Garmin NüVi 255w 4.3-Inch Portable Gps Navigator (Discontinued By Manufacturer)

Garmin nüvi 255W 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• 4.3 Inch Auto Navigator with Anti Theft Feature
• Voice Prompted Turn by Turn Directions
• With HotFix, It Calculates Your Position Faster to Get You There Quicker
• Compatible with Optional Enhanced MSN Direct Content
• JPEG Picture Viewer, World Travel Clock, Currency Converter, Calculator and More

Buy Now : Garmin nüvi 255W 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

Brand : Garmin
Category : Electronics,GPS, Finders & Accessories,Sports & Handheld GPS,Handheld GPS Units
Rating : 4.3
Review Count : 1985

Garmin nüvi 255W 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• This is a comparative review, and not necessarily in depth technically. We bought and returned a Magellan Maestro 3210, and you can see my review on Amazon. Other than the Magellan\'s screen being an inch smaller - but really noticeable - the Magellan did not have text to voice, and often would take a much longer route even though we told it to take freeways. So after a week, the Magellan was returned and, after some thought and high marks by two other members of my family, we bought the Garmin nuvi 255w.The first thing that we noted is that the maps on the Garmin were very much up to date as were the POI. The Magellan\'s were as much as five years out of date even after downloads. I did download 2 GBs of maps for the Garmin only to find out that they were already on this GPS. Still, along with that download was the \"manual\" and a few helpful hints.The most noticeable thing is that the screen is much easier to read, and that the text to voice is extremely valuable and much better than a beep just as you need to turn. Usually, the Garmin does give enough notice, but not always. However, it always gives enough notice on a freeway, and on city streets when you have about a quarter-mile between turns. That is, if you\'ve just made a right and within 200 feet have to make a left, before the right the Garmin will say, \"Make a right on Carriage, then a left on Montbank,\" but after you\'ve made the right on Carriage, it may not say \"make a let on Montbank\" until you\'re darn near at the turn. Is this a negative? Not really, but it\'s not a plus either.The map is easier to read than the Magellan. Much easier. It\'s large enough, and you can see the street and car and direction without difficulty. And the voice and streets match perfectly.I\'ve even used it in the \"pedestrian\" mode, and it\'s amazing how accurate it is. Of course, as a pedestrian, it has a lot more time to correct you than if you\'re driving. But, here\'s something you won\'t read in many of these reviews: we\'ve used it for hiking, set the spot where we started as \"home,\" and then after climbing and turning, and not knowing where we were, we said \"Go Home,\" and it took us back as pedestrians. We didn\'t set the thing for 3D or terrain. I knew what the terrain was: hilly!There is still one con, and I have a hunch that it\'s the same with all GPS systems. The same route to Sacramento on both Garmin and Magellan gives the same instructions. Fortunately, we know never to use Truxell with it\'s 5 miles of stop signs. Better to take I-5 at which point, Garmin says, \"Recalculating\" and then it gets us off at the right exit, but takes a roundabout street route.On another route, it took streets rather than freeway, and it turned out to be correct. So, it\'s like having two watches and not knowing which has the right time. But, as I said, sooner or later, the Garmin does indeed get you where you\'re going.My brother-in-law has a very pricey sports car with a GPS. Don\'t know what kind it is, but it makes the same mistakes as the Garmin. I don\'t know what that says about anything, but it would give me pause to buy a high priced sports car. Of course, everything gives me pause when car advertising says that a car is \"ONLY $65,000,\" or \"ONLY $559\" a month. If I had that kind of money, I would have gotten an even bigger Garmin! \"ONLY\" is only accurate when an ad says, \"Top sirloin steak, ONLY $1.29 a pound.\" Then you know, you\'ve been whisked back to 1964.The mount for the Garmin, btw, is 100% better than the Magellan. It\'s suction cup hangs very nicely on the windshield, and we can just pop it off and put it away after we\'ve parked. In fact, I\'ve bought another so that we can switch from one car to another.One little oddity: the female voice (I think it\'s Samantha for American English) is much clearer than Jack, the male American English. I couldn\'t understand the Australian or English voices, but Samantha is clear as a bell and can even be heard over the radio. And, unlike the Magellan, Samantha does shut up on freeways until you have to get off. Btw, Jack mispronounces Spanish names of streets when at street level, but pronounces them correctly on freeways. Go figure. Jack has a weird speech impediment. Example: Jack will say, \"Take right on Sep Ul Veda\" whereas when on the freeway, he says \"Get off at \"Sepulveda in .7 miles.\" Jack must be from Massachusetts.There are many things on the Garmin that I haven\'t used. I\'m not sure that I care how fast I\'m going using the Garmin. That\'s what the car\'s speedometer is for. And, it\'s nice that the Garmin tells you that, at your current speed, you\'ll reach your destination in 43 minutes. Then you hit traffic, and you aren\'t going to make it in an hour. You can get Bluetooth and a subscription to traffic reports, but we\'re not going for that. It\'s a little like OnStar, but I don\'t travel enough to subscribe to anything. $15 a month for this and that and you start talking some real money. And it is $79 a year to update the maps. I\'m just figuring that not much shovel ready stuff will have been shoveled in a year. I\'ll take my chances.The .pdf manual isn\'t at all intuitive, and our Garmin came with the \"North American Maps\" unchecked. Therefore, for the first 30 minutes - until I called Garmin - I wasn\'t going anywhere because Garmin didn\'t see any maps. Checked the box (which should have been done at the factory), and we were off and running. If we had not had the Magellan first, this would have been easier, but we expected things to