[kuonji @ Aug 6th 2007 12:26PM]

Um. The Nuvi 350 can be bought almost anywhere for ~$370 and it already has text-to-speech. gg Garmin?

How about the new Tomtom 720. Larger LCD screen, customizable voice responses (use your kids voice or something), along with a ton of other features for....$499.

WTG Garmin.

[pikkoz @ Aug 11th 2007 7:12AM]

I also feel to complain to garmin ( i own a nuvi 6600 too).
How nowdays a gps device with the same old 3.5" screen, the same outdated garmin interface, the same poor map image rendering (please feel free if you find a gps unit worse that a garmin one), the same crappy text-to-speech ,orribly outdated POI ,and probabily without bluetooth ,costs the same or more than a 2-3years old navi system?
I mean, beside the chassis, whats so different compared an old nuvi 350? i know that the portable hardware doesn't progress as much as pc/console hardware, but at least don't price so high that i feel cheated , at least make some software improvements.

With the same price you can get a tomtom 720 :
-larger 4.3" screen (important feature )
-better map rendering (important feature )
-better T-T-S (the same go910 loquendo voice synt, very important feature)
-still, better POI database
-integrated FM transitter (not crucial but as usual ,your car speakers are better and loader than gps navi devices)
-bluetooth interface(important for who want to make an hands-free calls)
-voice recognition ( as i seen it's not very useful because you still need to press the touchscreen but, hell it seems to work well and it's a cool feature to display that nuvi doesn't have)
-and many other unrated but interesting features like mapshare or the possibility to records your own speech navigation warings

I'm not a tomtom "fanboy" but i feel that garmin needs to wake up a little, other companies are making leaps in software and database terms and i feel like garmin is just proposing the same product with a different chassis.

[pikkoz @ Aug 6th 2007 3:20PM]

I also feel to complain to garmin ( i own a nuvi 6600 too).
How nowdays a gps device with the same old 3.5" screen, the same outdated garmin interface, the same poor map image rendering (please feel free if you find a gps unit worse that a garmin one), the same crappy text-to-speech ,orribly outdated POI ,and probabily without bluetooth ,costs the same or more than a 2-3years old navi system?
I mean, beside the chassis, whats so different compared an old nuvi 350? i know that the portable hardware doesn't progress as much as pc/console hardware, but at least don't price so high that i feel cheated , at least make some software improvements.

With the same price you can get a tomtom 720 :
-larger 4.3" screen (important feature )
-better map rendering (important feature )
-better T-T-S (the same go910 loquendo voice synt, very important feature)
-still, better POI database
-integrated FM transitter (not crucial but as usual ,your car speakers are better and loader than gps navi devices)
-bluetooth interface(important for who want to make an hands-free calls)
-voice recognition ( as i seen it's not very useful because you still need to press the touchscreen but, hell it seems to work well and it's a cool feature to display that nuvi doesn't have)
-and many other unrated but interesting features like mapshare or the possibility to records your own speech navigation warings

I'm not a tomtom "fanboy" but i feel that garmin needs to wake up a little, other companies are making leaps in software and database terms and i feel like garmin is just proposing the same product with a different chassis.