Garmin nuvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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Our Price: $25.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nuvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Good GPS with a few Letdowns
Summary: 4 Stars
I've used a few GPS systems over the years, but most of them were external units plugged into a laptop or PDA. One of them even got me from Texas to Vermont and back without looking at a single paper map. They worked but were not especially convenient and sometimes required a co-pilot.
Then I went to Thailand and a friend of mine had one of these in his car and it was the end all be all of automotive salvation over there. With this little thing I went from "don't even think about it" to driving hours outside the city through the countryside. I can't read a word of Thai (though to be fair many of their highway signs are marked in English). Over there that little thing was easily worth its weight in gold. Not that it didn't have a few issues but in comparison to the freedom it gave you it was amazing.
After getting back and getting yet another call from my wife about "how do I get to.." I decided to make both of our lives easier and get this thing. I found a refub on Amazon and ordered it. At almost the same time I got a different Garmin for my grandparents who had just moved to town. So I had a chance to compare the two.
Overview
The unit itself is a nice size. Fits comfortably in your hand or an oversize pocket. It has a built in antenna which is a tab in the back that rotates up to expose the power socket. Its got a headphone port, a USB port, a SD Slot and a power button. Most everything else is controlled via the touch screen.
Turning it on brings up a customizable splash screen (you can load your own pictures) as it loads the software. I'd prefer a shorter boot time for a dedicated device but oh well. After it boots it starts looking for satellites. From boot to figuring out where it is can take several minutes so don't be in a hurry to start your trip unless you know where you are and where your going at first, there is plenty of time to get going down the wrong direction on a major road, which in the wrong part of the world can mean a delay of an hour or more.
Setting the course has several options. You've got the ability to specify and address, pick from your favorite list of pre-saved locations, an intersection of two streets or from their list of places. Their list of places is what takes up the most real estate on the screen as they have it broken into categories like food, fuel, shopping, attractions, entertainment etc. It takes a little poking around to understand what is where and they are not always properly categorized. Within each category they have sub categories. For example in food you have American, Mexican, Chinese, Asian, French etc. If it's a commercial place you have selected they list the address and phone number. Handy to have to tell your friends and call head to make sure they are open!
The directory is compact stripped down and occasionally outdated list of what is available. Think of it as the compact version of that other companies yellow pages. Comprehensive? No, Good enough to get the job done? Yes. So if your in a strange place and you have some idea about what you'd like to do this think can be a virtual guide. I know they sell more comprehensive regional maps with more points of interest as well as details and reviews of places.
To set the address is a multi step process. You go State>City>Road>Street Number. This can mean a lot of pecking but that's life.
Setting the address is one area where this little thing let me down. The problem is mainly with the Garmin Interface. The town I live has Interstate Highway 35 running right through the middle of it. So there are a LOT of places on I-35. But it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to type an address along I-35 into the system. First you had to figure out if it was I35, I 35, Ih-35, Ih 35 etc (it seems to want Ih 35) and even if you typed it in you couldn't designate north or south, had to know the zip code and even then it got it terribly wrong or it just wouldn't accept that address and wanted to show you some place 10 miles south. To me this is a MAJOR flaw for a unit that is designed for travel. Maybe I'll give it a try for stuff on I-10 when I got to Houston but so far, not so good.
Once you've got the address navigation is straightforward. Like most it's not perfect, it will get you there in a decent fashion but the shortest/fastest route is not always the best. All GPS units are like this though. Like others you have the choice of the moving map or the helicopter view as if you were hovering 50 feet above your car. Your supposed to follow the purple route, though sometimes the maps get a little too colorful and busy and it is hard to discern, especially at interchanges.
Accuracy is good as long as the map is correct (which is not always). It will get you to within one of two houses on a consistent basis, often to the exact house. Sometimes the maps are a little off or not up to date however. I've also had the unit freeze up on me a couple of times which was most annoying; it wasn't obvious it was frozen until after a bit of time. Most of the time eventually it got back on track but one time I had to cycle the power.
The touch screen is plenty sensitive, sometimes I end up hitting the wrong button. If you've got fat fingers this will happen more often. In comparison to some of the more expensive north American specific units the screen is not as bright or saturated.
