Garmin nüvi 265W/265WT 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
by Garmin
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nüvi 265W/265WT 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
Customer Review: Lame Traffic
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first GPS unit for my car.
It's nice they allow uploading new voices for the unit. Some voices have text-to-speech, some do not, so it's nice to have the option to pick and choose. Another nice feature is Garmin now offers a free software download to your PC to allow you to use your own voice and upload it to your unit. That software will NOT do text-to-speech, but I guess you could have some fun with it. Uploading new vehicles? You can barely identify the vehicle anyway, so it's not a big deal. I think the free map upgrade should be for 12 months instead of only three...I doubt Garmin updates the entire North America maps more than once a year anyway. I haven't used the external memory (SD), but I think this is a great feature to be able to bring along maps if you travel abroad. I found that you can also upload photos from [...] and use the 'Go To' feature to navigate to the photo location. Good stuff. I also learned you can upload your own geotagged photos to [...], then upload those photos (after Panoramio eventually posts them) to your own unit for future navigating. Great idea, but Panoramio takes light years to do their review of your photos, then they have to accept them and make them available for everyones use. I wish Garmin would have made that option a little more user friendly and not have to depend on [...] so we could use this feature. Way too slow with that middle man in the mix. Perhaps Garmin could release that software to it's customers as they did with the speech software so we could have some fun with that feature without having to wait a month to see if [...] accepts your photos for use.
TRAFFIC: I work in Westchester County, about 25 miles north of Central Park in Manhattan. The FREE lifetime traffic is free for a reason....it's garbage. I've had the unit for about three months and I think I've received traffic data three times. I'm not talking traffic warnings, I mean any traffic reception at all. The traffic icon only came on three times indicating I was even receiving any traffic data at all. DO NOT opt for this model based on the free traffic for life business. That's my opinion. I saw only one single ad during this time, and it was a simple line across the top of the screen, so not very annoying as far as I'm concerned. I'd really be annoyed if it bombarded me with ads but little traffic data, but that wasn't the case. If the traffic only works in the cities, it's probably a given you'll be at a standstill most of the time anyway. Stick with live radio reports. Lame as they are, they are a better choice for traffic.
BLUETOOTH: I have a Verizon GZ-one Boulder cell phone. It finds it easily. The GPS volume could be much louder, but it's not that bad. The phone itself is lame anyway, so I often use a Bluetooth unit by Motorola instead. If you already have a Bluetooth unit and don't need the lame free traffic option either, go for the 255 instead and save a few bucks.
This unit doesn't have routing, which I wish it did. I purchased too soon; before I found the handy comparison chart on the Garmin site, or I would have choose a unit that supports routing.
USER MANUAL: Garmin should be spanked for the lame instructions on ALL their GPS units, car, bike, geocaching, etc. They do not go through any scenarios, or how-tos anywhere. These units can do so much, but the manuals are really lame. YouTube videos are helpful, so search on the web to learn more to make the most of the features at your disposal.
I really enjoy the ease of going to Google Maps on the Internet, find the place I need to go to (business address, Town Halls, etc.) and being able to upload that location right to my unit as a favorite place, then hop in the car and 'Go To' It has the business name, address, phone number too (just in case you need to call, right from the unit too). If you do a search on the unit for a POI (store, etc.), it does seem to take forever to find it. Much easier to just plug in an address and 'go to'.
To Garmin: Turn up the volume with a speaker to support it, and bag the free traffic. It's a cheesy selling point. And maybe start a library of How-To videos on a lot of your GPS offerings so your customers can truly learn what these things are capable of.
Customer Review: Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
My wife and I own an inexpensive Mio DigiWalker GPS that was given to us as a gift a couple years ago, and it's done a pretty good job of getting us places, but it had it's share of glitches and errors, so I figured it was time to upgrade to a better model, the Garmin 265WT, rated as a best buy by a leading consumer magazine. I figured I'd use the new Garmin and give my wife the Mio for her car.
