Review
Have you noticed how the stimulus money approved for road improvements isn’t really improving your driving experience? There always seems to be road construction to hold you up and make you late. Often this involves you taking detours on roads you’re not familiar with. As recently happened to me. And due to this detour, not my male gene that prevents me from stopping to ask for directions, I ended up arriving at my destination just over an hour late. Had I owned a gadget, such as a GPS nav system, which it would have been acceptable to ask for directions from – due to the fact it’s a gadget/toy, I would not have been driving around swearing at the illogical backward streets of Salt Lake City.
Garmin nüvi 255W
This Small portable system has been around for just over a year and continues to be one of best selling units out there. Some of the features that keep it there, apart from affordability, are the 4.3” diagonal screen, FM traffic updates, Text-to-Speech recognition that gives street names as well as direction (e.g. ‘turn left on to North Street in 50 ft’, as opposed to ‘turn left in 50 feet’),, faster mapping through the 333Mhz processor, Pedestrian Mode, and upload addresses from Mapquest & Google Maps.
The system also has a screen lock feature to ensure prevent changes from accidental touch, this is also helpful for Pedestrian Mode, enabling you to carry it in your pocket without fear cancelling directions. This mode also act as a power saver mode by turning off the screen after 15 seconds of inactivity.
Other useful features include: JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more.
Garmin nüvi 265W/265WT
Has all the features of the nüvi 255W plus real time traffic updates from Navteq for the life of the device and can be paired with a Bluetooth cell phone for hands free calling.
The Navteq Intergrated Traffic Receiver system allows you to get real-time alerts about accidents, construction, whatever obstacle that may lay ahead. Upon receiving an alert you’ll have the option, with a simple touch of the screen, to update directions with the best detour, or continue to wait it out.
The Bluetooth offers complete interaction with your phone. Not only is it equipped with built-in microphone and speaker, it also will offer on-screen touch pad dialing, call history search, or look up contacts from your phone book. The 265W provides easy one touch answering, just a tap of the screen answers the call.
Garmin nüvi 780
This model offer all the 265W model offers and a little more. Geared towards the business user this unit offers MP3 player and Photo Viewer, and an FM transmitter that will play the voice prompts, MP3’s, and audio books through your vehicles stereo system.
This version also comes with a 3 month free subscription to Enhance MSN Direct. This service offers enhanced dynamic content such as weather & weather alerts, stock info, local events, compare local gas prices and more. You can even plan your trip online with your computer and synchronize your nüvi wirelessly via Windows Live Local. The entire nüvi range offers this service with paid subscription.
This is hard to beat value, under $200.
Refurbished – Garmin nüvi 255W
This shows just how popular and highly ranked this model is, when it is in the Top 5 twice. For $30 less you can pick up a refurbished nüvi 255W. Usually these are units returned to the manufacturer who refurbish the interior workings to a like new condition, basically installed new parts for anything that was broken or inop. The exterior may have some minor blemishes or marks. It’s just a case of whether or not you’re willing to live with a slightly used system.
Garmin nüvi 765
This unit features all the top included in the previous 4 plus the impressive Lane Guidance and 3D building features.
The Lane Guidance system allow you to visually see upcoming junctions with photo realistic screen shots that include the lanes and signs, the lanes and signs you require will be highlighted, while the other lanes and signs will appear faded. This could definitely be a handy feature for those 5, 6, or 7 lane highways and spaghetti junctions.
3D building will help you reference buildings as you drive through city streets. Building will appear in one of two ways, the first is a grey image outlining the shape extruding from the map, the other is as a life like representation of the actual building also extruded from the map.
Conclusion
There are so many GPS systems out there that can meet, and even exceed, your needs. You really have to set yourself a budget and consider the most important features you want. You also need to check if it’s easily updated, is there a charge? Do you require it to be portable? If so, what is the battery life? Do you need multi-destination routing? Or any of the features mentioned above,such as Bluetooth, Traffic alerts, Text-to-Speech etc.?
GPS system are dropping in price and this could be a good time to get a great deal!