The mounting unit is fairly clever. It comes with a suction cup for the windshield. It is designed to have the power cord (12V DC with a USB plug tip) run up into the mounting unit and plugged into it. That way when you mount the unit it automatically plugs in the power! Very clever and one step easier compared to other units. Getting it on and off the mount can take a little doing until you learn the trick and then it is fast and easy. If you unplug the unit it automatically shuts down in 30 seconds unless you override. So you can just unplug, toss it in the console and walk away. When you plug it into power it automatically turns itself on. If the windshield sucker doesn't work for you they deliver a metal disk that you screw onto your dashboard and mount it to that.
You can use it out of the car too. Its small enough to take with you. Supposedly the battery life is around 7-8 hours, haven't confirmed that other than the battery charge indicator doesn't seem very accurate. But you could toss it in your bag for a bike ride around town and check your location when you get lost.
Uses outside of the car actually seem to be the key to its other features. One of the things that distinguishes the "I" line vs the regular line of Garmin products is that the "I" products seem designed for international travel. Think Europe or S-America (though I used that one in Asia). In addition to being able to buy and load other countries maps it has a number of other travel friendly features. A world clock, currency converter, MP3 player (the speaker is not great), a sample phrase translator and dictionary (full versions available for purchase) and a few other odds and ends to make it your ultimate travel gadget. Since Thai wasn't an option on those I can't say much for how they work.
It's a fairly complicated gadget with a lot of features so expect to spend some time menu diving as is comes with almost no documentation to speak of.
But speaking is one thing this model does. What distinguishes it from the one right below it is instead of "In 500 feet turn left" it will say "In 500 feet turn left on Elm street". Is that extra important, I don't think it really matters but YMMV. It gets some names, mangles others. You can select different voices/accents though not all words are supported in all voices.
Also you'll want to make sure to get the latest map updates before you run out and do things. You seem to be entitled to one free update within 60 days of product registration. Both of which can be done online. One thing about the online update though is give it some time. It is something like a 2 Gigabite (Giga, not mega) download. So even on a fast connection that's going to take a while. Then the actual update process itself while the unit is plugged in takes 45+ minutes. So set aside an evening when you don't need it.
So in conclusion
Pros-
Does its job.
Good size.
Unbelievably useful in foreign countries.
Lots of bells and whistles.
Great Mount, clever integration of the power plug.
Cons-
That I-35 address thing.
Occasional inaccuracy of maps/location on map.
Occasional freezing up.
Conclusion
A good little unit. I suspect for 95% of the time it works like a charm, gets me where I need to go. That last 5% is really annoying though. Just based on the functionality of it when driving around my home town I'd give it 3 stars.
However if I go to another country this little thing gets 5 stars, a velvet pillow at night and shrine in its honor. It's that useful.
Customer Review: Disappointing unit
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought my Nuvi 350 on Amazon a year and a half ago and I am sorry to say it has been a disappointment. There are many good things about it, most of which have been documented in other reviews. The interface is mostly very clear and intuitive (with some exceptions as stated below). The navigational voice commands are great and normally very loud and clear. The small, flat form factor allows you to remove the unit from the car and carry it in your pocket, which is a big plus around here (and almost everywhere, I hear) because GPS units are big car burglar magnets. But now for the problems.
1) It won't mount on my windshield or my dashboard. I tried using the windshield mount and had great trouble getting the mount to stick to the glass and great trouble getting the unit to attach in the mount. Windshield mounts are illegal in California, but I was willing to risk a ticket. As it turned out, it didn't matter, because this unit cannot be used on the windshield anyway. During daylight hours the unit display is not bright enough even at maximum brightness to be legible against the bright daylight of the background. You can only see the images well if it has a fairly dark background. It needs to be down where an in-dash unit would be.
2) More mounting problems. Also, even when I got the unit to stick to the windshield finally (a 10-minute operation at the beginning of every trip) and went driving, the unit flew off the windshield when I went around a curve at relatively high speed because of suction cup failure. The unit smashed against the passenger door. No harm to the unit so far as I could tell, but that was the last time I tried to mount it on the windshield. I could not mount it on the top of my dashboard because I have a curvy textured dash with a stereo speaker right in the middle where most people would mount the unit. The bottom line is I have never been able to mount the unit anywhere. I usually just lay it on the passenger seat, where sometimes it flies off going around a curve, but I have learned to prop it with towels, etc. If my wife is riding with me she holds it in her lap and operates the touchscreen if I tell her how but she is mystified by the unit and I have to remember all the menus, etc. because I can't see the screen while driving, and I usually can't recall exactly where or what she has to press to get what I need. Sometimes I put it up in the moonroof, pinned there by the sliding panel that blocks the sun. The antenna flap serves perfectly to keep it from falling, and this also allows me to use the cable to power from the socket in the back of the center console without getting in my way. The voice is very audible in my right ear, but of course I can't see or touch the screen when it is in this position.
