The adjustable back lighting is great. One of the brightest displays seen in full sun. Found it to be very easy and intuitive to use. Although there were some changes buried deep withing that were a surprise. Love the yoke mount and car mounts. Both worked great for me. Love the single power cord. Very clean setuup. The unit is packed with features and can manupulate many of the fuctions to your liking. The size is just about right for the way it will be used. Has a good decent manual. Super easy to unclip from the mounts so you can prevent theft. Bluetooth available for vehicle use (but not why flying).

This device uses the inferior resistive touchscreen technology with a too-large bezel that makes it impossible to touch anything near the sides of the screen. The effect is that the touchable area of the buttons that hug the right side of the screen in map view are significantly reduced. Even after a calibration, I would regularly miss these buttons. The cursor simply wouldn’t go as far to the right as my finger asked it to. Another problem related to the touch screen is with dragging the map in any direction. It was a frustrating experience, as the device would detect my finger at times and ignore it at other times. The touchscreen’s lack of sensitivity is frustrating when entering numbers, letters etc. I wish they would using capacitive touchscreen (like the iPhone). Using the flight planner for me was cumbersome. And it is difficult to enter your own waypoints accurately due to the small screen size and lack of terrian detail. But the task can be accomplished. Battery life is an issue, but that was known before hand. I always use the plug-in power. I think this product should come with a means to plug it into 110v for charging purposes. It is an after purchase option. The vehicle mode was a little disappointing. I really liked the idea to have dual GPS capabilities, flying and vehicle travel. But the sophistication level for driving just isn’t any better than whats been out there for years now. Two features I immediately found lacking were a nearest airport function in case of engine loss, and the ability to navigate to a point I touched on the map screen. To perform either function, you must exit the moving map and enter the Direct to menu.

Overall other than the unresponsive touchscreen, I am very pleased with what I mainly purchased this unit for: Flying. Haven’t had it long enough to comment on durability, but so far (Knock on wood), I haven’t had any issues with it at all after about 30 hours of flying with this unit.

GPS Experience:
I have been a GPS user for over 10 years. I have owned Garmin’s, Tom Toms, Magellan’s, Mio, DASH, and others.

Packaging:
You get a brown box with all the Garmin pieces inside and most important it’s recyclable.

Physical unit:
The 295t has a power button on the top, it also has a 2.5mm headphone jack/audio line-out on top. It has volume up and down button on the right side and well as a camera button on the right side. The left side has the USB as well as the windshield bracket connection. The nice thing is that you can connect the power directly to the bracket.

First Impression:
I just received my Nuvi 295t and I have to say that I excited about the concept of being able to connect to the Internet to surf or to find POI’s. I believe that all future PND units will have some kind of wi-fi connection or a bluetooth connection through your phone. The PND companies are loosing market share to all the NAV phones that are on the market. The 3.5 inch screen is SMALL. If you like having a 4.3″ screen or even a 5″ inch screen you might not like this small screen. Remember this a similar size to most NAV phones on the market today.

Navigation:
It has spoken street names (e.g. “Turn right on Elm street in 500 ft.”). The directions given were similar to other Garmin units. The directions were accurate. The unit displays the posted speed limit, and your current speed on the bottom right. It displays your arrival time on the bottom left. On the top of the screen it displays the next turn arrow with the street name. The “Jill” directional voice is low and tiny…it must be a small speaker.

Screen:
3.5″ inches. Dual-orientation automatically switches between portrait and landscape view. The Scrolling menu option was a nice add-on.

Wi-fi(web surfing, weather, e-mail):
Web surfing: Connected to an available hot spot was fast a easy. The web pages display as full web pages. You have the option to enlarge or reduce the web pages with a (+) or (-) that displays on the screen. Loading web pages was average with some taking longer to load.
Weather: while connected via wi-fi you can check your local forecast from the main menu. You would have to use the browser to go to [...] to view radar, and maps.
E-mail: setting an e-mail account was fast and easy. Once you are connected via wi-fi you can check your email from the main menu. The email icon shows how many un-opened emails that you have in your inbox. I was able to setup 2 e-mail accounts. The screen qwerty keyboard is not the greatest but you can still input the URL’s and other info.

Wi-fi (Google searches):
Once you are connected via wi-fi and you have the option to use Google Search to find POI’s that were not listed in the 6 million POI database. The searches were fast and easy. Once they are found the unit can route you to your destination. You can also use 1-step navigation from contacts, e-mail, and local search results.

Just finished my first few hours with the 295W.

Just received the 295W today to replace the 755T that was unfortunately stolen. I was thinking about waiting for the 3790T or 3760T, but needed something before that becomes available.

** UNIT DIMENSIONS / FEEL / RESPONSE **
First impressions of the 295W are pretty good. Good fit and finish, has the right heft to it to where it does not have a “toy” feel. Fit and finish is nicer than the 755T I had. All functions process more quickly than the 755T did, and the touch screen is much more responsive. On my old unit, either the processor bogged down a bit, or the screen sensitivity was not quite there, but it did not respond like the 295W does. Scrolling with the touch screen is nice both in the menus, and in map view mode.

