I'm looking for y'all's advice on an auto-only GPS. My criteria are:
1. Large display
2. Good quality, current, updatable map database, US only
3. Easy data entry, preferably by QWERTY keyboard

I do not want it to talk to me, or to talk to it. If it had a topographic or coastal maritime overlay capability, that'd be cool, but not worth paying much for.

I could do the research, but I figure someone here almost certainly already has, at least enough to get me started. Thanks.

I have a Garmin Nuvi 760. It does talk, but you can turn the volume down. One of its most useful attributes is the traffic receiver. That system has routed me around a lot of bad traffic in LA using roads I'd have never considered using, but that turned out to be faster and shorter than the route I chose. It hooks up to a PC via USB port and comes with software so you can preplan trips, mark waypoints easily and then download them into the GPS and vice versa.

I have been thru several Garmin Nuvi models (Thanks TSA/Baggage handlers), and have had zero complaints but one...
They seem to disappear from checked luggage.

We now have two that see almost constant use with no complaints. Just don't damage the power cords. Even though they are Mini-USB, they are proprietary, a pain to replace, and expensive for nothing more than a re-wired Mini-USB.


Oh yeah, I almost forgot...
They are now miles better than the junk handed out by the rental car companies, so do not use rental car trash as a standard of measurement.

We have a Garmin Nuvi 265W, I think it is. Packed with features, including the traffic rerouting one, and very economical for what you get. Nice wide-ish screen, too. Runs on batteries or the aforementioned power cord which has a built-in tiny receiver for the traffic info.

I bought my wife a Garmin Nuvi and made sure to get the wide-screen version. Later I realized that the wide-screen actually has limited benefit since on the screen the "car" stays in the middle, and the direction of travel tends to be from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen - that's the short dimension. All the stuff off to the sides (the wide dimension) is usually fairly unimportant to us.

Other than that silliness, it has done everything she needed it to do.

It is a lower-end model - maybe the 200W or 250W or something like that. I don't think she needed the extra features of the higher end models (play music, display pictures, ...). It does give verbal directions, but it does not speak the street names - that is one feature I think we wish it did have.

BTW, one option I wish any automotive GPS had - and so far I don't think the Nuvi has (but I could be wrong) - is to focus searches for services (food, hotels, ...) only forward - and not backward or too much to the side.

It drives me nuts when I look for fuel and the GPS suggests that the closest one is 5 miles BEHIND me. I don't want to have to go backwards.

My work van has a Garmin Nuvi, and I have a TomTom One in my Jeep. The Garmin Nuvi has more features and is fancier, but the TomTom One is simpler to use and has a better user interface (in my opinion).

So, I actually prefer my TomTom. I even do GeoCaching with it where I take it out of the Jeep and use it to hunt stuff in the woods.

Also, the Garmin seems to talk a lot more than the TomTom. It says street names, whereas the TomTom just says "Turn right".