Help me pick a GPS similar to my Sony

mistermojorizin · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 06, 2011 Posts: 1

my previous gps was a Sony navu-44. It died recently but it was pretty close to perfect. Here are the things it did that I liked:

1) searching by address: don't have to put it exact street name (e.g, with N. or S. etc.)
2) searching poi's: found most pois, showed in which direction they were, and updated in real time as i was driving (showing new and closer poi's), showed lots of pois (up about 30 miles away)
3) navigation: almost always very accurate, stated which side of the street destination was, at each turn showed a zoomed in map (not gradual zoom in, but instant) with a countdown helping you tell when to turn, had lane assist on every intersection on every freeway, would tell you about upcoming turns after the last maneuver, 2 miles before the turn, .5 miles before the turn, and at the exact turn would say "now turn left on main st.," for example, good grammer on text to speech (don't care about pronounciation too much), recalculated routes instantly, didn't tell me to "drive to highlighted route," just recalculated routes as i started driving, didn't shy away from u-turns (garmin and tom-tom both had me going around the block?), but never u-turned for recalculated route unless you drove by the destinationk, spoke how long the trip was when you arrived
4) visuals: displayed eta, current time, distance to destination, distance to turn, direction of travel, could choose between north up vs front up in 3d and 2d view, allowed you to set your own zoom level of choice, let you scroll the map during navigation (without going back to homescreen)

What it didn't have that would have been good: search by zip code, search in all cities, and traffic.

MSRP: $250
Price Paid: $30 brand new in 2008.

So now i've tried magellan 2036, garmin 265wt, and tomtom xxl550 and they are all junk.

Magellan was close, but its navigation was unstable (you have arrived, while on the freeway) and it wasn't good at interchanges ("take the exit on right and then a keep to the left," wouldn't display 101S vs 101N, just 101). Garmin was slow to recalculate, had little information on screen, made you drive to some highlighted route that was confusing, and preferred to go around a neighborhood instead of u-turns. Tomtom has good navigation, but searching for address, POI or corssstreet is just unbearable.

So is there anything similar to the Sony I had? My budget has increased from $80, to $110, to $170. While 2 year old technology was way better at $30. So I really need any and all advice. Not lookign for smartphones or any other solutions. Just need a gps in the car.

Thanks a lot

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