** ROUTING / DIRECTIONS **
The routing seemed faster than the 755T. I will miss the lane assist when I travel to larger cities like L.A. and Atlanta, but for the vast amount of time, it won’t be a big deal. I did purposely take some wrong turns to check the rerouting capabilities, and found that to be very quick.

That said, it did have one hiccup already. ( i.e.- when chose Lowe’s from the POI list, it showed it in two different directions, same address, 5 miles apart. There is only one Lowe’s in my town, and it is not a divided highway or anything).

** UPLOADS **
I have not yet updated the map. It seems strange to have JUST released the unit, and the website suggests there is an updated map set available? I am going to see if I can figure out the version, and when the last one was released. Since I can upload over 60 days from initial use, I may wait a bit.

That said, I did upload some of the extra voices and vehicles that you can get from the Garmin site. It was quick, and seems to be just fine. ( By the way, I did have the problem upload with my prior 755T that made it a brick, and I had to send back and forth with Garmin.)

** WEB / WIRELESS **
Set up with my wireless network. Security settings were easy. The auto download weather is a neat feature, but I don’t see myself carrying this around every day in and out of the house the way I probably would with GarminPhone. The Google Local Search worked well though. The pre-loaded POIs were very good I thought, but there were a couple places I figured it wouldn’t know, and it didn’t. Connected through the web though, it found them in 5 seconds, and then they were added to the unit saved places.

** OVERALL FIRST IMPRESSION **
After being used to the larger 755T screen, this seems a little bit small. Seems like I can’t just glance as quickly at it as the prior unit, but maybe that will change with some time. The spoken directions seem a little bit clearer than the 755 was The response of the unit is very good in my opinion. Not sure how much I will really use the wireless, but I can see it handy traveling when I head to the hotel and might be looking for all the food options locally that the bas POI may not have, etc….

I am headed on a couple hundred mile drive over the next weekend and will see what other opinions arise. I know it’s an initial review, but at least I don’t have any buyer’s remorse at this point. I may still wind up with a 7300 series after those arrive, and put this in the other vehicle, but we’ll see.

**As for the packaging issues mentioned by the first poster, (who may just have wanted to be the first poster, since it certainly was not a PRODUCT review), I can say that while everything did arrive in fine shape, the stuff did just kind of seem tossed in the box. I felt it actually cheapened the Garmin brand to send it this way.

My wife and I have heavily used our Garmin 76CSx and loved it for the last 2 years. Long story short, we sold it and bought this one after a lot of research. Even after the research, I was very surprised by how great the improvements were over the 76CSx.
* The touch screen made navigation a night and day experience, especially typing in addresses or other POI.
* The calculation time for routing is very much improved. The boot time is longer than the 76CSx but it can lock in satellites much faster and in areas with more interference (ei. in a basement of a house).
* One of the biggest improvements that I didn’t realize with my research is the resolution of the screen. Having twice the resolution made viewing maps much easier. You don’t need to zoom out to see the detail you need. This is very clear with topo maps.
* The coloring schemes are also much better for City navigation maps.
* When you take a pictures it marks it location on the map and comes with GPS coordinates which my dad would love for his snowmobile trips.
* Enabling and disabling maps is so much easier. On the 76SCx, when you loaded topo maps and CN maps, in menu under map setup it would list every image map that you loaded, which with topo maps there could be hundreds listed. To see the topo maps you need to disable/enable the CN maps, to do this you would have to scroll through a very small window to find the CN map image then disable it. This was a huge pain and time consuming. On the Oregon 550 it lists the maps in map packs, not images. This is a improvement.

Another point of information, the sdhc memory uses fat32 memory type which is the type of memory this GPS uses can hold can only have files sizes of 4 gigs. This is a requirement/limitation of the fat32. Also, Garmin has a restriction of only 4,000 (it might be just over 4,000) map images per map transfer. In topo maps, it is common to reach the 4,000 map images than the 4 gigs limitation. However, the Oregon 550 can handle at least 2 map packs images. I haven’t tested for more. You just load on map pack to the GPS or memory card. After it is done, rename it from gmapsupp.img to gmapsup1.img. Then transfer the other map image pack. It will read both map packs as one. So, you can have 8 gigs of maps on your GPS. You just need to do it the right way. You might be able to add more map packs, but I haven’t tested it.

The only down side is the battery consumption is noticeably higher than the 76CSx. But with a car charger it makes it much easier on the batteries. I also love how they include rechargeable batteries with the GPS.

I recently just bought 2 new Garmin GPS units to upgrade my aging Garmin Legend (Original Model). I was hesitant to purchase the Oregon due to the mediocre reviews on Amazon, but ultimately I decided to take a chance.

