Monday, October 6, 2008

Garmin Nuvi 255 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Garmin Nuvi 255 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

No qwerty keyboard

Works well and is accurate. Finds initial location quickly. Voices can be a little weird sounding (especially on street names) but can be understood. The biggest issue is about the keyboard, no qwerty option. Quite surprising.

Everything you need in a GPS

This is the fourth GPS that I have tried. Initially I had the VZ Navigator system from verizon. It's a phone GPS and works very well. However, I had to discard that after I moved from Verizon. Then I got the top rated Nuvi Garmin 350. Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text-to-Speech When I started using it, I realized that its navigation features where inferior to VZ navigator. I was surprised that a dedicated GPS had less features than a phone GPS. Few things that annoyed me with nuvi 350. 1) It wouldn't show the distance or direction of next turn. I had to press the turn list, everytime I needed to check the distance to next turn. Also, since the direction of turn is not shown in advance, you could endup on the wrong lane before the turn. 2) The arrival time shown on the display would not take into account the time zone. If you travel a lot between time zones, you are always forced to calculate the actual arrival time using the time shown on the display. 3) It wouldn't remember the last entered city. You have to re-enter the city, everytime you enter an address. The only thing 350 had better than the phone gps was the bigger display. Anyway, my 350 got stolen recently. I was half happy that I could get a new GPS. I researched a little bit and figured that the Tomtom One 130S TomTom ONE 130S 3.5-Inch Touchscreen Portable GPS Navigator did not have any of the annoyances of nuvi 350. It would always display the direction and distance to the next turn. I liked the compact mounting setup of Tomtom very much. Also, the voice instructions were very clear although many reviewers had complained about voice quality. However, I was forced to return the GPS due to one major flaw. The voice instructions and the directions were not correct!!! When I had to go westbound, the GPS would instruct me to take the ramp to Eastbound direction. This happened on two instances and I decided enough is enough. Doing some further research, I figured that garmin has introduced a new model that fixes all of the shortcomings of nuvi 350. I have used it for about 2 weeks and I am very happy with the purchase. Although some reviewers have complained about the voice quality, I havn't had any difficulty in understanding the voice instructions. Apart from fixing the annoyances mentioned above, it also has some nice additional features. 1) Faster GPS lock 2) Speed limit display 3) Internal antenna and slimmer profile; so easy to store in pocket. Overall nuvi 255 is the ideal GPS, atleast for now :-)

Garmin Nuvi 255 - intuitive out of the box ease!

I literally hooked this product up in my car right as I got in for a 6 day trip visiting new and old accounts in Salt Lake City/Ogden/Provo/Logan (I live in the Denver area). I had NEVER used a GPS before. Once I got used to how I needed to input adresses (took about 2 minutes with the funky grid system SLC uses inputting E/W/N/S for streets)I was guided to all the new accoutns by voice/map without a problem.....I will never travel to new places without one of these again. This was way easy to use, just glanced at the quick start and was on my way.

Don't pay more, this has everything you need

Let me set the scene for you: I arrive in Los Angeles at the airport, turn on my GPS system and instantly am ready to navigate. I then spend two days driving around Los Angeles not knowing where anything is located and haven't gotten lost once... The nuvi 255, as in my review title, is everything you need. Don't spend more because you think you'll need to talk for navigation or that you want to connect to some navigation service or whatever else they're selling. This is a small, FAST, device that you can easily carry with you when it isn't in your car. And folks, that's part of a portable GPS system: you can take it with you so it doesn't get stolen. I will give the following heads-up. The first time you calibrate the GPS system, it may take up to 10 MINUTES. Be patient, stand in a large open field, and don't move the device. Just let it sit. After that initial setup, you'll be walking on sunshine. Second, charging the device is easy. All you need is a standard USB cable that is used for most electronics. The downside, it doesn't show a progress bar on the screen as to when a charge is complete. Third, when you turn it on, make sure you have clear views of the sky from all directions. Otherwise, the system may not initialize properly. Plus, if you're in a city with tall buildings, you may be out of luck for getting signal (i.e. NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago). Normally, the difficultly comes from initially turning it on. After that, it's great. This device is FAST in recalculating routes. Mere seconds and boom, you're back on track. No downtime whatsoever. This is really amazing. You are given the option of navigation as a pedestrian or in a car. That is really great if you're on foot. You can easily switch between the two. NOW... my word of advice. SPEND THE MONEY to get the 255 with the "text-to-speech." When you're driving in traffic in an unfamiliar place, you don't want to have to constantly look over to read the street names on the device then find them on the street. It is worth the extra cash. All-in-all, I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. As I said to a friend today, it isn't often that I buy a piece of electronics equipment and have my expectations met and surpassed. As I continue to use it, new things continue to amaze me.

Very happy

This is our first GPS and we are very happy with it. As I have heard with other GPS systems, you have to remember that they are not perfect and will not always tell you the way you would have gone, but they will get you there. It is very user friendly and has some nice features that are easy to use. We have used it one two trips so far and have been very happy with it. I was concerned with getting the 3.5 screen as opposed to the 4.3, but the 3.5 has worked out great for us.



Keyword : garmin

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