be pretty much the same. However, there is one annoying thing about the Garmin and that is, if there\'s a POI 10 miles from you, but it\'s in another city, you may well have to type in the nearby city before you can find the POI. On the other hand, after about a week of using the Garmin, it seems to understand where we are, and now POIs as far as 25 miles away will show up when the screen is touched.I give it 4 stars because nothing is perfect. By comparison with the Magellan, it\'s certainly a vast improvement and might even rate 4 1/2 stars. Put another way, I\'d buy it all over again, and happily so.Additional Comments 8 months later: After eight months and a little more travel to places we don\'t know how to get to, this Garmin 255W gets 4.5 stars. It\'s one of the best buys I\'ve made of \"gadgetry\" in five years, and it has yet to fail me. I would recommend it without qualm, but with a note (not reservation): If you\'re driving in the Sacramento, CA area, you can argue all you want with the Garmin, it is going to make two or three turns that you know you don\'t have to make, and it will always want you to take Truxell which is 5 stop lights more than necessary if you had taken I-5 North. If this makes last sentence makes sense to you, and you need help, leave a message and I\'ll answer, I promise. Leave your email address, and I\'ll respond. We use \"Stephanie\" (you get your choice of 5 or 6 \"people\" to instruct you. Stephanie is the easiest to understand. You can argue all you want with Stephanie, she\'s going to give the same directions no matter how many times you disregard them. It would be nice is Stephanie would learn after say three times of going a different way toward the end of a journey and getting to your destination. Even my dog used to be able to learn that THIS is the way I want to go.Otherwise, the suction cup on the windshield works beautifully, even when plugged in for power, while the weighted dash holder is lousy with too many curves in the dash to hold it properly. We just ordered another so that we can switch from car to car.One other minor problem is that Stephanie doesn\'t always give you 100 yards before telling you to turn, and sometimes you\'re caught by surprise when she says \"Turn right on Bradberry,\" just when you\'ve spotted the Bradberry sign behind a tree. The screen, however, will show the next turn and name of the street so, if you\'re on surface streets, take a look at the screen periodically in case Stephie is asleep at the switch.4.5 stars, and thinking of getting one with traffic reports, but I\'m not sure that there are enough ways to get around traffic problems as the Bay Area continues to grow. The papers (you remember newspapers, don\'t you) report that people are leaving California. Well, I\'m telling you that they\'re not leaving this part of California. They\'re parked on the freeway behind construction sites that were supposed to be finished in 2005.
• I actually could not decide between the Garmin Nuvi 255w or the 750 model, so I decided to buy them both for comparison. I mounted them both to my car windshield and gave them various addresses to find together. I found that both models took the same routes and announced upcoming turns and street names at practically the same time. One thing I noticed about the 255w was that it was updating my position on the road more often, I\'d say about 3 times as often as the 750. This made for smoother graphics on the 255w of the vehicle moving along displayed roads, where the 750\'s display was more of a \"jerky\" movement. I also found that the display on the 255w was a bit brighter, clearer, and more vivid than on the 750 in both daylight and at night. Another feature I like on the 255w is the graphic turn indicator in the upper left corner, which the 750 lacks. This is a small arrow which shows upcoming turns and the distance to that turn. It also show things like a fork in the road, (ie: a Y intersection), and which fork you will be taking. The 750 just displays text on the top line for upcoming turns without the arrow. It\'s just a little extra feature on the 255w which I happened to really like. The 255 also automatically adjusts the font size of displayed text so that even lengthy text will fit.Another feature on the 255w is a display of the posted speed limit on the road which you are currently on right above your current displayed speed. I found myself not even looking at my car speedometer as I could easily see my current speed and the speed limit of my route at a glance. The 750 doesn\'t have this feature. I also like how they moved the zoom in (+) and zoom out (-) buttons on the 255w to the same side of the screen which makes it a bit easier. On the 750 the zoom buttons are on opposite sides of the screen.Now there are some features on the 750 that the 255w does not have. The 750 can broadcast it\'s sound over your FM radio with the supplied cigarette lighter cable, and it has a headphone jack, which I found to be nice features. The 750 also has an MP3 player and an Audio-book player, which the 255w does not. Another really nice feature of the 750 is the car locater. This is a great feature if you are parking in a really big lot, such as at an amusement park or a fair. The 750 marks your location when you remove it from the car, then you take it with you and it remembers where you parked and takes you right back to your car. The 255w doesn\'t have the car locater.I also thought the the voice prompts of the 750 where more pleasant sounding than the 255w\'s. The 750 sounds more like a real female voice, where the 255w sounds more robotic.Another thing to consider was that I paid $50 less for the 750 and it came with the FM transmitter cable and a USB cord to connect it to your computer for updates and downloads.My final decision was to keep the 255w and return the 750 because I really liked the graphic turn indicator and the posted speed limit and current speed indicators. I didn\'t find a need for the 750\'s MP3 player and Audio book player, but that is up to personal preference. Since the USB cable was not included with the 255w, I purchased it on this site for $10. I also intend to purchase the MSN direct cable when it is available in August 2008.

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