Garmin NüVi 1300lm 4.3-Inch Portable Gps Navigator (Discontinued By Manufacturer)

Garmin nüvi 1300LM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• Sunlight-readable, 4.3-inch backlit TFT color touchscreen display with 480 x 272 WQVGA pixel resolution
• Preloaded with City Navigator NT data for the lower 48 states, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, with nearly six million points of interest
• Free lifetime map updates for the most up-to-date maps, points of interest, and navigation information available at your fingertips
• Advanced navigation features including voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions, lane assist, fuel-saving ecoRoute
• Includes travel tools such as JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock, currency/measurement converters, calculator and more

Buy Now : Garmin nüvi 1300LM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

Brand : Garmin
Category : Electronics,GPS, Finders & Accessories,Sports & Handheld GPS,Handheld GPS Units
Rating : 4.2
Review Count : 522

Garmin nüvi 1300LM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• My previous GPS was a Magellan Roadmate 2000 which is quite a few years old. When it started routing me through parking lots for the shortest route, I knew it was time to replace it.I shopped around for months before going with this particular GPS. So many bad reviews have scared me from many other models. The Megellan line is a solid performer but seemed limited, even restricted. I was ready for something new. This one fits the bill.The first thing you notice is the physical aspects: it\'s small even though the screen is a good size. The mount is compact. Much smaller that the Magellan. I can put the entire GPS and all associated equipment in a small camera bag. Very nice. There is a metal frame around the GPS unit itself. It is loosely mounted and I can see it falling off if it were ever dropped. The power cord is plenty long if you need to mount it far from the outlet. The mount works very well even though it is small. I had cleaned the windshield recently with a special cleaner making it very slick and the Magellan mount had a hard time holding on but the Garmin stuck right to it. The power plugs into the rear instead of the side which seems odd. The only thing is you just have to plug in the power before mounting the GPS to the holder. The screen is the right size. Not too small, not too big.On-line:This unit, like other Garmin GPS\', have additional things on-line that you can download for your unit. I really like this because it will allow you to keep your unit \'fresh.\' You can download different vehicles to represent your car on the map. And you can add other voices if you get tired of the included ones. The ones on-line are all incredibly annoying, but you still have a choice. You can even download a program to use your own voice, free of charge. There are even games for your GPS if you want. All very nice options, even if I\'m not planning on using them. Of course being able to update the map 4 times a year is super.Actual use:I found it odd with the way the program is laid out for adding destinations. If you have more than one to enter, you have to back out and go through the menus again. Considering that I only added multiple locations for my initial setup and don\'t expect I\'ll be doing that again, it\'s not a big deal.It takes some time for the unit to first lock onto the satellites. Calculating routes actually takes longer than my old Magellan. It gives you a countdown as it is working out the route. The screen scrolls smoothly as you move through the map. The screen gives you plenty of information including your current speed and it updates quickly. If you wander off the route, it tells you that it\'s recalculating and doesn\'t blank the screen like the Magellan did. Re-routing is quick. The one feature that I really like is the voice. It does a good job of pronouncing street names. It speaks quickly and naturally most of the time. And it\'s informative, not stingy with the speaking. The speech does get a tad choppy but not distracting. I would like to see it give me directions a bit sooner when reaching a turn. It waits until I am just about at the turn, which is not good when you\'re on the highway. ETA estimates need some work. You have an on-screen ETA (which I really like) but it seems to think that I must be a speed demon and never stop at traffic lights. Even when driving 5-10 MPH over the limit for a long trip, the ETA estimated that I would have arrived 10 minutes earlier for my 100 minute trip. But the return trip was accurate and I was driving closer to the speed limit. Go figure.The route calculated gives somewhat different results from the Magellan. It did a good job of giving me routes that avoided slow areas and traffic lights. The old Magellan would always come up with a return route that differed from the route to the destination. The Garmin doesn\'t do that. I\'ve noticed that side street names will sometimes flip around and flail around the screen if you are on a winding road or the side street is at an odd angle. It can be distracting. It shows my own house at the opposite end of the street, so there are some inaccuracies in the map as well.Overall:I really like this GPS. It has a few things about it that come off as quirky, but it works well and I enjoy using it. There\'s nothing so bad about it that makes this unit difficult or even unusable. and it is user friendly. You have to invest a little time to get to know how it\'s organized if you\'ve not had a Garmin before. I consider this a good buy and the price isn\'t bad for what you\'re getting. I expect I\'ll be enjoying this one for many years to come.