First I bought the Garmin Dakota 20, and I really liked it. Small, Battery Efficient, Easy to Use, and Paperless Geocaching using the touchscreen. Good stuff. I called my friend who likes to have the latest and greatest, and he told me he had purchased the Oregon 400t when it first came out last year. I took a drive to his house to compare it to my new Dakota 20… Very similar in capabilities, only smaller and less resolution on the screen. After seeing his unit, and how well it ran I found myself craving the higher resolution screen, and 3D Terrain features, so I went up and bought another one, this one, the Garmin Oregon 550. I decided against buying the Oregon 550t because the 550 had a little deeper discount than the “t” version. Ultimately I chose to purchase the 550 since it was around $60 off retail, VS. only $1 less than retail on the 550t. I figured I could add the TOPO maps later. Plus I had also just purchased the Dakota 20, and the $160 difference in cost was sounding pretty good. I have completely busted my mad money for now.

Ultimately I find this unit to be right in line with all of the other Oregon models software wise… it works exactly the same way. So go and read some reviews on the other Oregon models sine this unit doesn’t have many reviews yet. It is VERY similar in capabilities, but this one has a few added goodies.. 3 Axis Compass + 3.2MP GEOTagging Camera (Good stuff)…

Another observation between the new 550 and 550t models… Garmin’s specs say the these models have equivalent storage, but in fact this is not the case, the 850MB seen in the specs relates to the free space after taking into account the included maps. In reality it is more like 550 = 1GB, 550t=4GB internal memory. Mostly a non-issue since both have a Micro-SD slot behind the battery, which happily accepted an inexpensive 4GB SDHC card, and since SDHC was supported I would expect you could add an even larger one.

Like the other reviewer stated I noticed that the roads on Garmin’s 2008 TOPO maps are slightly off.. this is easily recognizable if you load a driving map, calculate a route, and then disable the driving map, you will see the driving route is not exactly on the road. To me this is all the more reason to just get the 550 model (at this point) without the TOPO maps. You can add them later once the road data is fixed. On second thought, the TOPO features themselves on the 2008 map seem fine, only the road data is a little off, so if you are using the maps as they are intended this is probably a non-issue. At the time I just felt like the 550 was a better bargain, only $90 more than the Dakota 20 I had just purchased, which also was still at the full $350 retail price since it is still a brand new model.

The only other glitch was with the Compass calibration, which went haywire for a moment, but resolved itself after a reset, and hasn’t happened since. We’ll see if it becomes an issue.. but I doubt it. The reset was very fast as this unit boots up very quickly.

I decided to make these purchases since my girlfriend has expressed an interest in “Re-Taking Up Geocaching”, we really haven’t done it in a while (Since ‘02), and its such a great outdoor activity. The original point in making these purchases was the ease at which you can add Geocaches into the unit directly from the website with a single mouse click. She was having trouble getting used to adding the co-ordinates into the old Garmin Legend with that tiny joystick, it was VERY TEDIOUS.

So now she has the Dakota 20, and I have the Oregon 550, and we can easily transfer geocaches back and forth wirelessly, and it is easy as pie to download them from [...].

To me, these new Garmins are a huge upgrade from my old “Legend”, and they are waterproof and rugged as ever.

I would have given this product 5 stars had it not been for the couple of small glitches, which I expect will be fixed in the future via a firmware update / map update from Garmin.

Truely.. the new touchscreen Garmin units are to GPS’s, as the iPhone is to mobile phones. In a class by itself.

From an ergonomics and hardware perspective, the Nuvi is clearly the class leader. It does cost too much and the simplicty of the interface greatly limits flexibility.

Hardware. The Nuvi makes the TomTom and other units look downright bloated and clunky. The industrial design is not quite in the Apple league but is the best thing available at the moment. The SiRF chipset is far superior to those used in older GPS units (including some current Garmin StreetPilots). It locks signal quickly, the screen is bright, the voice to text is clear, etc.

I have owned many GPS units of all makes and types. Thus, unlike many 1st time GPS owners, I am no longer mesmerized by the fact that GPS can find my street address. The Garmin, like many other brands does a very good job at getting you from point A to point B. Garmin’s maps and algorithms do seem slightly better than some others but it will still send you on some routes that a local driver would not use. the fact that the 670 is preloaded with maps of both Europe and the USA is a great feature IF, and only if, you have a need for this.

My biggest frustration with the Nuvi lineup is the limited configuration options. Garmin, in an effort to appeal to soccer Mom’s, has really dumbed down the interface compared to years ago when you could configure just about everything including display of MGRS data. The Nuvi has even less flexibility than the StreetPilot series when it comes to configuration options.