My first impressions of the 265WT were great--lots of features (avoid toll roads or highways if desired, for example) that the Mio didn't have. The graphics on the 265WT are outstanding, and the widescreen is much easier to read than the normal width screen on our Mio. The free FM traffic appears to work great, and the ads are not at all intrusive. Having the unit speak street names as it gives directions is also great.
But the more I put the 265WT to the test, the more I noticed the same annoying glitches that I had with my Mio. On my first attempt at navigating somewhere--to my office--the unit could not find my office address. This bothered me a little because the office complex has been there for easily more than 10 years, but still the map did not contain this data. I had expected the maps to be of higher quality and accuracy than those on the Mio.
But no big deal, I thought, and decided to take it on a trip to a furniture outlet mall about 45 minutes from home this past weekend. Once again, it failed to find this relatively old outlet mall in it's database, so we had to just set a course for the town it was in, knowing from memory that it was somewhere near the main interstate--I could have done this myself without a GPS. So needless to say I was getting a bit annoyed. And in addition to the fact that it couldn't find the places I wanted to go, it took FOREVER to show any results for my searches. With the Mio, I get search results (including if it can't find any matches) in a matter of seconds. With the Garmin, I'd type in a search and it would have an hourglass symbol on the screen for literally a minute or more--very, very frustrating. I wanted to say to it, "if you can't find what I'm looking for, fine, but at least let me know quickly so I can enter another search!"
Finally, driving in another unfamiliar area of Pennsylvania the same day, I had stopped at a convenience store and wanted to get back to the interstate. The 265WT directed me to make a few turns to circle around the store, and then, to make an ILLEGAL left-hand turn onto the main road! As if that weren't enough, it asked me to make yet another ILLEGAL left-hand turn later in the trip! Well, now I was getting seriously ticked off. These types of errors I had expected from the inexpensive Mio, but with Garmin I thought I was paying a little more for "the best." Apparently not, or apparently, the state of navigation systems is pretty sad if the consumer magazine considers this model a "best buy."
I gave the 265WT two stars because I do think it offers some great features and graphics. But for me, if the main reason you buy a GPS--THE MAPS AND THE MAP DATA--are no good, all the rest is just flimsy window dressing. So I returned mine.
Also, for some people, the sound of the navigation voice is important--I'm one of them. After all, at sometimes stressful moments of driving, you're going to be listening to this voice telling you where to turn, etc. Although the 265WT offered a few voice choices, I found both the American English male (sounds like a robot) and the American English female (sounds like a nasally woman nagging you from the back seat) to be irritating. I ended up setting the voice to an Australian English male, which I found to be the least annoying choice--but to be honest, I didn't like any of the voice choices. Our Mio has only one voice, a very average and pleasant sounding male, and I like it better than any of the choices on the Garmin. But that's just my opinion, and I'm sure to others the voices on the Garmin are just fine.
Oh well, I guess Garmin and me were not meant to be! :)
Good luck with whatever navigation system you choose!
Customer Review: Affordable option for those who want traffic reporting
Summary: 4 Stars
After using an older Nuvi 350 for a couple years, the faster response and shorter startup times for the 265WT are appreciated. Even though this is considered to be part of the lower-end line of the Nuvi's, it comes with features that far surpass a basic model (traffic, picture viewing, bluetooth phone link). The traffic is a nice feature, especially with the linked re-routing capability from my daily commute between Baltimore, MD and Alexandria, VA (around the D.C. traffic!), but I've noticed that it isn't updated quite as fast as I can get to a problem spot. Also, I'll oftentimes take a detour to avoid one accident only to hit another jam which only updates on the GPS AS I hit the traffic (sigh). I can't fault Garmin, as it's a matter of news hitting the people who process the FM traffic report.
Another thing to point out is that the traffic rerouting seems automatic ONLY when you first turn on the GPS, or when your current path is just very very bad. Obviously the threshold for very bad can vary depending on the impatience of the driver, but I would like it for alternate routes to be calculated behind the scenes (for faster detour updates) or for it to recalculate paths dynamically as traffic jam information is updated to the unit.