• I previously had and still have the Nuvi 255. My problem was the maps are outdated and the new map prices are ridiculous. I did my research and read the reviews which I am grateful for.I chose this model because it had lifetime map updates. I chose to not get traffic updates because of the bad reviews and I didn\'t believe I would really need it. I need it for the basics which is getting from point A to point B with relative ease. I don\'t need all the fancy bells and whistles. I like the fact that Garmin has freebies on their website and this model qualifies for changing the voice and or vehicle on the unit. Dr. Nightmare is a hoot.Now what follows is much the same as other reviewers have stated so you can pretty much take to the bank that this model will function as reviewed.Read the manual. All of it, especially the lifetime maps feature. The \"lifetime\" is only good as long as the company that is providing them to Garmin is in business. Also it is only good on that particular unit, which should be obvious anyway. Register online as required. The unit comes with a cable to connect the unit to your PC.Once registered it will take some time to download the new maps. I have high speed DSL and it took about 3 1/2 hours, start to finish. The freebies are in the Garmin Garage and the easiest way to get there is to type in garmingarage.com in the browser because the Garmin home website isn\'t all that user friendly. Course I can be pretty dense at times. (Just ask the missus.) Once there the \"garage\" is fairly easy to navigate. Make sure to read the how to\'s if you decide to change the voice or vehicle as I had some frustration with them. Until I read the how to\'s. The page will explain how to activate them on the unit. Simply when you read the instructions.I was a tad disappointed with the pronunciation of the street names. We have many streets with Spanish names, evidently the \"Voice\" didn\'t take a Spanish course as it really messed up the pronunciation but did provide some laughs. The street name is still written on the map so no biggie for me there.I miss the speed limit indicater that was on my old unit. The 1300 has what speed you are going but unless my speedometer is broken I DON\'T NEED IT!!!! I can understand the liabiltity for Garmin ,if they are wrong, but hey, put a disclaimer in and let us take our chances.The 1300 also has to positioned just right to be seen properly in daylight otherwise it can be difficult to see. Nighttime is awesome. Good backlight adjustment. Love the larger screen.The unit was easy to use and set up. Takes a bit to locate the satelite but after that had no problems. I have only used it around towm so far but will be taking it for a month long road test shortly so will update if needed.For the price I am very satisfied and would recommend this unit for users looking for the basics and simplicity in use.
• Its nice not having to worry about where Im going ... generally speaking at least. But the battery life in this is a joke. Ive seriously used this about a dozen times since I got it over a year ago and the battery life is already down to about an hour. That means I have about a 30 mile radius that I can drive without having to plug this thing in. It has a pedestrian mode on it which I guess is cool if you have to walk about 2 or 3 miles away cause the battery life wont let you get much farther than that on foot.Ive also run into some problems (even though its been updated) where the gps tells me im arriving at my destination yet the destination is up the road another quarter mile and after another left hand turn. To counteract that though you can save the gps coordinates of where you actually end up and label that the location... should you have to do that? no of course not... but this is the technology we have to work with.Lastly in order to set a location you either have to know the address or turn it on indoors and type it in and hit go then shut it off and go outside (it sets itself to indoor mode if it cant find satellites within a few min) and turn it back on and hit recently found addresses and then hit go again... or you can waste some paper and print out the address and take it to the car and type it in in the car... either way its a pain. Would be better (since they make you register your gps on their website to get updates) if you could go to their site and put in the address and click send to my gps and have it sent to your gps so that when you get in the car and turn on the gps you just click an icon on the screen (maybe something saying sent from garmin or sent from the web or whatever) and click the address you just sent it and drive away. Much faster and easier and saves me having to mess with turning it on and off and on and off.

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