Like any brand of GPS, the Garmin will often recommend a route that is simply absurd. This is where the interface falls down because the only place to select from shortest time, shortest distance, etc., is in the system configuration menus. Magellan, for example, asks you every time if you want “shortest time”, “shortest distance”, “least use of freeways”, “most use of freeways”, etc. If Magellan suggests a goofy route you simply go back one screen and pick an alternative. This also provides a quick and easy way to compare various routing suggestions. To do so on the Nuvi you have to return all the way back to the system settings and even then you only have shortest time or shortest distance. I do understand that many folks want to keep it as simple as possible but I also think Garmin should include an “advanced settings” menu for those who want more. Yes, the StreetPilots are more configurable but they are dinosaurs from a hardware perspective.

The TMC traffic service is a mixed bag. It is only useful in certain metropolitan areas. Likewise, the information is often not current. It is like listening to the traffic report telling you that Route XYZ is fine when you are sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on that very road. Quality of data really depends on the geographic area and the road itself. But yes, the way Garmin built the FM receiver into the power cord is a thing of engineering beauty.

Bluetooth may or may not work for you. When I try to pair my Nokia 9300 the Nokia sees the Garmin but the Garmin never sees the Nokia. If this feature is important to you then do check the Garmin site to see if your phone is listed as a compatible unit.

The graphics are good but nothing special. Again, about on par with everyone else.

I have not tried using the Nuvi as an MP3 player. I already own an iPod.

The big question becomes, is it worth the money? This is a tough call considering that some GPS units are now at the $200 mark. If you fly from city to city and want to take your GPS along then the Nuvi is a good choice. It is great to be in a strange city where you jump in a rental car, plug in an address, and away you go. If you want the basics or do not need the slim form factor there are much better deals from Magellan, TomTom, and even Garmin. The Nuvi is a better product but i do not think it is so much better that it justifies the huge price premium. I might feel differently if it had some amazing graphics engine or there were an “advanced configuration” menu that allowed me to tailor it to my own quirks and needs.

I did buy the 670 for the size and the USA/Europe maps. For those specific needs it is the best in class. I do love the Nuvi hardware but I still prefer the software and configuration options on my 4 year old Magellan Roadmate.

I bought this to replace a Tomtom Navigator 5 system running on a Dell x51v with the external Tomtom Bluetooth receiver. The major issues with that were a terrible lack of POIs, terrible time and distance predictions, poor routing, no control of the map view and the receiver shutting off despite being on external power.

First thing I noticed on opening the box is that the mains charger comes with adapters for all the countries I regularly visit, so I clicked the US two pin adapter in place, plugged it in then plugged the lead into the 670. It came on immediately and said it was loading maps. A few seconds later it showed a map. It was already locked on! That’s a huge advance from the old days when it took at least 4 minutes for my GPSIII+ to find the satellites. I am in the middle of the top floor of a large open plan building, the position shown was accurate.

Without looking at the manual I got rid of the touch beep, bound it to my bluetooth phone, set the timezone and voice and set it up to navigate to a restaurant for lunch. All in under 15 minutes with time out for work.

In the car I mounted the unit to the windshield and plugged in the power conenction, it immediately lit up green to show it was connected to the traffic system. I was expecting to have to register and sign up for a service agreement, instead it came up and showed it was already enabled with 3 months to run. A few minutes later I looked at the traffic detail map and saw it already showed the local problem areas. Very cool.

Apparently the 2.60+ firmware handles 4Gb SD cards so I ordered one and look forward to trying the MP3 player. (I have used three different 4Gb cards since I wrote this and they all work perfectly.)

I tested the POI list by looking for gas stations and particular stores in the area, it had everything I knew of and more, so I am very hopeful at this stage.

I’m looking forward to trying the hands free too, all we did so far is dial another cell phone in the car and laugh about the echo we got. Sound quality and volume seemed good. I’m going for a 1500 mile road trip to Utah this weekend, so I’ll update after that.

1685 miles later…

Garmin certainly has accurate maps for CA, NV and UT, they seemed very up to date. The option to “avoid dirt roads” was especially welcome and saved me some nasty miles that the direct route would have taken on unpaved roads. Routing was mostly good, but could do with some more skepticism on the choice of rural state roads. I was happy to take route 88 into the Sierras from the bay area because I was on a road trip, but I80 is probably 50% faster.

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.

Another issue with the GPS V is still present in the 670. When recalculating the map display is suspended, so right when you need to see what’s going on you have a useless map. When routing resumes it gives the verbal instructions before repainting the map. Not good. In contrast the Tomtom always recalculates silently and just flashes up the new route. The Tomtom never leaves you with a dead screen. I don’t like to be told every time the route is recalculated, when I go the wrong way, for whatever reason, there’s no brownie points to be gained telling me off. At the very least there should be the option to disable this ‘feature’.

POI selection is absolutely outstanding, at least compared to other things I have used. It makes the Tomtom implementation look like amateur night. You can select the POI by type, gas stations, shops and restaurants are my favorites, then either go straight to the list of hit SPELL and type in part of the name. It will match on any part of the name, so you can include partial names, even partial words, and it will still show the matches. Once you have your list you can select by address, direction and distance, or see the POI on a map. The direction changes from compass direction when stationary to relative direction when moving, so you don’t have to waste your time looking at gas stations you passed twenty miles ago.

