Garmin nüvi 265/265T 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
by Garmin
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List Price: Our Price: $119.99 You Save: $210.00 (64%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $68.00 (click here) Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nüvi 265/265T 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
Customer Review: Great value for the money
Summary: 5 Stars
I should first say that I've owned the 265T for less than a week, so don't have a lot of experience with it yet. But I could not be happier at this point. I did a lot of research on the type of GPS to buy and am really amazed at the features offered with this one at this low price.
Installation was a no-brainer. Opened the box, plugged the power cord into my power port, plugged the other end into the Garmin, put the suction cup mount on the windshield and clipped Garmin in. Turned on the ignition, went through the initial setup screens and let it find satellites (fast, maybe a minute or less?), and that was it. Nothing to it. In addition, the on-screen menu system is very intuitive and makes it easy to find and change settings and features.
I had a hard time deciding between the 3.5" screen and the 4.3" offered on other models. I ultimately decided on this one because the 4.3" model I was considering had some bad reviews related to screen freezes, and other 4.3" models with the same features seemed quite a bit more expensive. After having used it a few days, I think the screen size is just fine. The lighting and clarity is fantastic, although the 4.3" models do show more of your surrounding area. That's not really a big deal to me. I have a friend with an old StreetPilot i5, which has just a 1.7" screen, so this one is huge in comparison to that, which I also thought was fine.
I have a bluetooth-compatible phone, which is another reason I went for this model. My hands-free earpiece has always been a royal PITA with bad sound (a contributing factor is that my car has a lot of road noise), plus I still had to handle the phone to make and receive calls. But with the phone paired to Garmin, it's so much better. Sound clarity is great, plus I can make voice-activated calls, which I was not aware of when I bought this model. It was a pleasant surprise. Note that your phone must be capable of voice-activated calling for this to work with the 265T. To make sure your phone will pair with Garmin's bluetooth feature, check the website: [...]
I don't have any experience with the traffic feature yet, and from what I've read it isn't perfect, but is often helpful. That's ok. That's all I'm looking for, especially since it's free.
I did notice once that arriving at a restaurant I had keyed in it told me it was on the left when in reality it was on the right. But that just happened once, and I've heard of that happening occasionally with other models of GPS units as well. I don't expect perfection. I expect the GPS unit to give me accurate suggestions the vast majority of the time and it is up to me to decide if I follow them or not. I do not see this as a reason to switch my brain off and let a machine make all my driving decisions. I always carry maps in the car in addition to the GPS. However, I did give it 4 stars for accuracy due to this error. Time will tell how often this happens. But again, I don't think this error is confined to just this one model of GPS.
For what this is, and the features it offers, and the price I paid ($98), I am very happy.
Customer Review: It has been very useful so far.
Summary: 4 Stars
I have purchased this GPS just before a road trip to Los Angeles from San Francisco. The free traffic updates was the reason I chose this version over a 265W-same price at [...]. The traffic information has been very useful in LA. Several freeways were under construction and we were routed around them with the click of a few "virtual" buttons. The traffic updates work only on limited areas and freeways though, so if you live in a small city there may not be any traffic info for your area. The traffic updates are ad supported. The ads are not on the main screen when you are driving so it did not bother me. Since then my wife used it on a road trip and found it extremely useful as well.
The first night I got it, I had to go to Garmin's web site and download a huge map update (>2GB). Make sure you have a fast connection if you plan to update your maps. The map and directions have been very accurate. We also used it in pedestrian mode, which worked well. The screen is well organized and intuitive.
Linking to Google Maps made it very easy to enter the favorite locations or the destinations for our road trip. How to do this is not in the manual but can be found on the Garmin web site as well as on Google of course.
The bluetooth link to my phone was not very straight forward to establish. I had to modify both the phone and the 265t instructions slightly to make it work. If I leave the bluetooth of my phone on broadcast mode, 265t connects to it seamlessly everytime I turn it on. I like keeping the phone's bluetooth broadcast mode off though, so it is an extra step for me to link them. (I could not find a way to make the 265t broadcast instead). The sound quality as a handsfree set is very good. It can access the phone book and call information and displays it on the screen.
It has some cons too. The screen is rather small. This was a trade off I accepted when I bought it so no complaints. Small size actaully means it fits in my pocket when I leave the car. Acquiring satellites the first time after it has been off for a while can take a long time. I have seen it find satellites in any where from 15 sec to 3 minutes. The points-of-interest display after a search is limited to a list and is not overlayed on the map. The list has a limited number of entries (around 30 I think). This gets annoying if you searched for restaurants near you and there happens to be a mall nearby. You get all the food court restaurants and not much more. These can be very annoying if you are used to an expensive built-in GPS in one of your cars.
Overall we are very happy with our purchase. This is a good value for a reasonable price. The 265T works well and has been a great timesaver with traffic updates.
Customer Review: slow in finding satellite and route; inconvenient UI
Summary: 2 Stars
I had a Garmin 3600 as my first GPS and had major complaints about being slow in finding satellite and calculating the routes. Three years ago I bought a Mio c220 and was quite happy about the speed. A couple months ago, the Mio died and I had to get a new one. After reading the review, I bought Garmin 265t - a big mistake. (Even worse, I didn't use it much until recently and it already passed the return period.)
