Sat Nav for USA

I go on hols to USA every year and normally rent car for 2 or 3 weeks with sat nav which costs an extra $10 per day.
Looking at buying one in Walmart on my next trip to eliminate need to rent one.
Does anyone have any experience of which one to buy ? Seems to be so many available and its not clear as to what level of detail the maps come with. Do I need to upgrade maps to suit location ?
Looking at Garmin Street Pilot c340 for $299 + taxes.

Can I then add Europe/Ireland maps to it when I come home ? Do I need to pay extra to do this.

I have a Tom Tome One Europe that came with European maps. You can also download USA maps from the website. Its really a personal choice. Most systems are as good as each other

So can I buy any unit and get either an SD card with the US on it or, in the case of tosullivan, download them from their website, are the downloads free ?

updates are free but new maps are not free (obviously)

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this one will do you fine. its the one i got for the USA too. u have to buy the north american map for it extra but i do exactly as you. annual trip to the states and got sick of paying 15 bucks a day for one of these. id buy it here before u go though

I have a satnav and use it in Ireland on and off, mostly when I need to find a particular address.
I travel to the US each year as well and have been thinking of getting a cheap one there as well (you could get refurbished ones from Radioshack for $99), but I wouldn't know why you would actually need one, unless of course you have a lot of addresses in busy cities to visit.

The road signage in the US is second to none and I have never been lost. If you know where you are going in advance , print out a map from google and you will not go wrong.

The road signage in the US is second to none and I have never been lost. If you know where you are going in advance , print out a map from google and you will not go wrong.

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Of course, it's handy around cities though, it's the convenience of the thing, like, we can all handwash our clothes but why bother when you can have a machine do it !!

Tom Tom 930T includes USA & Canada as well as Ireland, Uk,and Europe. Costs £350 here in England at Maplins. Don't know whether you have Maplins over there, but Im pretty sure that they have a website.

Tom Tom 930T includes USA & Canada as well as Ireland, Uk,and Europe. Costs £350 here in England at Maplins. Don't know whether you have Maplins over there, but Im pretty sure that they have a website.

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Thanks, yes we have maplin here in Ireland but as far as I can see it's the GB website. Anyhow from my research I see the cheapest for the one I want is from www.elara.ie

My brother was in California a month ago and brought his own Garmin with him; he bought it for use at home here, He got a SD card with the North America maps from eBay and put it into the memory slot; from all accounts it worked perfectly.

I was over there last year and hired a car which just happened to have a built-in satnav. It was pure cr*p in comparison to the my Garmin. The graphics were all in straight lines and the estimated time to destination was away off; in fact if you halved the time, it was much closer to reality