I did have one POI which can obviously never have been true, the Shell station near Lohi, UT has obviously always been a house. But mostly the POIs are very accurate.

It is disappointing that you can no longer select different on-screen data, I liked that with the old units and miss it. That’s a big step backwards. I want to know time-to-next, time-to-go, course, altitude and other things that used to be offered.

There is a weird issue with map detail and zoom level, small roads appear and disappear as you zoom in and out. Let’s be clear, a small road that is visible on a small scale (big area) disappears as you zoom in and then only reappears at some of the highest scales (most detailed) when you can’t see any context, or even if it’s actually the same road.

In general though, the automatic map scaling is very good, the 3-D view shifts to a track up view as it zooms out, this addresses my major gripe with Tomtom in that it allows you to keep your route in context and see how you are getting on in the big picture. As the view zooms in it adds a lot of street detail, much much better than Tomtom.

The time to destination predictions remain excellent. Outstanding. It was within minutes on the driving time over a distance of hundreds of miles on each occasion. Tomtom is often pessimistic by 50%, totally inadequate for planning purposes.

Is it worth it? Is it as good as it should be? For me, no and no. For $850 I can get a decent laptop, that’s a lot more hardware, so that’s not where the money went. They are still not addressing their software issues, they have faulty algorithms that have been unmodified for years and inherited from old products. As a software engineer I am disappointed but not surprised. Near work it will still sometimes tell me to take three right turns instead of an entirely legal left.

But it is very good. Garmin’s mechanical people have done a great job, this is obviously a class device. But the software and systems people aren’t as good.

Overall? If I could edit the rating I’d drop at a point or two now. But I still haven’t seen better. At these prices it’s not like there are many people who are willing to try them all.

Contrasting my own companies attitude to software errors (we are one of the biggest suppliers in the cell phone, commercial radio, wireless networking and many other fields), we would not allow even a mildly irritating bug to remain in one of our products for years. So I am wondering if I should return this on principal. I’ll try support first, in the past that didn’t achieve much.

8,000 miles later

Yes, I do a lot of miles.

Lasting impressions: I almost always have the voice prompt switched off, the guidance is repeated too often on high speed roads and I hate to hear it continuously telling me that it is recalculating when I don’t agree with the way it told me to go.

There have been too many instances of ridiculous routing, you need to zoom out and see of the route looks sensible. Most do. A good example of a bad one was in Yellowstone National Park, I was in Canyon Village and wanted to return to my hotel in West Yellowstone, about a 35 mile trip fairly well due west. The first part went OK but then I was directed north 60 miles on US89, 30 miles west on I90 then 60 miles south on US191. I ignored the advice and the continuous u-turn instructions and recalculation. As I arrived at the Wyoming/Montana border, about three miles down a straight road from my hotel, the Nuvi crashed. Screen controls didn’t work. When I swiched it off and on again it discovered there was a three mile route to the hotel instead of the previous 170+ mile suggestion. Strange.

The traffic information has been a mixed blessing too. As traffic builds in the morning and evening rush hours it seems to be added in realtime, but it doesn’t seem to be purged out when it is no longer present. So if I go in to work late at 10am the roads are running at the speed limit but the traffic information on the Nuvi still says they are at a crawl. On Friday night I went to dinner after work, when I left at 11pm the roads were quiet and most people were doing 15mph over the limit, but the Nuvi told me that I880 was jammed solid with a 30 minute delay for the next few miles. That had probably been true six hours earlier, but not in the last four. This isn’t a fault with the unit, it’s a fault with the traffic service, when switched on the unit gave the correct route. Bad traffic information also gives unreasonably pessimistic ETA estimates.

Would I buy it knowing what I do now? Still yes. I still think Garmin are the best of the current offerings, they just need to fix a few things and beat up their traffic information provider.

Does it work with SDHC Cards? Yes it does. I have tried the Transcend 4Gb card, which I use for music and audio books, and a SanDisk 4Gb card which came straight out of my Canon SD1000 and in to the Nuvi. A couple of seconds later it was showing a slide show of the pictures I took recently, so it can handle 2Mb jpeg files too.

Long term traffic issues:…

Read more ›

The sound is clear and it even has an audio out jack for my auxiliary input jack of my stereo. So, if I’m *really* paranoid about missing audio cues when I’m driving, I don’t miss them now. Alternatively, if you pair it with a bluetooth headset, you should be able to get the same in ear (of course you could also use the audio out for regular headphones while driving, say one earbud in, if you wanted).