As far as the rest of the unit is concerned, it has been working well. I believe I've had one crash in the couple months I've been using it, but it seemed to reboot itself automatically and continued right where it left off, without me having to retype in destination. The updated interface is overall nice, but I miss the integrated compass direction I recall the 350 having. The 3D terrain thing is more of a gimmick in my opinion, as it reduces contrast of the map and makes it harder for me to see the displayed information. One thing I found odd was that when the direction list mode is used by touching the top part of the standard screen, you have to use the back button rather than the big central "Show Map" button to go (back) to the standard map + next direction hybrid view. "Show map" pulls up a 3D terrain zoomed out large map of the overall route dialed in, subject to the same cluttered display with poor contrast mentioned earlier. It would also be nice for immediately-following directions to be listed right after the next direction under the standard map + direction hybrid view, eg. Take exit ramp on right, and immediately get over 3 lanes to the left once you merge onto the next highway (so that you can take a left turn at the stop light a 100 yds after the merge.!)
Since the traffic antenna is integrated with the car power unit, it must be plugged in to get the traffic capability. This means that I'll rarely use the unit's built-in battery, and also that the battery will most likely have a shorter lifespan since it'll constantly be in charging mode (assuming it behaves like laptop batteries).
Disappointingly, the mounting system is very basic (you have to flex the plastic clips to pull it off) and not nearly as nice as the spring-loaded release mechanism featured in the higher end Nuvi's (our older 350, and the very similar appearing 750). This, coupled with the fact that the power/FM transmitter is plugged directly into the backside and not centered (so it is somewhat unbalanced) makes one-handed detachment of the GPS almost impossible. I miss how the power plugged into the cradle of our older 350 which made it really simple to take the GPS with us when we left the car.
I have not used the bluetooth functionality and have read that the GPS is limited to acting only as a dial-pad and speaker/mic. Importantly, access to the phonebook doesn't seem to be available through the unit according to others, but again I can't fault Garmin, since I imagine it'd be a nightmare to support higher functionality with every bluetooth-enabled phone, as they all seem to have a different OS/interface.
Two of my friends bought the nuvi 750 for about what I paid for the 265WT, but I would not trade. If they had a 265WT's features with the 750's mounting cradle, it'd be perfect.
Customer Review: Our First GPS, no more watching maps,or map blasts!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Love it!!! I got this for my wife for Christmas, our first GPS. I have read through many reviews both on this site and at NewEgg on this and other units before I bought this one.I am glad I did my homework, this unit did not disappoint. We took it with us on a trip from Florida to Virginia for a week to visit our kids for Christmas. So we traveled to many unfamiliar places.
First I went to Garmins webpage, and yeah I guess Christmas day was not a good time, the website was way slow, so I came back later. Garmins website is confusing and a bit of a pain to navigate but I finally found my way through and was able to update the unit. Many people have said map updates take forever. Its a 3 step process, Search for updates, download, then install.The site said it could take hours, my time was about 30 -40 minutes.
Good Points 1) Love the blue tooth phone link, I was able to link my wife's phone to the Garmin easily. It was very helpful to answer calls on the Garmin when driving, rather than search for her phone. We were talking to our children as we traveled many times.
2) Love that we can talk and still have use of our routes and features at the same time. We had a destination plugged in, received a call, my daughter wanted to meet us for lunch on the way, she gave us new address of the restaurant, I plugged it in and set go,( my wife is driving, I'm navigating), all while talking on the Garmin. If we did not have the blue tooth enabled, I would be talking on a cell phone, while trying to use the Garmin, I would need three hands.
3)Love the flexibility. We had just got this unit so we were not familiar with all the features, My daughter had one and showed us all you can do, she basically poked everything on the screen to see what it did. So we see now we can previous the route, see where we are going, and if we don't like it, we can see where we want to go instead.Found a restaurant my wife likes along the way with the points of interest. Worked great.
4) Maps were pretty accurate, never had a road it couldn't find yet.When we started the trip, it could not find a road close to our house we use, but on the return trip it found it.
5) Downloaded some other vehicle pics to customize our, a nice touch.
