Best Buy Geek Said that Garmin Recalculates Far Faster

[best4u]

I currently have a Garmin 1350T yet in my area there is no signal for the traffic. I like the way it quickly (about 2-3 seconds) recalculates when a turn is missed and the Geek in Best Buy today told me that Garmin is at least twice as fast in recalculating than are the TomTom's or Magellans. I have had both of these in the last couple of years and he seems right YET I am not familiar with the Newer TomTom 340s/live and Magellan 1475 to know if that is true.

I guess my question would be related to which brand has the fastest recalculate as this geek seemed to be quite knowledgable and even talked me against purchasing a new Garmin or Magellan as he said my needs are met fine with the 1350T. I was tempted to go with the TomTom 340s live as it is on sale for $200 but I really like the faster recalculate of my Garmin and do not want to go backwards..

[Tim]

As usual, Best Buy is a little off with their info. They are famous for saying things like that and things like "Garmin devices are better because Garmin owns more satellites." Of course no GPS company owns any of the GPS satellites and all GPS devices use the same satellites provided by the US Government.

Also keep in mind that fast recalculation isn't always a good thing... Because GPS isn't perfectly accurate, there is a lag time between going off route and when a GPS decides that you are actually off-route. I've seen some devices take a weak satellite signal or slightly inaccurately placed road and recalculate a new route when it should not have. So some GPS devices wait a little longer than others to start a recalculation to avoid that scenario.

In general I see no large discrepancies in route recalculation speed between Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom.

Something else to keep in mind is that based on the length of the route and the device-- some devices don't recalculate a full new route when you miss a turn and instead calculate enough to get you back on the original route. So that will make the recalculation faster but potentially not pick the best route from where you end up.

[dhn]

It's hard for me to reply without sounding a bit facetious.....

All I'll say as a TomTom user (of now four different models) is that when it comes time for each to recalculate, the unit does so within a second or so of recognizing that I'm not following the oroginal route). and then the recalculation only takes a few seconds. Also, models with a faster processor (such as the 400 mhz in the 6X, 7x and 9x line) recalculate faster than those with slower processors.

Of course, the longer the route, the longer the recalculation will be .... for any brand.

I can't speak for Magellan models.

[best4u]

Tim, I understand what you are saying regarding a street change vs overall route modification. Certainly I can tell thus far that the Garmin 1350 indeed is faster in almost all factors except satellite aquisition and preparation to start driving than the TomTom 330s and 340s that I had and coming up with an alternate STREET to turn is also significantly faster. One thing I noticed is that the NavTec units I had including Magellan 1470 seem to ignore the fastest way to reach my destination and that is by taking the interstate. Both TomToms picked this correct road choice and the Garmin and Magellan did not even "see" it as an option.[/quote]

[gatorguy]

With my TomTom 930 I thought the recalc time was fairly quick. On the other hand the newer TomTom 740 took nearly twice as long to realize I had missed a turn and offer a recalculated route. Generally not much of an issue unless turns are coming fast in a congested downtown. I had a couple of occasions where my 740 couldn't recalculate fast enough to offer another route option before missing that turn too. If I was truly lost it could have been an irritating issue. I'm not the only 740 owner to have noticed that so I think it's just the way it works.

[gatorguy]

Had to go back to my notes to confirm. Looks like a minimum of between 7 and 8 seconds for a Tomtom 740 to recognize and recalculate an updated route after missing a turn. So to be fair to the BB salesman, he wasn't totally incorrect. But like Tim mentioned, I don't think TomTom's in general are necessarily that much slower than Garmin on recalculations. I haven't used any of the 4-digit Garmin's tho.

[Tim]

Figure too that the 740 is likely doing a traffic lookup in conjunction with the reroute which adds to the reroute time. If I recall correctly we've gone through this before and found that the recalc speed of the 740 is greatly impacted by the traffic lookup.

Not that it makes any difference why, but FYI.

[Boyd]

Not GPS related, but I got a 2GB DIMM to upgrade a netbook this weekend and a "Geek" had to get it in the back and ring it up. Going out the door, the alarms went off because he didn't de-activate the tag. In the car, I looked more closely and it was only a 1GB DIMM.

[dhn]

I do think (for TT's anyway, the number of poi categories the user has checked is going to impact on how fast the screen gets refreshed or 'repainted'. So, I can see where the recalculation of a new route is done, but it is still somewhat slow (relatively speaking) to show the new route if the screen refresh is being impacted by the presence of too many pois.

Users might interpret that as slow times to recalculate when that may not be the issue, too many pois are.

[telemike]

Both my old Mio Moov200 and Magellan 1440 recalculate a missed turn in a few seconds. I always ignore the "fastest" turn on my way home and go to the stop light that is next which is 1/8 of a mile up and both units would calculate that turn before I got there.