TomTom One 140 S portable navigation device

Pros: Quick and easy to use. Autocomplete helps in entering addresses. Alot of downloadable POIs to increase it's usefulness. Search POI by type or name. Lane guidance is a must on large highways. About 2hr battery means no cable needed for local trips.

Cons: If you aren't patient while typing in a new address, you'll goof it. Pressing the keys is sometimes not 100% accurate, and it refines it's autocomplete list with each letter entered, so you need to give it a half second before letter presses.

Summary: I've used Garmin NUVI widescreen models and liked them alot. I got the 140S for christmas 2009 and was worried that not being widescreen would be a bother. But I love it! It's plenty wide enough to easily see instructions. Alot of options for changing what's displayed while driving. Start-up time and routing is very fast, seconds for a short drive (1hr or less away) and less than a minute for going on a 2 day trip. 2GB internal memory is plenty. I too, wish that it had an SD slot, but to all the people complaining or worrying, 2GB is PLENTY to hold the latest US/Canada/Mexico maps plus dozens of POI add-ons plus several text-to-speech voices and still have wiggle room left over. If you travel internationally and wanted to have European maps or something on it to, you'd have to plug into the computer to switch maps, but for the average USA user, it's definately enough. And this is just me, but I like the TomTom interface better than the NUVI. And lastly, you can get these on sale for only $100 at most places, which makes it a steal!

Updated on Feb 14, 2010

Just wanted to add that 4.5 stars instead of 5 is only because typing addresses on it took getting used to because of the delay between keys I mentioned. A few practices with it and it's worth 5 stars.

Another tip: to charge before your trip without needing your computer on, use the USB cable it comes with and buy a cheap USB power adapter to charge it in any wall outlet (like you would use for an iPod). I bought a CaseLogic camera case from WalMart for $9 that's big enough to hold the unit, the mount, car charger, USB cable, and am iPod wall charger while still being small enough to take with you into a destination. LOVE that I got that.