[ksfrogman]

This is not for myself, as I have the DVD-Nav option, but was thinking of getting my dad a portable GPS navigation system for his birthday. Any opinions or recommendations?

I have used the Garmin Where2, but have also seen Sony and Magellan brands. I guess there is also a Tom Tom? Dad's name is Tom, by-the-way.

[StarrDlux]

tomtom has good haxor community for free software/map upgrades; the nuvi 205 series are really nifty When they come out en masse.

i use a dash express since it has gsm,xml/kml for two way interactive custom (home grown even) apps, and yahoo local search, and of course send2car. it's routing isn't the best but its traffic is superior (in cali especially) and downloads/uploads small road statistical data which no other providers have even attempted. Well magellans $1295 unit does the same thing basically.

the bmw satnav is pretty lame without touchscreen or yahoo/google search. you could just get him a sprint SERO or everything plan with free telenav its pretty nice but its rather difficult to use solo.

30 day return policy at amazon or amazon's warehouse

[ksfrogman]

Sounds like some of those may be a bit expensive. I was thinking of spending no more than $500 on one.