6) Love the auto zoom in zoom out. On the way home, we had the map zoomed out, it was a simple route we already knew. When we come to a change of routes, it automatically zoomed in, told us where to turn, then zoomed back out to an overview. Great feature.
7) love the scroll and zoom in and out on the map to see where you are and want to go.
Bad point: We were traveling across Virginia , from one daughters house to another. I wanted to take inter state highway,( I was driving) I knew my route, but the GPS wanted to take us a more direct route, on smaller roads. So we had a crazy morning, the GPS told us one way, I wanted to go another, and we could not see any way to change the GPS,s route.We were going crazy, my wife is saying the GPS is going crazy and it was a mess. Bottom line, I drove until I found my highway, then the GPS had no choice but to use my route.We may have fixed this problem if we had changed some of the route choices, but my wife was not familiar with the unit at the time. So lesson learned , either follow the GPS route, or ignore, look for the route you want to go, using the scroll and map, then eventually the GPS will follow your route.
Bottom line, we love the unit, we will take it with us every where, and now my wife can talk on the phone, hands free, a safety issue since she talks on the phone while driving many times.
Customer Review: The BEST GPS for the money!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my third GPS unit. It's my first Garmin. I've owned a TomTom and a Magellan prior to purchasing this Garmin. Basically that's why I bought a Garmin this time. TomTom's aren't accurate or they take you the long way and Magellan's battries die fast and their cumbersome to use. The Garmin blows their competition away! The Garmin has a nice clear easy to read big LCD screen. The touch screen is perfect, just the right touch required to set everything up. Others out their require too much of a hard touch, or are way too sensative, resulting in misques all the time. Garmin's got it right! The maps are very accurate and easy to use. Garmin's graphical user interface is by far the BEST! It's very easy to figure out, even without reading the instrutions. The voice is loud and clear, and pronunciations of street names are accurarte. Something I can't say about TomTom and Magellan. The Garmin has tons of points-of-interest pre-loaded. Routes are very accurate, with precise easy to understand directions. The FM traffic works well. It's definately designed for city dwellers. It uses Clear Channel traffic alerts. Which if you don't know, is the largest owner of FM radio stations in the U.S. and Canada! I live near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So I'm very fortunate, we have numerous FM stations owned by Claer Channel. So they have a very strong presents in my region of the country. This might not be the case in the smaller populated states in the U.S. So they might not have the coverage for FM traffic that I have. Clear Channel uses up to the minute traffic updates provided by PA DOT cameras from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. So I'm covered! The BlueTooth connection works well. Everyone says I sound pretty good, with only a slight degradation from my actual phone. They were amazed, that I was talking through my GPS unit. The calls are very clear, and the person your talking to sounds very natural. Very close to actually talking through the phone itself. I have an LG Chocalate 3 through Verizon Wireless. The Garmin GPS found it and linked-up the first try. The Garmin has three different American English voices (Regular, Samantha and Jack), I prefer the regular. But all sound well. The other thing I really liked is Garmin's website! Software updates are super easy. The Garmin's garage, which has numerous different cars and some different voices you can download for free. They also use a program called WebUpdater, that you download onto your PC. Then connect your Garmin to your PC and it automatically identifies your nuvi model and checks for the lastest software updates for you. It's a really great feature. I can see why Garmin is number one in GPS sales. They are a company that's got it together, with rock solid well built GPS units. That are the easiest to navigate around. And a website that has everything you need and more. Plus I like the fact Garmin International is U.S. based (Olathe, Kansas). TomTom is European (Netherlands) and Magellan is owned by an Asian company MiTac that also makes the Mio and NavMan GPS units. So you're probably getting the same components and paying more for the name. Garmin's are all made by Garmin, in their own factories, not out-sourced! Their not re-badged brands like so many others. Do yourself a favor and buy the Gamin nuvi 265WT or some other Garmin that meets your needs. Trust me you'll be glad you did. You'll have one of the best GPS units you can buy. The Garmin nuvi 265WT is a great value for the price and included features. Probably one of the best at giving you the most for your money. Amazon's price and shipping once again was unbeatable. That's why I always check prices on Amazon first, before choosing where to buy a product. I love Amazon!