The interface is very logical and anticipates what you want reasonably well. The navigation at a couple of weird spots in Toronto was a bit disappointing. Don’t know whether to attribute to less attention to the Canadian map data or just a sampling anomaly. For example, I punched in a Wynford drive address (cultural centre) and after it took me off the DVP, it didn’t tell me to turn onto a crucial cross street (was highly unintuitive at night) to actually get to the entrance of the destination. I’m used to these things generally routing you right to the front door.

Conversely, going to a friends new condo in Downsview, everything was perfect and I got right to the front entrance.

The thing with the 2820 is that like with most of these portable units, I don’t leave it on the dash ready to use, b/c it’s of course, more of a theft target, alarm notwithstanding. So I wrap it up in a little sports bag and whip it out when I need nav help. It’s too big for the glove box (unless you have a really big glove box with nothing else in it). Often, I’ll leave the GPS in the trunk so there’s less for wandering eyes to wonder about. I really wish I had a unit built into the vehicle I didn’t have to fold away, unplug etc.

Really, these units are best for travelers. In one’s main car, I’d recommend going to the mobile audio/nav specialty shop and installing something.

While my 2820 has a bigger display than the Garmin ones with the “c” prefix (the smaller square shaped ones), I noticed that the extra screen space is mostly used for extra stats like distance to destination, ETA, current speed etc. In hindsight, the smaller “c” models that you can shove in your glovebox with effectively the same map display area, are probably better. That is - if it’s going to be portable than make it fit in your glove box - otherwise - go with a properly installed permanent device.

Having used the device, I realized my concerns about a slightly larger screen size than the “c” models provide, was unfounded. Perhaps there’s a mode I can set mine to to take up the full screen, sans the stats. It would be of negligible impact however. The audio cues and a quick glance over seem to really be all that one needs - even with a smaller model.

My 2820 is definitely a solid piece of technology and it does the job. It’ll always get me in the area, if not to the doorstep of where I need to go. I’ve not used the “places of interest” and other such look ups, but my brother in law and cousin have the smaller Garmin units that do this as well, and they’ve been happy with those functions.

(EDIT 12-19-2006: If you’re looking at the 2820, unless you drive a motorcycle I strongly recommend the StreetPilot c550 which I’ve also reviewed. Read this review and then compare it to the c550.)

This is the second Garmin product I’ve purchased, the first being a StreetPilot C320 for my mother which I’ve also used extensively. (I’ve reviewed the C320 also. Most of the good things I pointed out in that review also apply here, so read that one if you want more details than what I give here.) This one was purchased for myself and my wife to use in our new car. (New toys! Hooray!)

The unit itself is pretty solid, measuring about the size of an oversized Stephen King novel, weighing about a pound and having a large widescreen-format touchscreen with four (backlit) rubberized buttons to the right of the screen. A power switch is on the right side, ports for microphone-in and audio-out are on the left side, and a mini USB port is on the back. The screen and buttons automatically adjust their brightness depending on the ambient light (the more light there is the brighter they get), but you can override the brightness levels manually.

One big disappointment was the lack of a built-in microphone and speaker, although Garmin includes a wired microphone that is surprisingly sensitive. Considering that both a microphone and the GPS would need to be within line of sight of the driver it doesn’t make sense that Garmin didn’t integrate the microphone right into the unit. The speaker is even more unusual; it’s actually attached to the plug that goes into the cigarette lighter. So if your car has an awkwardly positioned cigarette lighter you’ll find the audio coming out from an unusual angle. The fact that my mother’s C320 (which cost less than half) has a built-in speaker while the 2820 does not is a further disappointment.

The unit truly is a plug-and-play affair. Setup is this: Take the unit, the power cord, and the mounting base (more on that in a moment) out of the box. Position the unit on your car’s dashboard. Plug in the power cord to your car’s cigarette lighter outlet. Turn on the unit. That’s it — done and ready to go. Provided you’ve got a reasonably clear view of the sky it’ll take about 10-15 seconds for the GPS to locate itself, after which you’ll have full functionality.

Installation caveats: As with all GPS systems you’ll need to position the GPS in an area where it can get a clear view of the sky as the antenna is internal. (External antennas are available.) Garmin includes a weighted “pad” with a high-friction base that securely holds the unit onto the dash. They also provide a means of “permanently” mounting the unit onto the dash via an adhesive disc. I used the weighted pad and have no problems with it.

For gadget geeks like me, you’ll want to connect the unit to your Windows PC (via USB) and download Garmin’s WebUpdater application. This will update the software in the unit. Mine required about 15-20 updates, including a multitude of voice updates as well as a couple of “system” updates. I therefore strongly recommend you download and use Garmin’s WebUpdater (which, incidentally, works on all Garmin products with USB interfaces).

So, how does it work? Garmin’s interface is very smooth and polished. It’s not perfect and you will sometimes find yourself getting lost in the multitide of menus and functions, but for most of your navigation needs you’ll never notice this. You’ll be using perhaps 15% of the menus 90% of the time and that 15% is very easy to work with. The navigation process is clear, concise and accurate. As an experiment I went through the same intersection several times and the 2820 announced the upcoming turn at virtually the same exact point, so it’s definitely got some accurate positioning happening.

