TomTom GO 300 Car GPS Receiver

I recently researched aftermarket GPS Navigation devices for cars and settled on the TomTom 300 as the best. Here were my factors:

1. Be simple to use. No manuals, I don't want to get into an accident figuring it out and my wife needs to be able to use it without training.
2. Be smart. For example, showing me points of interest related to where I am now without me needing to tell it where I am.
3. Updatable. Both the maps and the software should be updatable easily
4. Be portable. I want to be able to move it between cars easily.
5. Be priced around $500.

The TomTom 300 met all these criteria and was best in class. I particularly like how it remembers what I've done in the past. Besides allowing me to program favorite addresses, it remembers popular cities I've use and the points of interest that interest me. I love that I can download traffic info into this device and reroute accordinginly. The 3D map view is much better than the bird-eye view that other navigators deliver.

Killer Feature: Dynamic Traffic Updates. I was stuck on the freeway last week and TomTom connected thru my bluetooth phone, downloaded my traffic conditions, and then rerouted me onto a different freeway. It was longer in mileage but I got to my appointment on time. Smart.

Only nit on this device is that when driving on the freeway it only identifies street exits by their exit number (e.g. Exit 39) which given in California not all exits are numbered this can be confusing sometimes.

UPDATE OCT 2006: TomTom recently released a free update that fixes the street exit issue mentioned above so that both the exit number and street name are displayed.

UPDATE MAY 2007: If you buy an older TomTom 300 you can buy the newly released set of maps with more than 410,000 new road miles and 500,000 points of interest for $50 from TomTom. Also you may want to also check out the "TomTom One" which goes for about $300 or the slightly higher priced ($400) TomTom 510 which adds street name text-to-speech.