This Garmin unit may look pretty, loaded with fancy features, but it doesn't do its job well. The most critical job for a gps is to find your location, and give directions. This Garmin is even worse than the Mio I got 3 years ago. Generally it took the Mio c220 a few seconds to find the satellite, but Garmin Nuvi 265t needs about half a minute, some time more than a minute. It takes even longer if you start driving while it's looking for signal. It's better than 3600, which took quite a few minutes, but I guess as a tradition Garmin is weak in general finding satellite signals, though they are very good are marketing. I used a Tomtom and a Magellon from friends, and both were much faster in finding signals.
The calculation of route is slow, too. Though once it find the route, recalculating is not bad.
Start-up time is long, too.
You would guess with traffic info, Garmin should improve the estimate of arrival time, and thus make a better choice when looking for fastest route, but that's not the case. It's as worse as the Garmin 3600 from 2004. Not even taking the lights into account. How hard is it to add an average wait time for each light?
The UI is terribly designed. No easy way to look at the full route, not to mention switching between the full route and the next-turn view. (Mio did an OK job on this)
When showing traffic, it makes the route hard to see.
One unbearable thing is the keyboard. They don't even provide an option to use the qwert layout. The average person today like me are used to the qwert layout and it's really annoying to look for letters in the abcd arrangement.
When searching for an address, you have to type it exactly correct. Otherwise, you won't find the street. How hard is it to use fuzzy matching? Mio did a much better job on this - it was a great pleasure entering address in Mio after the suffering Garmin experience.
Garmin just doesn't put much thought in the UI design. It's probably designed by a college intern and received no review or user feedback.
I will probably never buy a Garmin again.
Customer Review: You may not need/want the widescreen
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first GPS, but I am very happy with the 265T's performance. Used it on a recent vacation to San Diego and it worked great...didn't use a map once.
Directions were precise, easy to understand and when I tried to outguess the GPS I was usually wrong, but the unit quickly (very quickly actually) recalculated and got me going in the right direction.
With the spoken street names you may not need the widescreen model. I used the 265T in a rented Toyota 4Runner and my 3 series BMW and I could easily read the screen in both vehicles.
Pros:
Small and easy to transport...kept it in my back pocket when I was out of the car.
Calculates/recalculates very fast.
Love the "where am I" feature. Makes finding a gas station near the rental car return location very convenient.
The traffic feature makes this a great everyday GPS. (I'll provide a traffic specific update in a couple of weeks.)
Cons:
The software updates right out of the box can be a little confusing and you need a computer with Internet access to download the updates. Most have Internet access, but I'm sure some don't. Keep that in mind if you're buying this as a gift.
Some directions were delivered a bit late...mostly downtown driving in compact areas. It helps if you drive a little slower.
Overall great little (big enough) GPS. Amazon was awesome as always. I asked for and received a $40 credit when the unit went on sale a week after I ordered mine. Can't beat AMAZON and I wonder how much longer the brick and mortar stores can survive.
UPDATE (7 Jan): Traffic Feature
After about a week using the traffic feature I've arrived at two conclusion.
1. Although FM traffic in my area advertises traffic flow and incidents (big difference with more info available at the FM traffic website), the Nuvi is much better at reporting incidents. It will give me incident data for most of my metro area in addition to any incidents en route.
2. Traffic flow is hit/miss. I encounter two areas in my daily afternoon commute that I know are usually bumper to bumper for 5-10 minutes...the Nuvi has not reported either of these. So either the traffic reports are very good and they recognize routine and typical traffic flow back-ups or they are very bad and miss them. Either way, it's worth the $200 price of admission. ALSO, I've noticed that the Nuvi will remember your preferred way home and to work and will default to the route when you enter your destination...nice feature.
Customer Review: Second worse Navigation system ever.
Summary: 1 Stars
This navigation system is the second worst navigation system I've ever seen( Navigon being the worst)
1. There is actually no way to see the distance to destination which is the most standard feature of any navigation system.
Imaging you are on a long trip and everyone in the car is wondering how many more miles until your destination? There is no way to tell!
They find room to add the speed limit so the wife can complain that your speeding however their engineers can't figure how to add the miles until your destination feature.
I called tech support and they told me that I have to see the miles to each turn and take a calculator to add up all the miles. Are you kidding me?
My Mio C310x is a million times better than this garmin unit.
2. Unable to tell what street you are currently on. This unit will only display the next street turn however will not show the street you are currently on.
3. Selecting POI is horrible:
Most navigation system will allow you to search the POI from subcategories and will instantly come up with results. If you are typing something that is does not exist or spelled wrong, it will not let you to type it in.( Usually the letters are faded out)
However this garmin will allow you to type in or misspell words when searching for a POI and sit there searching forever! It will just sit there with an hour glass waiting and waiting... Very poorly design.
4. There is no way to search for POI in a particular zip code. They make you pick type in the entire city name instead. The zip code is far more accurate and quicker to type in.
5. Plagued with Advertisement. Have Garmen no shame? They fill this navigation with horrible advertisement.
6. The detail on the road is horrible. My Mio navigation system will show both sides of the street with arrows indicating the direction of traffic. The Garmin, a busy 2 way street looks like a single road.
7. Long side to side view but no forward view. It shows a lot of what is on either side. Way out to the right and left(which I find useless) but not any of the road in front of you(which is what you need the most!)
I am going to look at the Mio or maybe a Tomtom and maybe sell this awful system online.
Garmin is like the GM of the GPS world. They are a big company but not design well at all.
TOMTOM is like Porsche and Mio is like a Lexus.