Garmin Streetpilot C550 2.1-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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List Price: Our Price: $299.00 You Save: $100.99 (25%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $59.99 (click here) Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin Streetpilot C550 2.1-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: 5 stars for GPS, but 1 point off for support
Summary: 4 Stars
We really needed a GPS in our family. My lovely wife, whom I cherish and who gets far too little thanks for driving our children to their many activities (and who might read this), would often call me at work to use Mapquest to help figure out where she was and where she was going. Much as I enjoyed these calls, I thought it would be best if she had an onboard co-pilot. After reading the reviews on Amazon, I thought the Garmin sounded like the best choice.
First, the unit certainly does what my wife asks it to do: chart paths between points A and B. At that, it has been essentially flawless over the several weeks since we purchased it. In addition, it is tremendously easy to install (taking just a couple of minutes) and use. In the first two weeks, my wife went from a techno-phobe doubter to a true believer. Asked about the purchase in that first 2 weeks, I'd have given it 5 stars.
Then it died, for no good reason. The company (Garmin) was a bit hard to reach, with limited tech support hours (including no weekends). We had to send the unit back, and we did promptly receive a second unit. That unit has worked great for going on a month now. Given that there are a couple of other users with similar complaints, I'd have to say that these units may not be quite as reliable as a typical electrical device. Also, we have not had any trouble with the mount, unlike several of the reviewers.
In summary, for its core function, I think the unit is awesome. There are some issues with customer support that Garmin should work on, but these are not enough to seriously tarnish our experience.
ADDENDUM (10/16/06) - after some use, I have concluded that the function which estimates arrival time does so by using a best-case assumption about your speed. It seems to predict that you will always be traveling at the speed limit on a given stretch of road. This means is does not anticipate the inevitable red lights. It consistently underestimates travel time for in-city driving. If I could deduct a 1/2 star from my original review, I would.
Customer Review: Garmin c550 - fine product, but not perfect
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased the c550 to replace my aging Garmin GPS V. Everything has been working as advertised. The primary function, GPS navigation, has been virtually flawless.
The traffic alerts feature could be a great timesaver for some people. My primary driving areas are not normally congested, but one day I got an alert of an accident on my route. The advance warning allowed me to avoid a 10 minute delay.
The TTS (Text to Speech) works well, although I've occasional heard "Dr." (Drive) mistakenly pronounced as "Doctor". But still, the feature reduces the amount of time you need to take your eyes off the road.
The Bluetooth feature eliminates the need to have a separate handsfree unit for my cell phone, and has worked flawlessly.
The mp3 feature is fine, but don't expect high quality sound from the tiny built-in speakers. They just won't deliver it. For casual listening, with reduced quality expectations, they're okay.
All facets of setup were pure simplicity. You can use the unit right out of the box, but if you want to use some additional features or customize it, it only takes a few minutes.
That simplicity leads to my only real criticism of the c550. My old GPS V had many more options that are no longer available on the c550. On the GPS V, virtually every display field, both on the nav screen and on the "dashboard" screen, was customizable. Not so on the c550. What you see is what you get. I would like to have seen an option for "advanced setup" where I could change more of the fields to display the data that I'm interested in seeing.
All in all, the c550 has been a solid performer, but there is room for improvement. I would have no problem recommending it to others.
As for my purchase experience, Amazon's price was among the lowest I found, and my previous purchase experience with Amazon made me confident to purchase from them. The unit was delivered ahead of schedule, in undamaged condition. I would not hesitate to buy from Amazon again.
Customer Review: Great device from someone who is always lost!
Summary: 4 Stars
Sometime during grade school I failed to acquire the ability to read maps and to understand cardinal directions, so I am perpetually lost while driving. I used to use Google Maps to get anywhere I went besides to work and back home. This device has saved me! I now have the freedom to drive anywhere I want whenever I want without having to get to a computer to figure out how to get there! The points of interest are very comprehensive...everywhere I've wanted to go is in there. I've noticed sometimes it doesn't take the most effective route, but it won't get you lost. It doesn't substitute for the human brain (at least one that can spacially locate themselves and their destination and connect the dots), but it always finds the destination. The Bluetooth feature is great, although the volume could be louder. Sometimes I can't hear the person on the phone over the road noise when driving at high speeds on the freeway. Setup and interface are very simple and easy to use right out of the box. Still experimenting with the traffic feature...don't know if I'll buy the subscription when the trial period runs out. It seems to miss a good amount of the slow traffic I run into, and the alternate routes sometimes detour you right back to the traffic, so I don't know if it's worth it yet.