3) The cable connecting it to the car's power doesn't work well. Most of the time I am unable to get the unit to recognize the car's power source, no matter how I adjust the plug in the socket. Sometimes this isn't evident and I leave the unit on while driving and all of a sudden the battery dies because I didn't know I was on battery power. This may be due to some problem with the power sockets, I suppose, but the unit should have a battery that lasts all day anyway. There are times when I use it as a pedestrian, such as walking around a downtown area I don't know, or touring my daughter's college campus and need battery power for an extended time. The unit has died during critical times because of this. For these three reasons alone I have taken to using my handheld geocaching GPS unit (Garmin 60Cx) for driving, which, by the way, is great (and costs about half as much and lasts for days on two AA batteries). It doesn't have the voice commands but is superior in every other way as a navigational unit. If I had bought that first I would never have gotten the Nuvi.
4) Beware of the street names. Having street names called out is great most of the time, but often it calls out the wrong name, i.e. a name different from what is on the highway sign. Once it told me to exit at City Center Way, and started beeping at me. I didn't see a sign for that and knew that I was in an area with several exits close together, so I drove past the one labeled Foster City Blvd looking for City Center. Big mistake. Foster City Blvd turned out to be the intended exit and it was the last exit before a 10-mile toll bridge, so I ended up having to drive across the bridge, turn around and come back, paying a big toll and losing half an hour plus gas. The street it named was a small linking street, not the main drag. The unit uses a map database, not a street sign database, so you can't trust what it says to coincide with the signs.
5) I often use coordinates rather than street addresses, such as picnic areas at parks, and it will not route me to the correct location, which should be the entrance to the park or the parking lot. Instead it will just route me to the nearest point on any street, which could be across a river, freeway, or other barrier so I am on my own trying to find a way around. Also, there is no documentation as to how to enter coordinates into the unit from the touchscreen. There is a way, but it is very difficult to find since it's not in the manual. I had been doing it from MapSource, but that was a pain and couldn't be done on the road if you get new coordinates while out and around.
6) Unit dies. Twice now while I was using the unit the screen suddenly went whitish-gray and locks up. This is not a power failure or dead battery. The unit had power and was putting out light. It wouldn't respond to either the on/off switch or the touchscreen. Both times it left me stranded in strange cities while driving. The only way I found to fix it was to let the battery die (taking hours), then recharge it (taking more hours) then turning it on. After describing this problem to a Garmin service rep she said she had never heard of it and had me go through 45 minutes of restoring my unit to factory settings, reloading the operating system upgrade, waiting on hold for her to talk to her boss, etc. At the end of the call with no real satisfaction just as we were saying goodbye she asked "You did try the reset button didn't you?" I didn't know there was a reset button! It is hidden under the antenna flap and looks like a tiny hinge screw. I don't know if this would fix the problem but it would have been nice if she mentioned it earlier. As it is now, I don't trust the unit to stay on or work right, so I have to carry the 60Cx everywhere I want GPS navigation.
7) Some screens are non-intuitive and it needs more buttons (either physical ones like the handheld units or soft ones on the touchscreen). Unless you have memorized the manual and explored all the screens, including undocumented features, and use the unit every day, you will not be able to figure out how to get to various things you want to access because there is nothing on the screen to tell you how to do it. For example, switching from map view to text directions or changing the volume of the speaker. If you pull the car over and fiddle with it long enough you can get there, but too often you can't do it in time when you really need it.
The bottom line is it's great when it works right but it is unreliable in a number of ways. You are better off buying a handheld unit like the 60Cx.
Customer Review: product lacks refinement
Summary: 2 Stars
I hate to say this, but I've come to the conclusion that most of the positive, 5-star reviews are written by people either working for Garmin or hired by Garmin to spoof this website. I'll tell you why.