The unit offers a “traditional” 2D GPS perspective (where you’re looking straight down onto a map of the surrounding area, with your vehicle positioned in the center of the map) or a pseudo-3D perspective (where the map is angled and you’re looking down and forward from above the car’s position on the map). I find the 3D perspective to be more interesting and Garmin seems to agree since that view is the default. Unlike the C320, the 2820 will zoom out depending on how far you need to go. For example, if you’re traveling 10 miles on a highway the 2820 will zoom the view out to show you more of the surrounding area including points of interest, if applicable. As you approach your turn the 2820 will zoom in to closer detail so you don’t miss the turn (you can also manually override this function and zoom in to whatever setting you want). In contrast, the C320 maintains its zoom level at whatever the user specifies.

Audio quality is very good, much improved over my mother’s C320 and there’s even support for multiple languages (so, yeah, it’ll talk to you in Spanish or any of a dozen other languages.) There are three “American English” voices. One is dubbed “Jack”, the second “Jill”, and the third is unnamed. The “Jill” (female) voice is similar to the voice on the C320 and is the default choice for the 2820. The “Jack” (male) voice is somewhat easier to understand (versus Jill) but the unnamed (female) voice is inarguably the best of them. However, with this clarity comes a trade-off; using the unnamed voice will cause the 2820 to use generic directions (”turn left”, “in 500 feet keep right”) while using the “Jack” or “Jill” voice will cause the 2820 to call out street names and exit numbers. The reason for this is because the unnamed voice is really little more than a collection of sampled audio that the 2820 strings together appropriately, while “Jack” and “Jill” are a combination of sampled audio and computer-generated speech, thus allowing the unit to call out proper names and numbers when applicable.

There’s a phenominal amount of data on this thing. I was particularly surprised by its airport options; not only will it guide you to the airport, but it will also guide you to the appropriate terminal or drop-off/pick-up area. There’s also an extensive points-of-interest guide; tell the GPS what you want and it will tell you what’s closest and guide you there with aplomb. Map accuracy is exceptional. It doesn’t always take me via the route I expect to go or I’m used to going but it always gets me to my destination. I recently took this unit with me to DisneyWorld in Orlando and it successfully plotted dozens of locations for me, both on and off DisneyWorld property. It even recognizes DisneyWorld restaurants in at least four resorts and will guide you there accurately.

I selected the 2820 for its other features as well. The hands-free Bluetooth function works fine. After pairing it with a Treo 650 I was able to send and receive calls through the Garmin unit.

The 2820 also has the ability to receive XM satellite radio and XM’s dynamic traffic system, “XM NavTraffic”, which will reroute your path to avoid traffic congestion. This requires an XM subscription which I don’t have (I’m a Sirius guy) so I was unable to test this.

You can also connect the 2820 to an optional FM TMC traffic receiver which, in areas that support the technology (mainly large cities like Manhattan), will also dynamically reroute your path. This is a less expensive option than the XM system but, again, I have not (yet) installed this so I cannot test it.

One particular item of note: The C320 has one significant shortcoming, and that is the screen tends to get washed out in anything resembling sunlight. I actually had to fabricate a small plastic hood for the C320 to make it visible and therefore more useful. I am happy to say that the 2820 has a significantly better screen. I had it on the dashboard of a PT Cruiser convertible, with the top down, at high noon, in the middle of Florida, on a bright and sunny 90 degree day and had absolutely no problems viewing the screen. The C320 (without the hood) would have shown me a vague blur in a similar situation.

So, overall this is a very positive review. So why only two stars? Several reasons, most of which having to do with comparing the 2820 to the lower-end products like the C320. First, the omission of a built-in speaker and microphone. The fact that Garmin’s lower-priced systems has a speaker and the higher-priced systems do not is inexcusable, and the logic behind the external microphone eludes me. I am also removing a star for the other “nickel-and-dime” things. For example, the C320 includes a suction cup mounting for the windshield which is very convenient; the 2820 does not. The C320 has a built-in rechargeable battery good for about four hours which makes it invaluable if you’re ever stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere; the 2820 has no battery. Combined the entire package is a little nonsensical; it’s like getting a full stereo w/CD player as standard equipment in a Kia, but not even offering it as an option in a Mercedes-Benz. I am also taking a full star off for Garmin’s failure to respond to two pre-sale and one post-sale email I sent to them. There is absolutely no excuse for lackluster customer support.

On the other hand, it could fairly be said that I’m not giving credit where credit is due. After all, the 2820 has excellent directions, a very good screen, a ton of preprogrammed locations and a host of additional features like the XM satellite radio connection. To that I say: So what? Any GPS worth anything will have excellent directions, a good screen, and tons of preprogrammed locations so crediting the 2820 for something that it should have just by its very nature is kind of silly. As for the additional features, yeah, you’re probably right, but since I’m not actually using many of those additional features I can’t rightfully praise the 2820 for having them.

