Round 8: Search by Nearby Cities / City District Communities
Winner: Garmin StreetPilot c550

Round 9: Remembering Previous City and Street Names - No need to retype street name
Winner: TomTom GO 910

Remembering previous city and street names is a handy time-saving feature that remembers the previously entered city and street names. So when you want to route to an address, and are presented with the city search page, the unit automatically lists the city you most recently searched for. Same thing for the street name entry page. You can either tap the city that's already listed, or start to type out a new city.

Only the TomTom GO 910 has this feature. When entering a destination address, the 910 not only displays the previously selected cities, but also the street names of previous destinations. For short street names this feature isn’t that much of a time saver. But if your street is named El Camino Real, for example, this nice feature can save time when inputting the city and street names. In our testing we really liked having this feature.

Round 10: Text-to-Speech audio command with street name pronunciations
Winner: TomTom GO 910

Speech quality of the TomTom was clearer than the Garmin or Magellan units. Occasionally, however, it would cut the street name short, which was slightly disconcerting. TomTom also appears to offer more information, such as the turn or maneuver after the first voice instruction, which is helpful in some instances. Overall, text-to-speech on the TT 910 is excellent, and the winner of this test.

The Garmin c550’s text-to-speech was also clear and easy to understand. Speaker volume was excellent, thanks to the c550’s dual speakers (the MRM 6000T and TT 910 both only have a single speaker). Nevertheless, text-to-speech quality was not quite as good as the TomTom 910. Unlike the 910, the Garmin C550 does not announce the maneuver after the first voice instruction (not a huge deal, since some users like this feature, and others don’t).

Magellan’s text-to-speech implementation is significantly improved over earlier RoadMate series (700, 760, 860). The pronunciations are much better and the 6000T gives adequate information. However, despite the improvement from previous models, the Magellan is behind in sound and street name pronunciations, and the clear loser in this round. Both the Garmin C550 and the TomTom 910 had better text-to-speech voice prompts than the Magellan.

Round 11: Audio announcements of final destination: Which side of the roadway, left or right hand side?
Winner: Garmin c550 and MRM 6000T

One of the more useful features of a personal navigation device is the ability to tell you if your destination is on the right or left hand side of the street. This may seem like a small thing, but imagine you are routing to a destination on a major street, like El Camino Real in San Jose. This road is 8 lanes wide in some places, and many of the addresses are part of large shopping complexes that don’t have the addresses clearly marked on the street. It is very useful to know if your destination is going to be on the right or left hand side of the street. Both the Garmin and Magellan (and, by the way, Alpine and even Horizon) have this feature, but the TomTom GO 910 does not. In fact, not a single GPS that uses Tele Atlas mapping data offers this important feature.

We're not sure if it's the Tele Atlas mapping software itself, or if the GPS manufacturers are leaving off the attributes for which side of the street or road the final destination is on. This information is available to the GPS manufacturers, albeit for a fee -- maybe some manufacturers are not willing to pay the additional cost. This is a significant feature to be missing from the TomTom GO 910.

Round 12: Text font size on displays and brightness
Winner: Magellan RoadMate 6000T & Garmin c550

Screen Brightness: we found the Magellan RoadMate 6000T to be the brightest of the three units we tested, the TomTom 910 was the least bright, and Garmin was in the middle.

Text Readability: reading text on the TomTom GO 910 was slightly difficult compared to the Magellan or Garmin. The text font size used on the TomTom 910 is smaller than the other 2 units tested – it looks like they used the same font & size as on their PDA-based device. The Magellan and Garmin units have the same font size, except Garmin’s font is in bold. This round is a tie between the Magellan and Garmin, with TomTom being the clear loser.

Round 13: Ability to plan your route by shortest distance, shortest time, most efficient routing
Winner: Magellan RoadMate 6000T

A trip planner is a feature that allows users to input 10-20 random addresses and the GPS will calculate the most efficient route, telling you which addresses you should visit in what order. This is especially useful for people who regularly need to do multi-destination routing, like delivery drivers, or real estate agents.

Only the Magellan 6000T has this feature, so it is the winner of this round.

