Bought it before a family trip to Central Florda. Ripped open the box in the parking lot and it worked like a charm! Easy to enter address info, even if you have big hands.
Good Points of Interest, especially in the Orlando Area. However, I live in Chesapeake, VA, and it’s missing quite a few two-plus year old restaurants/drug stores and even the 10 year old Wal-Mart (Gasp!). Not a deal breaker, probably an issue with all GPS’s.
Seems to adapt to driving patterns as it recommended a “shorter as a crow flies” route to my work, but definitely not the quickest or practical. After two days of taking my usual route, it now “tells” me to take my way instead. Noticed this in Orlando, too, but the way it wanted me to go wasn’t really out of the way.
The MP3 player, by itself, is a bit lame, as the speakers are tiny. It does work well for audio books though. You can hook up the MP3 player to your cassette deck if you have one of those older adapters that were used for your old “Discman”. I actually had one and it works really well and the sound is decent.
The “Text to Speech” is MUST HAVE and I couldn’t imagine having a GPS that simply says, “Turn left in .4 miles”. The NUVI swiftly guides you with, “In .4 miles, turn left on Second Avenue”. Then, about 200 feet from the intersection you hear, “Turn left on Second Avenue”. Priceless!
If you miss your turn or go your own way, it quickly recalculates and provides an easy to follow alternate. A few times it told me to “go .5 miles and make a U-turn”, when I could have made a U-turn much closer, but a minor issue that is easily overshadowed by the NUVI’s outstanding features.
It also has the best window suction cup I’ve seen, especially compared to my SIRIUS cup. Seems like a minor thing but it doesn’t vibrate or fall off.
In closing, its a bit more than the “entry-level” GPS’s but believe me that it’s worth the extra bucks.
Tags:
car gps,
Garmin