If PND’s cost $1,000 they might be toast, but considering they can be had for $100, no doubt less in the future, they’ll still sell. People have no trouble spending that relatively small amount of money for an added convenience — just as many of us have multiple iPod models for slightly differences use cases and multiple pairs of shoes for different situations — and PNDs do have certain advantages. I for one had a dismal experience attempting to use my phone for serious car navigation, and since the problems had to do mainly with the network and battery, the Google app does nothing to improve that. Hence I had no hesitation buying a Garmin even though I supposedly had phone nav available.

Nevermind also what happens when you get a text or call on your GPS phone at a critical moment of navigating on the roads, and suddenly lose your navigation.

That said, Garmin and TT need to improve their software and user interfaces — that’s where they can really hose themselves. They need to bump up screen size too — a PND could really push the envelope, PNDs want to have as big a screen as is reasonable, while phones are not going to get any bigger anytime soon.

First reason: the One is a dedicated device whose functionality is still unparalleled in power and flexibility, e.g. I can plan any detour following unforeseen events like traffic jams (and TT maps are smart at choosing another “best route” thanks to built-in, updated traffic data based on well known hourly traffic patterns) and fuel refills (“please TT drive me through the nearest service station of brand X”), not to mention the huge amount of custom, regularly updated POIs like speed cameras and average speed traps (these alone are a key feature in Italy and other EU countries).

Second reason: wherever I may roam, my TomTom always has the complete map for my region of choice and doesn’t need any data link. This makes a huge difference as flatrate data plans are too expensive in EU and “Google Drive” will almost certainly need to pull down data chunks during navigation, which are boosting my phone bill.