Here's a small note about the 12V adapter. I drive a Subaru WRX and the fuse blows every time I plug the adapter into it. The cigarette lighter in my vehicle only excepts 12V adapters with three metal prongs on the end. This adapter has four, so it shorts out and blows the fuse every time. I got around this by getting a splitter for my cigarette lighter that gives me two electrical plugs, plus a cigarette lighter outlet. The splitter can accept 4 metal prongs so that's perfect and plus I get an extra plug to charge my phone or iPod if I need to. If anyone else is having that problem, there's the workaround without having to take apart your dash to install an aftermarket 12V plug.
Customer Review: don't buy for traffic info
Summary: 2 Stars
I received this for a Christmas gift and hoped it would help me with my Chicago area commute. I did a bit a research trying to figure out the skinny on how this unit gather traffic information and report it. As far as I could tell from the few reviews I read MSN was no better or worse than TMC. Some had good things to say others not so good. There seems to be a lack of information to find out who or where the FM signal for TMC or MSN is being broadcast from. So it's not like you can look at cell towers and figure out if you're going to have coverage. Garmin's site gives this generic map covering, of course, every place in the Chicago metro area and Milwaukee metro coverage overlaps it to the north. This unit comes with the gt20 TMC receiver built into the recharger/ power cord. I am coming from the 60031 zip code area and commuting south to elk grove. The first thing that I do is plug this thing in to get a look at traffic on 94 south. OOps, I had this for two weeks and have never seen it work out of my driveway. It usually doesn't get a (green) turn on signal until it becomes 294 some 13 miles away from where I start. When leaving work 60007 I have only once got a signal to give me the traffic conditions to give me an option of the route I could take. I have updated the software, again this is two weeks old and the software is out of date. Wow, that's sad. I have experienced on route 22 heading towards Barrington the garmins outdated map. It doesn't have the interchange/ bypass with 12 being there and panics and tries to reroute you on roads that aren't there. Sadly you can't even change the traffic you subscribe to. It is specific for each unit, msn is the 580, and I have no clue if any pilot series picks up xm's traffic I couldn't see it from their site. I am returning this and holding out for the dash express as my next best option for traffic. As it will get its traffic from two different sources, one, other dash units gps information and two, traffic.com.Customer Review: Integrated Traffic Great; Rest is Pretty Good
Summary: 4 Stars
I had been waiting for this spring's new generation of car GPS. I'm glad I waited.
The integrated traffic feature is incredible. Yes, its not perfect and often not quick enough. And common sense needs to be used on whether to accept the rerouting. But I commute several times a week outside of Boston for 90-120 minutes. There are multiple routes (495, 95, 93, 24) I can take. Within 5 minutes of leaving my house I can carefully monitor conditions and adjust my route at any time. I save 30-60 minutes/week since it lets me take more "aggressive" routes that are shorter but are often clogged with traffic. It also works well on bridge and tunnel traffic in NYC. Not so useful in areas which rarely have traffic (thus not updated as frequently) or where there aren't good alternate routes.
Bad points: Makes weird routing suggestions on many long distance trips. Sometimes, if you keep driving your way, it will suddenly agree and note that your way is ten minutes shorter than the way it suggested five minutes ago. I'm not sure why it didn't calculate that up front. Mount got sloppy after a month and falls off the windshield in high heat conditions. Also, the battery stopped working (only works when plugged in) which I haven't addressed with Garmin. It is hard to examine an entire route instead of just the current portion.
Good points: Traffic (see above). There are better deals if you don't need traffic. Spoken street names are great. In-city navigation is great. Bluetooth works well. MP3 is slightly useful. Having the entire database loaded is great (Canada works very well). The database of stores and landmarks is far more comprehensive than any I have used. Many golf courses. I will put in Walmart and it will show all Walmarts until you find one just off the interstate for a minimal detour.
The traffic feature is incredibly easy to use without the aesthetic and installation hassles of similar solutions.