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It's a 4.3 with text to speech. I used it on a trip from Boston to DC and around that area for a few days. Matilda seemed to do her job very well with only a few minor glitches. The only issues were the use of HOV lanes in Northern VA and having to get off them and turn around to get to Alexandria and when returning home, she took me off of 95N at the GW Bridge in NYC and routed me on the parkways instead of the Cross Bronx Expressway. That route didn't add any time but it was white knuckle driving in a torrential rain and at night.
It does have a red light camera database which was useful in DC. I had more of an issue with inputing addresses in DC due to all the directional infomation needed.
So far I've updated it a couple of times and TomTom doesn't charge for updates. It ran me under $150 - it was on sale for $200 and I had some Staples bucks to use.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
To be fair I haven't really looked at one lately, but I'm happy with Garmin so I haven't felt a need to change brands. Plus it's easy to copy Favorites over to a new GPS when you're brand loyal.
I did sample a Dash device and it was awful, and that sent me running back to Garmin.
Free map updates would be nice, though. Is that for the life of the device, or what?
I paid $149 for a 4.3" screen with text-to-speech and a quick satellite signal, plus it has Canada maps. No major corners were cut and that's very low cost.
I'm pretty happy with my off-brand Nextar.
Or you can pay $119 IIRC and get lifetime map updates for one GPS device. Worth it if you pick a high-end model you're likely to keep for a while.
I should note - that $40 is an annual cost for the 4 updates so it runs half the price of a single annual upgrade.
Further, that's the update cost for my particular model - others will vary.
The $40 a year isn't bad IMHO.
Subaru charges $230 for the 2 updated DVDs for the Tribeca. Ouch. Funny thing is there is a West Coast DVD and an East Coast DVD, so often people here buy them and split them, $115 each.
Tech Tuesdays: Connected Portable Nav Test -- Internet Search Hits the Highway (Edmunds Daily)
I'm also a little disappointed that they didn't include a Garmin with MSN Direct in place of that Alpine. When I hear Alpine I think of audio stuff, not GPS.
Any how, I wonder if enough people will pay for all these subscription-based services. Like XM and Sirius, the business model won't sustain several competing services - they will have to merge and form one good one shared by the GPS industry. I bet half of these will be obsolete within 3 years.
Another thing - they rate the MSN Direct as the best traffic service, yet other feedback I've heard puts that well behind XM Traffic.
I will say that I do see room for improvement in my Garmin's search function, for instance picking the right category alone can be difficult. I was looking for the county recycling center and it fell under "Community", which is not exactly intuitive. So a Google-style search would really help.
I have a Garmin Nuvi 250 and the wife and I are going to drive from Southern NJ to Williamsburg, Va. I want to go via Rt.13 in Delaware and on down thru Maryland and NOT to use Rt. 95 and GO the "Scenic Route:....but I don't know how to get to "the scenic route" if there is such a way...It always puts me on Rt.95 most of the way. Everytime I type in the address of the Williamsburg Lodge it puts me on the Rt. 95 highway.
Can you advise???? my Email is nortsr@comcast.net
nortsr
The bad news first. Your Garmin is a very basic model, so it doesn't allow you to set multiple waypoints or a preset path prior to leaving on your trip. Other models do, but not your Nuvi 250.
The good news is you can still make it work, it's just going to take a bit of effort. Well, a lot of effort, but still, worth it.
What you'll have to do is set multiple destinations and maybe some way points inbetween.
I just drove on Rt. 13 on Monday, coming home from the beach, so maybe I can help a little. Let's see. I would probably set the Destination as the towns you drive through, and change that as you go.
From North to South, you could set Desinations as:
Stop 1: Cape May, NJ - then take the Cape-May Lewis Ferry, which should be gorgeous this time of year.
Stop 2 Option A: from there, go to Dewey Beach, then Ocean City, then Berlin, all MD. It will take longer but those are all the beach towns.
Stop 2 Option B: skip the coast, and go take Rt 13 instead. Set your destinations to Georgetown, then Laurel, then Salisbury. You will mostly see corn fields and chicken farms (Purdue is all over the eastern shore).
So option A if you like the beach, option B if you like farm land. Be ready for the stench of chicken manure if you pick B!
Stop 3 would be Pocomoke City, then keep going south on Rt. 13 all the way to Kiptopeke. Then take the Chesapeake Bridge/Tunnel, which is breath-takingly beautiful but be ready for the take-your-breath-away Toll as well. It was $22 last time I went.
At that point you're close, Williamsburg is a little north but again you're in a scenic area so it would be a nice drive.
Do it, at least once. It was take several hours longer (hence why the Garmin routes you elsewhere), no doubt, but you will really enjoy the journey. That's a full day at least, maybe even stop for a day at one of the beaches on the way down, you'll love it.
Garmin's POI database in that area is not particularly great, they still don't have the McDonald's in Bridgeville, and it's been there since the 1980s at least.
Still, you should see plenty of gas stations and food stops along the way.
Watch out for speed traps in all the small towns, especially where the speed limit drops. And also watch for red light cams on Rt. 13, don't run yellows!
In your case, I'd set the destination for someplace in DE on Rt. 13. Once you get there, follow 13 and then set your destination for Williamsbug. Eventually the nav will reconfigure for the ferry and in from the coast.
If you're planning a trip on that some time let me know. I can always use an excuse to take that ride.
4.3" vs. 3.5" screen (a friend of mine says the bigger screen makes no difference since you're perpetually only interested in limited scope of view anyway. ie. the road and intersection coming up, and the bigger screen is not going to give you more pertinent details);
Bluetooth;
Lane Assist;
3-D view;
FM (don't most cars have FM already?!;
Traffic (the consensus seems to be this is not useful)
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Have any of u folks used the 760?Is it adequate or are there better models around?
