The recent craze for gadgets is the GPS. It has transformed many peoples life from being able to get to meetings on time to being able to go anywhere for your holiday. Or just when you need to find a petrol station, it sends you to the right direction (in most cases).

The top competitors for the GPS market for the entry level are TomTom, Garmin and Navman.

All have there unique selling points, however one must decide which features suit their needs. We will be reviewing the following models:

TomTom One V2 - £151.80
Navman F20 - £115.21
Garmin Nuvi 250 - £168.98

Tomtom One V2
We will start with the major market entry share holder which is the TomTom V2. Since their lauch TomTom One has been a market leader due to the easy of its use. The TomTom V2 is no different, it uses touch screen for navigation. It is smallness to fit inside your pocket incase you don’t want to leave it in your car. It has the basic features which most GPS have now which such as rerouting. One of the good things with the Tomtom is that it is very fast in rerouting if you take a wrong turning or decide you just want to divert. Also a unique feature to the Tomtom is it ability to put in roadblocks. So just imagine you find the road in front of you is blocked simply enter on to the system that the road in front or the length of the road block ahead and it will reroute you. If you are interested in the traffic alert system you need to have large mobile phone budget, as the Tomtom retrieves information through your mobile phone.

One downfall I found was when taking TomTom into

London city center, it kept sending me down different roads. There are a number of reasons for this. One that the high buildings deflect the signlas therefore a external aerial is needed. Secondly the roads in

London may have changed since the map was produced (you have to remember most maps are about 2 years old, since they have been recorded). Another problem is the battery life, only 2 hours and sometimes even less. This means you usually have to have it connected to the car charger.

Navman F20
One of the features which sticks out straight away with the Navman F20 is the 2 buttons, which are dedicated for parking and petrol. Also another thing that one feels is that the screen feels slightly smaller than the TomTom, however the TomTom has only 3.5” compared to the 3.4” Navman F20. Also a think you might notice is that the map looks different being sharper. This is because Navman and Garmin use the Navteq maps whereas the Tomtom use Teleatlas. There is a big debate which one is better Teleatlas or Navteq. Neither are perfect, however it has been commented that teleatlas is better for the

US maps whereas Navteq is better for

UK maps. The rerouting system is slightly slower than the Tomtom system, this may not matter when you are travelling 30mph but when you are travelling 70 mph on a the motorway it makes a lot of differences. One complaint of users are the level of the sound which people cannot hear, we had no problem however this may differ depending what you have playing in your car. One plus point to this system is that you can buy a traffic module for around £60, which will give traffic information through FM aerial. However this system does not work throughout the whole of the

UK.

Garmin Nuvi 250
The Garmin brand has been synonymous with GPS for a long time. This is their updated version with the new sleek slim design but still slightly big for you pocket. You get to choose you icon instead of just having a arrow, you can have car or what about the monster truck. This works in the same manner as the other GPSs, it also has quick rerouting system and also uses the Navteq maps. It had no problems in

London. It also comes with extra features of world clock, currency, measurement converters, and a calculator. Don’t know if you will ever use these functions. It also a security locking system using pin password, which might be useful as these GPS are the most wanted things now. But one big plus point is that for the price you also get

Europe maps which might push you towards the Garmin model.

Conclusion:  I had chance to test out TomTom customer service and it has improved from the couple of years back, with very quick replies. This is also same for the Garmin however I did not have a chance to test the Navman customer service. 
Go For Tom Tom: If you want Brand name and quick rerouting and simple using.
Go For Navman: If you need traffic information or cheaper model.
Go For Garmin: If you need Europe maps.

Personal Choice: Tomtom V2