It’s very tempting to just look at the latest reviews of car GPS units and go out and buy whatever they recommend!

Consumer Reports had a story recently, where they recommended five or so of the top car GPS’s. Although I agreed with their choices, I really think those ae not the only possible “best” GPS’s on the market.

The problem with reviews of car GPS units is the reviewer can only recommend a few models. What if there are a number of good buys at various price points? (This is the case for the GPS marketplace.) You can’t just recommend everything…can you?

What the Consumer Reports article left out were great GPS units in the lower and higher price ranges. So, if you’re an entry level buyer you might have read the article and decided that today just was not your day to buy that GPS you’ve been dreaming about.

If you’re a high-end buyer, then you might have gone out and bought a GPS you would have been disappointed with. After all, as a high-end buyer you expect to get the cutting edge of technology!

So, what I’m going to do in this article is talk about the whole car GPS marketplace and give you a more fair and balanced view of what you should be buying.

To begin with let’s look at a few of the GPS units Consumer Reports recommended.

Their overall best units was the Garmin nuvi 760. Although it’s hard to say that’s the absolute best unit for everyone, the nuvi 760 really is a great GPS receiver! It sells for just under $400, and has a ton of great features. It comes with maps of the U.S. and Canada, has Bluetooth, and can do multiple point routing, along with a number of other cool things.

You won’t go wrong with the nuvi 760–if that’s how much you want to spend!

But what if you’re looking for a lower priced unit?

You can spend as little as $150 and get a great entry-level device from any of the three main manufacturers. There’s the Garmin nuvi 200, the Tom Tom One, 3rd Edition, or the Magellan Maestro 3100. All three of these are excellent entry level units.

In the middle of the price range, you might want to think about the Garmin nuvi 350 or the Magellan Maestro 4250. You can get both of these for under $300! The Maestro 4250 even has the larger 4.3-inch screen.

Tom Tom has an excellent mid-priced unit–the Tom Tom GO 920T. Currently selling for around $400, it does everything except multiple point routing.

So, although reviews of car GPS units are helpful, you shouldn’t take them as the end all and be all of the GPS marketplace. What’s so exciting is there are GPS units available at prices virtually everyone can afford.

What you need to do now is to get on a good, informative website where you can browse particular models and check out their prices.

By: Rick Cole