| The maps and customer service used in the TomTom systems reportedly aren't up to par yet, although reports from Europe are excellent and there's no reason not to think that they'll get up speed in the US relatively soon.
I have a Garmin StreetPilot 2610 which comes with a remote control that allows the user to do everything without having to use the touch screen. Once you learn the way the menus are structured it's pretty easy to run everything from the remote. The 2610 also has a voice that announces what's going on (e.g. "turn right in 400 ft"). The newest Garmin systems announce the street names as well (e.g. turn right in 400 ft. onto Main Street), although some users find this text-to-speech annoying.
The voice recognition is a potentially nice feature, but having the maps to look at can prove helpful. The one thing that makes or breaks a GPS system is the accuracy of the maps. Check to see what type of maps the sysem uses, how frequently they are updated, and how much the updates cost. Also, can you download upgrades to the system firmware. I think I recall reading the VCom has to be returned to the factory for upgrades - a major inconvenience.
Another nice feature is a 'detour' function. If you're stuck in traffic you tell the device you want it to make a detour for x number of miles and it will do so and get you back on the original route.
The VCom's voice recognition seems like a pretty good idea, but I like the having the a display available as you get an idea as to when a turn is coming up, etc. I'd want to be sure that this is primarily a GPS with voice recognition, rather than a voice recognition system that happens to have a GPS tacked onto it. There don't seem to be a lot of reviews of that system on the various GPS web sites which may or may not be indicative of anything.
Good luck.
Last edited by Pamlico; Jan 22nd, 2006 at 10:55 PM.
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