On the plus side of this product, the new SiRF receiver is very sensitive, and I'm able to get a geo fix even inside my ranch-style house. The older-generation, 12-channel receivers I had before would need a totally open sky to even get the signal from one satellite, let alone fixing the location (for which you need at least 3 satellites). The new SiRF receiver in the Nuvi 350 is also fast in acquiring signals, but you need to stay stationary for it to work well from a cold start.
Now I'll tell you why I think most of the positive reviews are lying. I review this product from the perspective of someone who's used a few other GPS products before.
First of all, for $450 the fit and finish of this product ("designed in USA, made In Taiwan" (sic) says the box) is lacking. This is in start contrast to the similar-priced Sony NV-U70 "Nav-U." Whereas the Sony looks and feels like a well-made electronics item, the Nuvi 350 looks and feels totally cheap. The paint on the plastic casing is uneven, and there are poor-fitted cracks along the edges. The fit and finish of this is even worse than a $100 iPod Nano, much worse.
Unlike the Sony NV-U70, which has a handy standby mode whereby you can shut down and wake up the unit quickly, each time you turn the Garmin Nuvi 350 on from power-off, it goes through the whole boot sequence: initializing, loading maps (which takes a long time), asking you to agree to the danger disclaimer, etc. It takes about 30-40 seconds for the unit to be in ready mode, not counting the time it takes to acquire GPS signals. The power button, located at the top, is also poorly assembled: on my unit, it's hard to press and often does not register when I press it.
The worst offense of the Nuvi 350, at least for me, is the poor user interface (UI). First of all, I challenge anyone to find Ave. U in Brooklyn, NY. According to the electronic manual included in the unit's built-in memory (2GB of it), you should take a minimalist approach to entering addresses. For example, to enter "E 16th St" (the USPS standard format), you just enter 16 and let Garmin search. When I read that part in the manual -- yes, I did read the manual from cover to cover -- I went "uh oh, deja vu!" Why? Because every time a mapping program tells you that, it means it won't recognize input like "East 16 Street." It gets worse for things like boulevard and parkway which different people abbreviate differently. On the Garmin, forget about it. It'll just tell you "not found" if you don't spell part of the street name exactly as it is. So if Garmin thinks it's "Main Pkwy," it won't find it if you typed in "Main Parkway."
Now, here's why I think all those 5-star and 4-star reviews are phonies. If you read reviews for other GPS systems -- TomTom, Magellan, Navman -- you'll see people complain loudly about the inflexibility of entering addresses, along the lines I described above. People would end up giving a model 2 stars or less for this lack of intelligence alone. But look at this board. I have yet to come across another review that even mentions this limitation. That's right, you are likely reading the VERY FIRST review that tells you the truth. And you deserve to know the truth if you don't work for Garmin, are thinking about getting a GPS, and don't find $450 a trivial amount of dough.
Anyway, I digress. To continue with my example. So I was looking for Ave. U in Brooklyn. Now, to enter the state of NY, you have to spell it out, N-e-w-space-Y -- after the Y, Garmin will know you want New York. It's stupid you can't just type "NY" and go on with life. Also, unlike Magellan GPS units, the Garmin does *not* gray out letters you cannot type, based on what you already entered. Next, you type Brooklyn. It recognizes Brooklyn after you typed the y. Next is house number; easy enough here. The street name is where I found the problems. So to find Ave. U, I first tried U. All the streets that start with the letter U are listed, except Ave. U! So this is already contrary to what the helpful (not!) manual recommends. I sighed. After all, this is not the first time I ran into a stupid address search engine like this. (But how come NOBODY else mentions this in their glowing reviews of the Nuvi 350????) I tried "Ave U". No luck! I finally decided to type in the whole thing, "Avenue U". But I must have made a typo -- that's a lot of letters on a small touchscreen! -- so it wasn't found, either! I was so upset. Anyway, turns out you really need to type in "Avenue U", because Garmin's software thinks the street name has two words: Avenue (full spelling) and U! I just love this piece of cr*p!
Because the Nuvi 350 uses the Navteq database, the same map database used by Local Live, MSN Maps, etc., its overall usefulness and routine accuracy are on par with most online mapping sites. The mapping software version is v8, the latest, but it doesn't have a few stores near my house, such as the Staples a few blocks away which has been there forever. (Instead the Nuvi 350 tells me the closest Staples is 5 miles away.) What I dislike here is the routing speed. It's really slow. It's slower than the Magellan Roadmate 300R I tried and returned to Radio Shack after Thanksgiving. But it has a nice touch of telling you the routine calculation progress in %, so you can entertain yourself by counting "10%... 16%... 23%... 23%... 23%... 50%...". You get the picture.
