Do Not Buy a Garmin Or TomTom GPS Until You Hear These Voice Options
August 23rd, 2008 by nevada5135If you are considering buy a GPS system you need to do your research. There are many devices on the market, some better than others with more bells and whistles than you could imagine. Garmin is the market leader followed somewhat closely by TomTom.
A few years ago all you could get were basic directions. But now, there are all types of features that make owning a GPS for your car almost as necessary (and as fun as a cell phone).
After doing a survey of Best Buy and Circuit City sales associates though, I discovered that the most requested feature is the ability to change the voices on the GPS device. By now many people are familiar with the boring factory voice and are looking for options.
Cell phones have ringtones that let people personalize their mobile phones. Many people are looking for ways to do similar things with their GPS device. There are a few companies who are providing this service.
For instance, www.pig-tones.com (which stands for “Politically Incorrect GPS”) is the most popular service and one of the only sites that provide voices for Garmin…although they are also have voices available for TomTom.
The pig-tones.com voices range from celebrities like Arnold Schwartzenegger and President Bush (at least for a few more months) to Yoda and even God. But they also have some very funny and edgy voices as well that would make your grandmother blush (I’m not even going to to into them here, but you can listen to voice samples on your own at their website, just be careful at work).
Another company is navtones. They have been around a little while longer and seem to focus mainly on B-list celebrity voices. Their voices range from Mr. T to Gary Busey and Burt Reynolds. Not quite the most cutting edge celebrity voices but there are probably some fans of the A-Team that don’t mind Mr. T calling them a fool when they make a wrong turn. I’m just not sure that I would welcome Gary Busey barking directions at me in my car or even Mr. T for that matter.
The only two systems that allow you to really customize your voices though at this moment are Garmin and TomTom. Pig-tones.com allows you to do both and navtones only does TomTom.
In conclusion, it’s important to know your options for customization before you buy. Not all GPS are created equal…some are a lot more fun.
Brad Jackson is an avid driving enthusiast. He owns every single voice that http://www.pig-tones.com provides and highly recommends it to others.
