Garmin nüvi 260W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nüvi 260W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Widescreen wonder.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the second Garmin product I have used; the first is the Garmin nuvi 200 that my mother owns. I'll use it as a comparison from time to time.
I purchased this product from Amazon when planning my move from Maine to Virginia, a drive of over 600 miles. I had made the drive down once before using the aforementioned Garmin 200, and after seeing how invaluable the GPS proved to be in the first case, I decided I needed one for myself.
The nuvi 260 is widescreen, and has considerably more screen real estate than does the nuvi 200. You don't really notice too much while you are just viewing the map, since most of the detail is concentrated in the middle of the screen anyways. It does make text entry easier - the widescreen is a better analogue to a standard keyboard, and by default the touch screen keyboard is laid out in QWERTY style. You can switch it back to alphabetical if you wish, but I found the QWERTY to be instantly usable.
The other main distinction between the 260 and 200, and more generally between it and the cheaper models, is the text to speech feature. What this means in laymen's terms is that instead of saying "Turn right in 400 yards", it says "Turn right on Wendy Lane in 400 yards", or "Arriving at Best Buy on right" as opposed to "Arriving at destination on right." Hearing the streets announced is very helpful; when driving through crowded urban areas, there are often multiple streets in quick succession, so knowing you have a turn in 400 yards isn't always very helpful. Hearing the name of the street ensures you make the turn. I have definitely missed turns or made the wrong turn before when using the nuvi 200; that has not yet happened with this 260 model. The voice is slightly robotic, but it's not distractingly bad.
Finally, I just want to say that this has been invaluable for my move, not just for getting me down to Virginia safe and sound. Half of its utility has come after I arrived. When you are in a new area and without Internet access, it's very hard to know where things are. With this unit, you can browse nearby attractions, e.g. the local library, without knowing specifically what you are looking for. Not only does it then show you the way there, but it also lists the phone number for said locations. Again, when you are without Internet and telephone book, this feature is priceless.
I wish this featured traffic integration out of the box; I believe you need to get the nuvi 255 or similar unit for that. In general it's very hard to understand the numbering convention that Garmin uses for its products. Higher doesn't necessarily mean more advanced.
If you do a lot of driving but don't absolutely need traffic routing, get this unit. You won't be disappointed.
Customer Review: Close; but no cigar.
Summary: 2 Stars
Pros: Accurate locations; easy to configure; clear display
Cons:
1. When first programmed, it says "Proceed to highlighted route," but never gives a direction. If it said proceed WEST to highlighted route, you'd know which way to go.
2. The voice sometimes forgets to tell you about a turn, simply "falling asleep" through the turn. When it does this, it will not warn you of the miss by saying "Recalculating!" It just routes you another way with no announcement. Very disconcerting.
3. The voice is highly inconsistent. Sometimes it warns at 0.6 miles, again at 0.4 miles, yet again at 0.1 miles. At other times it only warns once, at a few hundred feet from the turn. I have yet to figure out any logic for this.
4. Sometimes the voice tells you to turn well after the turn is passed.
5. The voice cuts out repeatedly at times, so you cannot understand what was said; somewhat like a phonograph record with a severe scratch -- for those of you old enough to appreciate this analogy. I don't know if my gps is faulty, or if this is characteristic of all the gps' of this model.
6. I call the voice "the nag," because it goes all apucky when I turn off the course to get gas, stop at a rest stop, or stop for lunch. No way to shut the damned nag off during this respite other than to just shut off the Garmin gps. Too bad it doesn't have a mute button.
7. When all satellites are lost, the Garmin doesn't warn you that it is blind. It just blythely lets you pass up important turns. If you travel in deeply wooded areas, this can really cause problems for you. There should be an audible warning when satellite positioning is lost.
8. The voice doesn't know the difference between St. for Saint and St. for Street, so Saint Martin's Way is called Street Martin's Way. Same for the town of La Connor. It is called Lane Connor.
9. The "minus" button will beep when you press it, which is supposed to be a confirmation that the request was received, but it will often not resize the map. Irritating glitch.
10. No way to override the GPS's autoscaling as you come to a turn. It will rescale to what it wants no matter how frantically you are pressing the scale buttons to get a bigger overview of where you are at. Oftentimes I want to verify that the route the gps has chosen is the one that makes the most sense. Often it is not. But it is a real fight as to who is in charge. The gps wins.
11. There should be a feature to permanently turn off the bread crumb trail. I use the gps to run optimized delivery routes, and the damned breadcrumb trail (blue) from past deliveries covers the current route (which should be purple) I wish to run.
In short, my gps gives very accurate location but less than satisfactory navigational directions.
Customer Review: Garmin maps are inaccurate, customer service is horrible
Summary: 1 Stars
I've been a garmin customer since 2003, and I've owned several units. I'm posting this review for the Nuvi 260W because it happens to be the model that is annoying me the most right now.
Although it works and is easy to use and is reliable, all of those good qualities are far outweighed by the consistently horrible customer no-service and the ridiculously inaccurate maps. My anger was renewed last night when the unit failed to show many streets and a school in El Paso that have been there for almost two years. I have purchased a lifetime map update and did the update in September. Google Maps shows perfect accuracy for the area, and has been accurate for the last 15 months.
I've had occasion to call Garmin about a dozen times since 2003, and each time it has been a nightmare - hold times of 30 minutes or more, inconsistent answers, reps that know less about the product (and GPS technology in general) than I do.