The MP3 and photo viewer functions are basic but, well, functioning. You can load an SD card (up to 2GB in capacity) with MP3 files (in the MP3 folder) and JPEG files (in the JPEG folder) and then stick the SD into the Nuvi 350. The I/O circuitry of this thing is really painfully slow, but if you have the patience, most functions will eventually work.
Anyway, I will update this review as I spend more time with the Nuvi 350. The bottom line is, this unit lacks refinement. The counter-intelligent address search engine is just scandalous. I wish I had bought it from a local store so I could return it. (If I return it to Amazon without mentioning a physical defect, I'd have to reimburse Amazon for the overnight shipping charge and the return shipping charge. Not good.)
Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that there's nothing close to being half perfect in the portable GPS market. I still think Garmin, a Taiwanese company, makes the better units. I totally dislike Magellan because their products crash. I don't want a TomTom because it uses the Tele Atlas map database, which sucks big-time in North America. Other brands like Averatec, FineDrive, etc. are just jokes; they are based on an old version of WinCE which tends to crash multiple times a day -- not good, not good at all when you are driving. Finally, there's the Sony NV-U70. I tried it out once and liked it. It's a bit bulky and doesn't come with MP3 or photo viewing, and doesn't do text-to-speech like the Nuvi 350. But it's fast (has a fast Intel processor and a fast proprietary GPS receiver inside) and doesn't crash and feels very well made. In hindsight, the Sony is what I should have bought.
Customer Review: Better than TomTom 910
Summary: 5 Stars
I was recently looking to purchase a GPS unit and I had resigned myself to spending approximately $800. The obvious choices presented to me were the Garmin Nuvi 350 and the TomTom 910. For use in the USA, both machines are essentially equally equipped, with large, bright color touch screens and pre-loaded maps. The TomTom also includes maps of Europe, but as I don't intend to travel there anytime soon, this was not a compelling selling feature.
I spent a bit of time in the store using both devices side-by-side. I entered identical destinations and observed how many keystrokes it took to get the machines to recognize the address. The Garmin Nuvi, with a very refined user interface, took significantly fewer keystrokes in most cases. Since the Nuvi allows you to enter the state first, the machine can pinpoint your destination city much more quickly than the TomTom, which requires that you enter the city before the state. As such, you are presented with a (sometimes) very long list of matching cities, which you then must scroll through to find the correct one. Consider, for example, a city name like "Springfield." Once you manage to key in enough characters that the machine can guess the name, it presents you with a list of Springfields, one for each state! There are a lot of Springfields in the US, so you end up wasting considerably time clicking past the ones you don't want.
Now that the addresses were entered (and I was already starting to get annoyed with the TomTom's inefficiency), the machines begin to calculate a driving route. The Garmin found a reasonable route from Paramus, NJ to Cambridge, MA in about 8 seconds, and it took another 5 or so to draw the map and announce the first move. The trip was estimated to require about 3 1/2 hours (reasonable, if not a bit low). On the other hand, the TomTom required more like 30 seconds to calculate the route, plus another 10 or so to draw the map. What's worse, the TomTom told me it would take over 8 hours to reach the destination. Only on a pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday in snow, many years ago, has it ever taken that long!
I figured perhaps some other customer had chosen a route preference that led to this odd path. After searching hopelessly through several poorly labeled menus on the TomTom and failing to see a "shortest distance" or "quickest trip" option, I tried resetting the machine's preferences. Unfortunately, the machine's touch screen registered a finger-touch event right after the reset (I must have brushed the screen accidentally), and it locked in a foreign language I couldn't read. (I guess the first question it asks after a reset is "what language do you want?") There was no "back" button that I could find, and it kept asking additional questions in this foreign tongue. I needed a translator to continue! At that point, there was no sense in playing with the TomTom any further. The user interface was simply one frustration piled on another. Even if they were to update the menu choices to be more logical, the touch-sensitive feature is slightly misaligned, requiring you to press the bottom corner of a button you want in order to get the correct selection. Button presses made in the center of a button often resulted in the button above being chosen. I don't appreciate electronics that waste my time.