Your opinion?Thanks.
Anyone has experience in writing ipod usb driver based on ipod accessory protocol? The driver is for receiving information like playlist, song list etc from ipod.
TIA,
Santra
I guess with the antennae down it's off on those models. My Nuvi 200 series units don't have that extendable antennae.
The refurbished model I had froze, but that's why I returned it. Hopefully that doesn't keep happening to yours. You may want to do all the updates from the MyGarmin site, they have some bug fixes incorporated.
4.3" vs. 3.5": I like the big screens. It's not so much for the map display (I use Direction up, so that only adds map data so the sides), it's for the bigger keyboard when you enter street names. My 260w even has a QWERTY keyboard, which is a lot nicer than the ABCD type.
Bluetooth: I don't get why this would be that helpful, please enlighten me, oh BlueTooth Fairy.
Why would you want to shout at your windshield when you can just use your speakerphone, which is much closer? The Nuvi's speakers are not particularly high quality, worse than the old StreetPilot c340 I have. Maybe to link the POI database to your phone, to call ahead to make a restaurant reservation? I have wanted that feature exactly zero times. If you do use your phone to call POI entries from your GPS, then it could come in handy.
Lane Assist: haven't sampled it but this has potential. I simply look at the maps to see which way the exit goes, left, right, sharp or gradual, so I don't think I've ever missed a lane with my GPS. I have missed a lane *without* my GPS, ironically the last time that happened was when I drove to Costco to buy my 3rd unit.
I think it would be handy if you live in an area with complicated intersections, like Pentagon City in Arlington, VA, or the mixing bowl, or the NYC area.
FM probably is to let the sound be broadcast to your car stereo at a certain frequency (e.g. 88.1 FM). The speakers are better, but you'll get static, and as you drive stations may interfere, so I'd pass. We have a DVD player that uses FM and I got a cable so we don't need to hear all that interference.
Traffic - while reviews I've seen were so-so, due to outdated information, this does have a lot of potential. Garbage in, garbage out, but if the service improves I'd want this feature.
I was close, very close, to choosing a 265wt model, but I settled for the 260w instead for about $80 less. I didn't think I'd use anything but the traffic, and I'm yet to be convinced it's accurate and timely enough to be truly useful.
Good luck.
Re: the lane assist, I haven't seen a unit with it in action, but I'm thinking if it displays the multiple-lane off ramps, then that would help me decide ahead of time if I would need to risk life and limp crossing 4 lanes of traffic to make the next exit ramp!
Perhaps it allows bluetooth connectivity with the vehicle so the instructions play over the audio system??
Like I said, though, I look at the maps and I can figure it out by the direction of the path.
That's the special Boston model you have....
As I had stated in an earlier post, we wanted a scenic route as opposed to the Rt.95 mad house (especially around the D.C. area.).
We left our home at 6:30 Sunday morning....had a very nice traffic free trip, went over and under the Cheasapeake Bay Tunnel Bridge and arrived at the Williamsburg Lodge at 1:30 P.M. We stopped for approx. 45 minutes at the Bay Tunnel restauraunt (which was the pits as far as the food was concerned), but we tried it and will never eat there again. Other than that experience, all went well.
It is practically Rt. 13 all the way and then pick up Rt.64 into Williamsburg.We revesed the trip today,left Williamsburg at 7:45 A:M. and returned home at around
2:00 P:M.
Thanks for all the advice. By the way ateixeira, I took your advice as to "speeding" thru the small 35 mph towns and 50 mph zones. There were "unmarked" Ford Crown Vic police cars at MANY different areas giving out tickets. I'm a retired Police Officer (26 years) but I "TRY" to stay in the speed zone area...give or take 5 mph.
I'm not surprised to hear about the speed traps, why not collect taxes from out-of-state drivers, right? Deleware has no state sales tax so they have to make it up somewhere.
I should have suggested the crabs at Higgins Crab House in Ocean City, they're great. Or Phillips seafood if you like King Crabs.
Glad to hear you had a good trip. We stayed home. Weekends when they have those Dover races are a nightmare for me - the beach traffic and race traffic merge right before the MD Bay Bridge, just 3 lanes to get back across.
That's the special Boston model you have....
Hey - that's not fair. If it were the Boston model, it would say "Keep right on the sidewalk and then bear left over the traffic island and cut off everyone as the light turns green."
Thanks,
Nortsr
My favorite actual signs up there are on Storrow Drive where it says (at least as of a few years back), Kenmore Square - Keep Right." It does this for several signs over a mile and then the exit is a left hand exit.
What? You ignored our recommendation of the Cape May Ferry? Shame.
Well you do keep right on the left hand ramp!!
Sounding too much like Charlie on the MTA...
It really depends on where you put it and the shape (slope) of that surface.
Personally, I like vent mounts. Puts the device close to your fingers and eyes. Square vents work better than round vents, however, as I found out recently. It's hard to keep the angle just right on my Miata's round vents.
Easy to move between vehicles, easy to hide when leaving the car. No suction cup mark on the windshield that says "rob me."
If you have a big 4" plus screen on an iPhone or something like that, and it had voice commands (I hear apple finally allowed that), then it's a potential replacement.
But to read a tiny 2" cell phone screen is not enough, to me, to replace an all-in-one unit, especially when prices on those have plunged.
What phone to you have the service on? How big is the screen? Does it offer voice commands while you drive?
I do have a BlackBerry Curve 8900 device with T-Mobile data service, and I have Google Maps on that. But the written directions on that are hard to follow, and it's text or map; I want both. It doesn't speak directions. It does have traffic data but it's usually out-of-date.
It is GPS capable but the screen on the 8900 is just 2.3" so I don't subscribe.