True dat!

 

Have a Garmin nuvi 1490 LMT lifetime maps and traffic. 5" display. Works great for ~180.00. Goes from cars to boat to bike. Multiple-point routing. Blue tooth. Upgradable flash memory slot. Custom POI's. Had to use a plastic bag a few times for rain. Not a big deal for me. I think its the best bang for the buck. Especially if it happens to get "lost".

 

I cannot see my TomTom gps in the bright sunlight, even built a makeshift sun shade out of cardboard, still can't see it.

I have no problems seeing my iPhone in the sunlight. When on the bike, I change the settings to never lock and the screen is always on. I run it plugged into a USB charger from my power port (cig lighter).

 

Garmin 660 with the HD dash mount.

 

Garmin Zumo. I'm still usin' the 550 I've had for 5 years. I paid for lifetime map updates & they work just fine. I can see the screen in bright light, hear the voice commands with bluetooth helmet speakers, plan custom routes with my netbook computer (can any of the smart phone units do that?), find motels, food, parts, etc. at the push of a button (again, smart phones?), & it will tell me when I'm low on gas & locate two pages of the nearest gas stations. It tells me my speed more accurately than the speedo on the bike, & tells me the time of arrival at my destination. All while riding in the same heat/cold/rain/dust/vibration/etc. I am without any problem. If it ever fails & Garmin can't fix it the only reason I'd change to a newer version would be the larger screen.

 

Garmin road tech zumo 660 here. It is excellent, but the price will frighten you.

 

I have used a gps in my car for 10+ years, they were always great for me to use as a time managment means, after becoming involved in bikes, I thought how am I going to manage with out one?, and to make matters worse what about my Sirius radio, well I found a gps that does both at my local HD store and wow it would set me back more than the pipes I want!.....needless to say I did with out. This lead me to what I see others talking about, my droid smart phone GPS. Wow what a great app! this thing is way better than my last garmin or factory installed gps systems. So here was the best part I use my droid to play music with Pandora and to my surprise as I was driving to my next stop I heard a voice inside my head saying turn left in 600 feet...what? where did this voice come from I thought? damn what a trick, the voice cuts out my music when approching a turn. Best thing is its Free and now to just cancel my Sirius.

 

Droid is good but only when you have service and for that lonely roads area I use
Garmin 785 which has a audio out put jack to plug into radio aux port.Not whole lot GPS has audio out put jack mostly blue tooth these days.For this particular GPS RAM mounts has custom cradle which is very solid and reduces the handle bars vibrations, I wired it in side the fairing to cig lighter wiring.

 

I use an older Garman Nuvi with a RAM handlebar mount. Cheap, MP3 with SD port, Works great for me. One feature it has that I haven't seen mentioned here is Bluetooth.

With Bluetooth and a cable from my headphone port on the Garman connected to the auxilliary port on the HK radio, I am able to make and receive phone calls through the Garman and hear them and road directions through the bike's speakers and the helmet headset.

The one thing I haven't figured out yet is how to get outgoing voice through the helmet headset microphone. I suppose I could use a handsfree phone microphone but that would be too much cable clutter. Anyone else get this to work?

 

Yes a smart phone can do all that, and it can do some of it by just speaking to it.

This is where I think a phone falls flat on its ***. For those that use a phone do you actually look at it or just listen to the directions?