Looking for info on GPS units

[RickinMA]

I just started looking into getting a portable GPS unit for the car (not ready for a golf GPS yet) and there's a ton of different options but I haven't quite found what I'm looking for yet.

Does anyone know of a place where you can filter by options? For example, I'd want the GPS unit to also be a bluetooth hands-free speakerphone and I'd like to to play MP3s.

I think I know what I'm looking for, i'm just not sure it exists yet - I'd like:
>bluetooth functionality
>plays mp3's
>XM radio ready
>accepts SD Cards
>some harddrive capacity to store pictures, etc while travelling (transfer from SD cards from camera, etc)
>small size that would travel nicely

any thoughts?
I looked briefly at the tomtom go 910 and the garmin zumo 550, but neither does all I'm looking for

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

At least with my experience having used them for 20 years, Garmin is the way to go for me. Right now I have the C550 which has all that you mention except for XM Radio and Hard drive space. Most units I have seen offer limited HD Space. Enough for everything I need by simply buying SD Cards, but likely not enough to support a ton of photos on the internal memory.

As far as the Bluetooth compatibility, check the website as it list the compatibility for the phones. For which it will not pull in all the contact information for all phones.
Garmin: Bluetooth™ Phone Compatibility

edit 1 - although I keep one of these for my camera bag for digital photography, so I never looked at HD space for the GPS
Epson P-2000, Overview - Product Information - Epson America, Inc.

Here is a forum I search every now and then.
GpsPasSion Forums

 

[Karlis]

My vote is for TomTom, the newest models are great, many functions (mp3, picures, quite big HDD, photo store, bluetooth...) and very good GPS tracking.
With TomTom you can't go wrong.

 

[RickinMA]

thanks for the responses guys - it's amazing to me how bad some of the bluetooth compatibility lists are...

I've read alot of good things about both the garmins and the tomtom

my sister has a magellan portable unit and it's great that she can look up a restaurant then call ahead for seating - do the garmins and tomtoms both include phone info in their POI info?

without much experience with them, they all look pretty similar - any particular features you like about one brand vs another?

 

[Pa Jayhawk]

my sister has a magellan portable unit and it's great that she can look up a restaurant then call ahead for seating - do the garmins and tomtoms both include phone info in their POI info?

without much experience with them, they all look pretty similar - any particular features you like about one brand vs another?

The garmins have Phone in the POI's and allow you to dial from it as well as enter your own phone info to existing or custom POI's. Not sure about the TomTom's.

From what I have seen between the TomTom and Garmin, at least this area is that the Map software on the TomTom's may be slightly more up to date. However the Navigation system is superior on the Garmin. Not sure either would be a deal breaker. I figured my choice was easy, as I went from a magellin years ago, to a Garmin and was much happier with the Garmin. After many years of being happy with the Garmin, and from some of what I had seen up close between the two. I figured I would stick with Garmin.

edit 1 - BTW, if you decide on a Garmin model and want to see how it works, you can download the manuals from the website. This was useful when I started looking. May be able to do the same for TomTom