The speed of the Garmin's route calculation is more important that simply allowing you to set off quicker, though. If you miss a turn en route, the machine must recalculate your trip so it can correct your path. The Garmin recovers from missed turns quickly enough that it can usually find and announce the correcting route before the next turn. If a machine cannot recover this quickly, you'll simply miss that turn, too, and the machine will set off recalculating another new route. You'll end up in a vicious cycle of missed turns if the machine is off-line for too long. I have not used the TomTom in a car, but given that it was such a laggard in the store, I would want to experiment with it during a missed turn before investing such a large sum.
As for bright light visibility, the Garmin is more than adequate. I have a convertible, and even in bright sunlight with the top down, the Garmin is adequately legible. The built-in speaker, though small, is powerful and clear. Directions are easily audible over the wind and road noise, assuming I've got the stereo at a reasonably low level. The Text to Speech (TTS) feature allowing the unit to speak street names performs well enough to recognize the street without looking at the unit.
The windshield mount worked quite well despite the stiff suspension in my car, my aggressive driving habits, and the fact that it was in the direct sun and heat for several hours today. (The car corners at greater than 0.95g, and achieves about 1.00g in deceleration, which did not so much as shake the unit or the mount. Larger transient forces such as expansion joints also failed to upset the suction cup mount.) The machine snaps in and out of the charger / holder with complete ease.
Garmin's unit is much thinner than the TomTom, and its battery is rated for up to 8 hours of use while unplugged from the car charger (a wall charger is also included). Becaues the unit is so small (think iPod size), it fits easily into a pocket for walking trips, hiking, and biking. It's also very easy to place in a brief case or pocketbook, further protecting your investment when you park.
$800 is a lot of money to spend on a GPS device, but the Garmin has justified the expense with an exemplary machine. With plenty of map data, a very polished and efficient user interface, and simple setup and operation, they have managed to outshine the competition.
As a footnote, I had planned to purchase the Garmin from Best Buy or Circuit City until they told me there was a 15% restocking fee for a returned item. Given the unique nature of this device (you need to like using it IN YOUR CAR, not in the store), this could be quite a loss if you decide against the item. Amazon has no such penalty. However, if you choose the Garmin, I suspect you will never want to send it back! Hope this helps you choose.
UPDATE: After a 1300 mile road trip to Virginia, I am still extremely pleased with the Garmin Nuvi 350. Even gravel side roads off the Blue Ridge Parkway were accurately labeled and present in the map data! No matter where we were, a few taps on the screen brought up a list of nearby restaurants (marked with arrows so you can choose only ones that don't require a U-turn!) or stores. Also, do not underestimate the utility of having a portable, battery-powered device while walking around unfamiliar cities and towns. It's a huge help. In short, this device is a joy to use. Garmin also plan to release Macintosh compatible software in the next several months (according to press releases on their Web site) so that we Mac users will be able to keep our Nuvi's accurate in the future.
Best Regards,
Daniel Wambold, MD
www.ascendiac.com
Customer Review: Hwys intersect -Problem understood thru Environment+Experience=Education
Summary: 5 Stars
[...]I recently responded to a review in Amazon's comments option regarding the Nuvi 670. I don't know if my quirk experience with Nuvi350 was relative to his bug issue on the 670. But I enjoyed his review so much that I felt compelled to share. It's more appropriate to post this as a review for the Nuvi 350. I've added a bit more to my original comments:
Add me to list of people who found the March 21, 2007 review of the Nuvi 670 by Chris Hann's very helpful. The following is a chapter from his review on the Nuvi 670:
"The one significant bug is a holdover from previous Garmin products like the GPS V, it is also an issue it shares with Tomtom. While heading down an interstate, let's take I880 from Oakland to Fremont as an example, with many miles of straight ahead to go, the 670 will direct you off at a ramp, it likes to take the I238 ramp towards Livermore, and then immediately back on. This is amusing to a local, but it could be very confusing to a visitor. It did the same to me in 395 south through Reno last night, that did confuse me. This is a bug that should have been eradicated years ago. "
His comments reminded me of several similar confusing directions from the Nuvi 350 until I realized what it was doing with certain major highways and interstates. I watched the miles count down towards my next mapped exit off Florida's Turnpike. Only to be suddenly confused by the "Recalculation" announcement indicating I took the wrong exit. It just happened to be the beginning of the Sawgrass Expressway. I thought I messed up. One month later... I ...It ... did the same exact thing. Even though I paid closer attention to the directions. Nonetheless, I was very pleased that I didn't get lost - just rerouted - and it didn't add any extra time to my trip.