When you complain about map inaccuracy (this also applies to errors in points of interest), the stock answer is to "submit an inaccuracy report". If you want a lesson in frustration, try it - the form has dozens of fields (not including requiring you have all the serial number and model number information for your unit). You will spend about 15 minutes for one report. It is impossible to report general inaccuracies, such as "the map shows none of the roads that exist in this geographic area". There is no way to report a missing road (such as the new freeways that are being built in El Paso).
I could spend the rest of my life filling out the stupid forms to report map problems. Why Garmin can't just import the data from Google Maps in beyond me.
A pox on Garmin and their house. I'm never buying another unit. I'll try a TomTom next, even though I see plenty of reports about problems with TomToms. At least it will be a "devil I don't know". As soon as I get a replacement, I'll video a sequence where I show the unit depicting me as driving off-road while I'm actually tooling along a paved road that has been there for years. I'll cut away to a shot of Google Maps accurately showing the road. I'll throw in some of the clueless email exchanges with customer no-service I've saved over the years, and some audio too. Then, I'll get HD quality video of me burning, stomping, shredding and melting the Garmin into a smoking pile of crap, packing it into a box, and sending it to Garmin. I'll lovingly edit the entire thing with Sony Vegas Pro 10 , and post the final product on my YouTube channel. I'll be sure to pick a good title that will show in searches, and I'll update this post with the link.
Would I recommend a Garmin? Only to my worst enemy.
Disgusted,
Steve
Customer Review: Top flight device...
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd considered a GPS many times but was put off by the absurd number of available units and manufacturers. I did not want to have to become an expert on GPS just to make an intelligent purchase. I envisioned getting something where I could just plug in a destination and it would guide me there and back. Pictures? Video? BLUETOOTH? What does any of this have to do with directions and maps? Ultimately I relied on Consumer Reports and went with their recommendation of the Garmin Nuvi 260W as a top pick for features and size. It has all the GPS features including turn by turn vocal instructions in American English and NONE of the junk that adds to cost. After the usual Amazon super-fast order processing, the box arrived. The "W" in 260W is for widescreen and it is. Great graphics, clear and bright screen. The manual was laughably short. At first I was actually annoyed that it ran all of six pages and most of that discussed how you shouldn't soak it in water or throw it against a wall, etc... Turns out, Garmin was showing off. The user interface is so simple and easy to understand that a detailed manual is pointless. I know nothing about GPS units but still had this up and running in seconds. The on-off button is the only button on it. Everything else is touch screen. So how's it do? Brilliantly! I have tried, HARD to mess it up. Blown through turns, gone the wrong way, left it on while the car was parked. None of this phased it in the least. It constantly tracks your position and gives ETA and MPH. If you continue past a turn, it takes about 2 seconds for it to recognize what happened and then the voice tells you "Recalculating". In no more than another two seconds, it has mapped out an alternate route. (The speed of this thing is stunning.) Mind you I'm not talking about it saying "Turn around bone-head, you blew that last turn." It literally maps out the next best way to your destination in a flash. Driving with it is very cool. It tells you to prepare for a turn and then tells you dead on the money to make the turn. By the way, it doesn't say "Turn left in point two miles." it says "In point two miles, turn left on Main Street". Then when you get there it repeats it as "Turn left on Main Street." This means that if there is more than one left turn coming up, you know exactly which one to take. It also monitors the road itself and advises of bends and twists. As an example, I was on a major highway that bent to the left with a single lane exit if you kept straight. As I approached this spot, it told me to keep left! This thing is nailed down. It is dead nuts simple to operate, does what it should in real time and seems to be without vices. Great device.Customer Review: A Very Good GPS
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought the 260W after weeks of online research between Garmin, Magellan and TomTom. Ultimately I bought this unit because it seemed to have the best overall reviews for units in this price range as well as the Garmin "name".
Being something of a perfectionist there are only a few quirks that kept me from giving it a five star rating. Whether it is Garmin or just this model or just this mine, the first thing I found is that when it gives direction to a "Drive" it pronounces it as "Doctor" (from Dr. no doubt). So Oakwood Drive is spoken Oakwood Doctor. A minor nuisance but still a flaw. Another small issue I have is that when the unit tells you to turn right on Oakwood Drive (as an example)it doesn't give you an audible "beep" of any sort. I only found this problematic one night as approaching the street only to find two streets very close to one another and the one I wanted to turn on - had lost its street sign. The mapping on it is very good so I was able to focus on the map and see the correct street but had it an audible tone of some sort I wouldn't have had to take my eyes off the driving.
Having commented on the small negatives, I find the unit to be extremely accurate and very intuitive to set up right out of the box and use. I've had no problems with locking in on satellites very quickly as some reviewers have commented. The screen brightness is adjustable and works pretty good in all lighting. It has an SD memory card slot which is cool but can't imagine I'd have a slide show of pictures going while driving. A note on "text to speech". If this is your first GPS - make sure no matter what you buy - you have it. It makes all the difference in the world between hearing "turn right in five hundred feet" and "turn right on Oak Lane".
You can download the latest maps (NOTE: THE USB CABLE NEEDED DOES NOT COME IN THE PACKAGE. I BOUGHT MINE HERE ON AMAZON SEPARATELY FOR MAYBE $5), a couple of other voices (not much selection there), other car icons etc..., from the Garmin website.
The windshield mount works perfectly although I purchased a weighted dash pad for mounting as I don't like something up on my windshield.
All in all a great little unit: good maps, lots of points of interests, very easy to use right out of the box, accurate,(seems more accurate than my son's Magellan) and easy to read while driving. A note on customer service: I had problems downloading the latest maps so wrote them for help. They replied promptly with detailed instructions. It was something I was doing wrong. So hats off to Garmin's customer service group for the quick fix). Look for my review on the flat dash mounting mat.