Round 14: Instant Locate by Providing Street Address and Lat/Long Information
Winner: Magellan RoadMate 6000T

The Magellan RoadMate 6000T has a neat feature that will display your current location. Touching the Locate button on the MRM 6000T displays your current street address, city, county, as well as your heading information (i.e. driving west on xyz road in xyz city/county). It also can tell you what street you are approaching, as well as address ranges on each side of the street. If for some reason you prefer raw numbers, the MRM 6000T can give you your current lat and long position.

Garmin and TomTom do have a stripped down version of the Magellan Locate feature, allowing you to save your current location (on the Garmin c550 you save your current location by tapping the vehicle icon on the map), although you cannot view lat/long information on the Garmin.

Round 15: Additional features MP3, Picture viewer
Winner TomTom GO 910

TomTom GO 910 and Magellan RoadMate 6000T both have a picture viewing feature. The TomTom GO 910's interface is more refined than the Magellan, including well thought-out things like allowing you to play music while navigating, and including an option for iPod integration (via optional cable). Garmin StreetPilot c550 does not have a picture viewer, but it does have the mp3 playback feature and SD card expansion for additional features such as European maps, language guide, and more POI’s at an additional cost.

Round 16: Mounting Hardware
Winner: Garmin StreetPilot c550

Round 17: Mounting hardware is my pet peeve. For such an important aspect on a GPS that will be mounted in your car, it sometimes feels like GPS makers consider the mount an after thought. TomTom's GO 910 is the clear loser in this round. Although the TomTom mount is attractive, and has inputs on it for power, microphone, and expansions, it simply did not hold up well in testing. Our mount started drooping downward as we would drive, eventually breaking altogether. TomTom has released a modified mount for the 910 and reports are the mount is improved. But even apart from the quality issue, the TomTom GO 910 is difficult to put on and take off the windshield mount. You have to get the hang of it, and even then it often feels like you might break it.

Magellan's mount is leaps and bounds better than the TomTom mount, but it's bulky and huge.

Garmin's ball-joint suction mount is excellent. It keeps the c550 firmly in place while driving, the c550 can be rotated to almost any angle on the mount, and the mount is inexpensive to boot. Garmin has done an excellent job with their mount design.

Conclusions
Overall Winner: Garmin StreetPilot c550

Consumers today are making PND purchasing decisions based on user interface, fast processors for faster route calculation and re-route time, touch screen, Text-to-Speech, full coverage mapping software without needing to load maps, 3D map view, large POI selection, small footprint with larger screens (3.5"-4" displays), internal rechargeable battery, the extremely sensitive SiRF Star III GPS receiver, Bluetooth hands free phone capabilities, MP3 player, and TMC Traffic Message Channel options.

Future options such as Wifi, TV, MP4 video, gaming, real time POI’s with video feed, etc. are features that will eventually become available to the GPS industry. Surprisingly, XM radio, traffic, and weather data have not been as popular as predicted. Garmin’s flagship units have included some of these features but have not been as popular due to monthly service fees.

Overall all three units proved to be excellent GPS devices packed with lots of features. Basic navigation performance on all three units was outstanding, thanks to SiRF's STAR III chipset. Just a few years ago, GPS performance like this was unheard of. At the end of the day, a navigation device is designed to help get you from point A to point B, and is only as good as the maps it contains. Although TomTom has created a very elegant and refined product with the GO 910, their current choice of Tele Atlas makes their unit not the best GPS to choose for use in North America. Although the Garmin StreetPilot c550 is not as feature rich as the Magellan RoadMate 6000T, the Garmin is considerably easier to use than the Magellan. The Garmin also has the best windshield mount by far. Garmin's traffic implementation is also the simplest and, in our testing, the most accurate. For that reason, the overall winner of this comparison is the Garmin StreetPilot c550.

Overall Comparison Matrix

(Note: Test comparisons were performed in San Francisco, Alameda and Santa Clara County, CA area only. Test results may vary, depending on location and vehicle type.)

Reviewers note: this review was made possible by testing data performed by James S Keh of Auto Nav 2000 Plus, Inc. Auto Nav 2000 Plus, Inc. is a leading brick-and-morter and online GPS retailer, and has three locations in California: