Another really great GPS solution is the Garmin GPS 18 and City Select USA(has Canada maps too)
Not to sound like a spammer but you can purchase the receiver, software and maps for north america(USA and Canada) in one package that only costs $114US(or $150CAN) from GPSCITY:
Canadian Buyers: Garmin GPS 18 USB
US Buyers: Garmin GPS 18 USB
Here are some of the Specs:
- Choose between USB or Serial Interface(links above are for USB version)
- Includes maps for USA & Canada(maps for europe also available)
- extremely small receiver with magnetic base
- mapping software has daytime and nighttime skins which automatically toggles between the two
- Has 5 million points of interest(for North America)
- Map and POI updates available yearly
- Very low resource footprint
- Voice prompting for turn by turn directions
Shipping is cheap($5CAN with canada post) and FAST. I ordered mine
mine from gpscity.ca and it arrived 2 days later.
Creating a front end was not too difficult either and i now use that for the GPS system in my car. Its kept inbetween the glove box and dashboard and I still get good reception in most areas.
The software performs very well and uses VERY little memory. Also, I noticed that some people had problems planning coast to coast trips with software like Destinator. Just for fun, I planned a trip from Victoria, BC Canada which is on an Island, to Los Angelos, California. It took a short while to calculate it(understandable) but the program came up with a feasible solution which even showed me which ferry to take.
Oh and lastly, the voice prompts, as nice as they already are, can be customised. They are simply wave files so they can be replaced with any voice or sound you like and don't suffer as much from the "Steven Hawking effect" (no offence intended to Dr.Hawking). Anybody out there with a sexy woman's voice
Some screenshots are available on my project thread and eventually i'll post a video showing the GPS in action:
2005 Mazda 3 Install