(On a side note, is it just me, or does the "recalculating" announcement seem like a slight admonishment? I've read that Jill's voice pronounces most street names accurately. Supposedly, the Australian female voice is the most popular.)
Months later, in familiar surroundings, the light bulb went on when I had to pass Hwy 528 on I-95. Nuvi's miles counted down to zero and advised keeping to the left on I-95. It doesn't share the reason to stay left is several additional lanes for 528 East or 528 West. After passing this intersection, Nuvi's directions indicated another 1.5 miles until my exit off of I-95.
It seems that Nuvi counts miles between some major intersections of Highway onto or branching off interstates/roadways usually involving ramps or splits. I'm not exactly sure why it highlights some intersections and not others. I think it may have to do with additional lanes for heavy traffic. My speech function (and not the text function) tells you to keep right or left as the highways divide. Then it counts down miles until the next turn ... the real exit.
Even if you didn't "turn" onto the intersecting hwy - Nuvi counts it as a "turn." I'll call it the "UN-TURN" and may list as 2 duplicate text instructions on the listed directions. The "UN-TURN" also shows up as a straight line on the visual map. These directions may be slightly different due to choices selected under SETTINGS --> NAVIGATION -> Voice Prompts -> Guidance and/or Status. In the detailed view of an individual map along with text direction, the major clue of the "UN-TURN" is a map with a single straight line (NO TURN - NO RAMP) Text states: Keep left on HWY # N (NO EXIT NUMBER.) This isn't a gentle reminder to keep going the same way you've been going for a bit longer. It's code for additional lanes to choose from because of major intersection. It won't show it but it does count it. I hope I made sense. :-) I originally tried to be very detailed with instructions but it was too confusing. Hopefully, my attempt to Keep It Simple will be understood. Because I know how confusing and frustrating this little "quirk" can be if it's misunderstood
I especially love the Nuvi 350 trip details screen. It's reassuring to know the exact speed I am traveling. Those speed measuring signs on some highways have matched Nuvi every time. Even without that reassurance, I trust the satellite data to be more accurate than my speedometer or even a cop's speedometer. That's a guess really since I've never gotten a speeding ticket. I don't speed very often. I have to say that cause I have been surprised by the max speed recorded. It must have been while I was passing some car because I didn't consciously speed that fast. We were surprised to learn that my mom's car speedometer is only accurate up to 60 mph. No Wonder she's not gotten a ticket when she swears she went 80 mph the whole trip. I think it would be so cool to take it on my next flight to see how fast the plane is traveling. :-)
I also love always knowing how far I've gone and how far to go. No more relying on the occasional "Distances to" Signs along with my odometer and mile markers. I even play my own road games by trying to improve my trip times and/or averages: Total Time, Moving Time, Stopped Time, Overall Average, and Moving Average, Talking about time, it is uncanny how accurate the Nuvi's est Arrival Time has been. Going anywhere, no more stressing about being late or even too early - like picking up someone at a distant airport. I can trust the Nuvi est Arrival time so much that I turn it on in the house before the trip and base my departure on this awesome feature. I make a game out of the arrival time too. By setting cruise control to a safe speed of 5-7 miles over the limit, I watch as Nuvi subtracts a minute from the est arrival time every 40 miles or so. It sorta makes up for gas and rest stops :-)
I've only been researching other Nuvis because my Mom keeps borrowing mine. At first she wasn't interested in it. Then she and my Uncle got so lost in L. A, CA during a friend's wedding weekend. Every event was at a different location. The only time they didn't get lost was returning to airport. Which, of course, they added extra time for the very real possibility of getting lost. Then add in the 2 hours before the flight that the airlines recommend. They were not happy campers - they lost a lot of time they could have spent with loved ones. Now she swears she's never going to rent another car without a GPS. I would have lent her mine except I mistakenly assumed most rental cars had GPS. OOPS!
I Love Amazon for these reviews and the occasional downloadable manuals. The Garmin web site has the manual available for download if anyone is interested. I rarely buy anything without checking Amazon first. So it's appropriate for my first review ever to be about this wonderful GPS. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Nuvi 350. Even More Now that I understand it better. Best thing I've ever purchased. BAR NONE!!! Peace, Understanding, Love and Laughter to All.