I would say garmin are the best, had 250 series and very easy to use and straight forward. Make sure it atleast has voice directions, street names are not necessary in my opionion just costs more. But map updates are expensive, but when you are travelling you should be good for atleast 4-5 years as its mostly highways, just local point of interest business gets messed up as they close and open frequently.

Android phones are nice as it is synced with google and free real time map updates, but i found the gps reception is very unreliable, and no they are not free lol because arent they charging you like 30 bucks a month for data service and the price of phone? it is nice to have though. But yeah definately get garmin