Most of the rental cars I’ve gotten talking GPS units in have been at SFO, and they all have male voices. Guess that’s what I get for driving around San Fran ;(

My GPS in the car has a great female voice that tells you everything. You really don’t have to even look at the screen. But the screen is really cool too. You can set it for a split screen that has a map on the left and on the right is the next three turns with names.

Example: I’m a caver. My friends and I relocated a small, hard to see pit cave the other day out in relatively flat ranch land by retrieving its coordinates from my friend’s GPS, and following the suggested course to the pit. We couldn’t see it until we were within 10 feet of the hole.

I have a handheld one, and it sucks balls. Between the interminable startup time, the shitty reception, the crappy battery life, the obscure command set, and the copy-protected “locked” maps, I use it now as a paperweight.

I will say that the talking ones I have used in rental cars are kind of cool though.

I know that the cell corps have installed ALOT of towers round the main highways. but that isnt ALL the highways, and isnt in the Outback, and trail systems. So, I wouldnt DEPEND on this sytem unless you can store a good mapping system on it.

I’m not completely happy with the map functionality on the iPhone. The maps refresh very slowly when resizing and are useless if you don’t have a co-driver to read the small screen. I had a route planned out but had trouble using the map because the resize time was so terribly shitty. I’d be staring at a blank screen as I sailed past the highway exit while trying to verify the exit number.

Yes, they totally blow. After mistakenly investing hundreds of dollars in a Garmin GPS device that turned out to be waaaaaaay too much of a pain in the ass to use regularly, I’m back to Google maps.

If those things were any good, EVERYBODY would have one. They’re not, so they don’t.

#2 – Never though of that.