I never rode in any car with a factory GPS, and was curious how my experience with a hand unit compares with a dedicated car model. My Garman easily did everything I needed it to do in the car. How would a Lexus GPS system be better? And how do you set waypoints in the Lexus system. Seems that the waypoints are the absolute key. I'd like to hear about your GPS adventures, both factory and handheld.

I bought a Garman GPS V a couple years ago for $400. I occasionally use it in my old ES, but it truly comes into its own when I fly to a large city that I am not familiar with, particularly Las Angeles where it saved me on two trips.

I pre-programmed LA, Orange and Ventura Counties with about a dozen defined "waypoints".... places I know I had to be like LAX, hotels, California Speedway, Santa Monica, etc. I had little familiarity with the freeways, no maps, went everywhere I wanted, and never got lost.

This little toy gives an audible beep with a text display that tells you exactly what to do about a half mile and again a few hundred feet before you need to do it. The text is easy to read day or night. Very specific. For example, one of the freeways was 8 to 10 lanes in each direction. The GPS instructed me when to get in the center, left or right lanes as needed. If you do miss a turn it lets you know, and re-calculated right away. I did have to stop to let recalculate one time in Venice Beach, but I was driving in alley ways it probably never heard of. Would this happen in a Lexus too?

I hooked it up to my laptop once on a cross country flight, and could follow the flight real time. Pretty neat crossing the Mississippi seeing it for real, and on the screen. Downside is that I had to get several pillows from the stewardess so I could prop the GPS against the window for it to "see" the required satellites. Another downside is that it uses a serial port, and takes 45 minutes to upload new maps, which you must do frequently due to lack of installed memory.

The GPS V is one of the most useful of my many electronic toys. I hate to think of the LA trips without it, using maps. I showed my wife downtown LA, near where the freeways are the craziest. After seeing the sights, we drove randomly for over half an hour; I could have been in Mexico for all I knew. My wife selected our destination waypoint, the GPS calculated our route, and we were able to drive directly to our hotel. Now that was fun!