So, is this a good GPS? Yes, one of Garmin’s best. But there’s a lot of room for improvement and if you don’t need the Bluetooth, XM satellite, and/or TMC traffic functions there are much less expensive Garmin units that offer better value.

And it took an electronic device. LOL.

OK, here is the deal. This product is as good as any GPS I have ever used or seen. It is small and easily carried with you wherever you go (something most of them can’t do at all). It can be used in any vehile (caveat, you do not get multiple mounts, but extra mounts can be purchased for $25), and even has pedestrian and bicycle modes. ABOVE ALL it is easy to use, thanks to good software and an excellent touch screen, although a getting started manual would have helped me enormously.

The thing is great at telling you what to do and where to go. There are no second guesses. It says take a right, it highlights the turn graphically and it even tells you the road or route you are turning onto verbally, something most GPS’s are missing. Instead of “turn right in .02 miles”, you get “turn on to Vista Drive in .02 miles”. It even has some landmarks that comfort you along the way.

On of the best features is something my wife experienced on a trip to NY. She is not familiar at all with the roads here on the east coast and was taking a rather long drive to NY to a hotel we had never stayed at. Along the way, she managed to mess up and miss one turn. For her, that could have been a major hassle. I mean, you know what it is like. I have spent as much as an hour getting back on track when I was lucky. Even more time was lost when I wasn’t lucky because of detours or road work. One detour in California took me over two hours to recover from on what was originally a 1/2 hour trip. Other GPSs do this too, but this one seems incredibly adept and efficient at it.

When she missed her turn, the system immediately recognized it and redirected her. She lost about five minutes for her goof and didn’t have to ask directions or even pause in her travels.

In NY, she used it repeatedly in pedestrian mode to find where she was going. And it worked like a charm even in the confines of all the buildings in NY.

OK, my complaints are why it doesn’t get a 5 star rating. Read them closely, because there are ways around a couple of them, but that said, I don’t think ANY GPS would get 5 stars from me.

1. There is no “getting started” manual, although it is referenced by Garmin in one of their manuals, it doesn’t exist in the package or on the website. All such a manual (which could be one page long) has to say is how to get it working the first time. I will tell you after this how to work around it, but I think it results in a number of these devices being returned in frustration.

2. It does sometimes get confused about the best route. Don’t get me wrong, it will get you there and will show you exactly where you are. But when I use it on roads I know, it often isn’t optimal. For example, it wanted me to take a road I knew had 10 traffic lights instead of an open freeway in one instance. Or it told me to drive a half a mile out of my way when the left turn onto the highway I wanted was right in front of me.

3. Detour mode is great if there really is a detour. But I accidentally hit this once and there does not appear to be a way to turn it off. I found this incredibly annoying on one trip because I knew it was the best route, but needed details at the end of the trip and the GPS was trying to send me every way but the right way because I accidentally clicked a button. :-(

4. It has an emulation mude allowing it to pre-navigate a trip for you. I thought this would be an INCREDIBLY useful feature. You could practice a complex route before you actually took the trip. But it works at real speed. So emulating a four hour trip would indeed take, well, four hours. Silly indeed. Great for sales demos, but useless for the customer. If someone knows a way around this, it would be a great thing to tell folks.

5. The battery is not customer replacable.

OK, so how do you work around 1? You charge the battery, you go outside to use it the first time under an open sky, and you give it at least five minutes to acquire the satellite positions. It won’t work on your couch in the living room unless you are very lucky. It needs at least 3-4 satellites to triangulate your position, and I couldn’t get more than one indoors. Outside, it picks up more than enough satellites to get the job done. Oh, and dont’ forget to open the antenna. :-)

How about working around 2? Live with it, it is a factor of the mapping software. It ain’t perfect, but it is great when you get lost. That one wrong turn is easily corrected. When you are in an unfamiliar area, it really doesn’t matter if you use the perfect route anyway in most cases, just that you got there safely. And add to that you always know where you are, and you have something worth every penny. It truly kills the stress factor of driving in an unfamiliar area.

Now 3 is a problem. Don’t use the detour feature unless you are absolutely sure you need to take an actual detour. It takes you literally that the route is detoured, and the only way I could find to work around it was to restart the entire trip over from your current location. Something annoying while driving on the highway if you don’t have another person in the car to reset it.

For 4, there is no workaround I have found. It makes this mode useless for only the shortest of trips.

For 5, again, you have no workaround. You will have to take it in for service if the battery wears out. IPODs have a similar issue though, so I am used to that. Battery life appears to be 4-6 hours. So when I use it around town or on short trips, I don’t even bother to use the cigarette ligher adapter.

Conclusion: Awesome unit. Wins every comparative review I have found. Works great. And gives you peace of mind for you and your family in your travels.