 and 600 series auto GPS units. But you'll still find them for sale at bargain-basement prices. For example, the Garmin nuvi 350 (*Est. $230) was once Garmin's top-of-the-line unit. It can speak street names, like the similarly priced Garmin nuvi 260 (*Est. $165), but the nuvi 350 includes an MP3 player and FM traffic compatibility the nuvi 260 doesn't.

TomTom GPS are also good budget picks

TomTom has recently introduced its own new budget models, which have turned U.S. reviewers' heads. Experts in the U.K. and Australia typically find TomTom navigates the best, while U.S. experts usually say Garmin units navigate better in North America.

That is still true, but the TomTom ONE 130S (*Est. $200) gets praise from top U.S. experts. "This is a pretty slick little GPS," writes Tim Flight at GPSReview.net. The 130S's main claim to fame is its portability. Its clamshell-shaped EasyPort mount detaches easily from the windshield and folds neatly flat, so you can slip the whole thing into one pocket when you leave the car. "The most attractive trait is the compact size of the GPS and the mount," Flight writes. "No messing around with detaching the mount and stowing it away somewhere else in the car or trying to stuff it into another pocket."

The "S" in the TomTom ONE 130S stands for "speech." Experts love that the 130S speaks street names, a feature that was missing on TomTom's former budget models, the TomTom ONE 3rd Edition (*Est. $135) and TomTom ONE XL (*Est. $150). The new basic model, the TomTom ONE 130 (*Est. $150), also omits spoken street names.

There's a problem with the 130S's volume, though, according to some reviews. "I could hardly hear the unit while driving, with the windows up and the stereo off; forget any other situation," writes Scott Martin at GPS Lodge. Multiple consumers report the same problem in reviews at Amazon.com, but others say their TomTom GPS 130S units sound fine. In fact, Tim Flight at GPSReview.net actually recommends the 130S for people who drive convertibles. "This thing is LOUD," he says. GPSReview.net's Flight measures the 130S' volume with a decibel monitor and compares it with more than a dozen other units. The 130S "was the loudest of the bunch -- no contest," Flight reports.

What irks reviewers most is that the TomTom 130S lacks "IQ Routes." Pricier new TomTom GPS units use this feature to choose the fastest routes, based on other TomTom owners' experiences. In fact, PC World's Liane Cassavoy finds that the 130S cannot generate routes that are as efficient or as convenient as the top-of-the-line TomTom GO 930 (*Est. $450).

The only non-Garmin, non-TomTom budget GPS to get a nod from more than one reviewer is the Magellan Maestro 4000 (*Est. $195). It is one of the best-selling GPS units at Amazon.com, and a favorite of consumers who post there. Kiplinger's magazine also recommends the Maestro 4000 as a widescreen budget choice, although it doesn't have many of the features (such as spoken street names) that come on newer, cheaper Garmin and TomTom GPS units. This is an older model that has had its original price slashed in half, and retailers point out that the Maestro 4000 has been discontinued.