Garmin NüVi 2597lmt 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth Vehicle Gps With Lifetime Maps And Traffic (Discontinu
Garmin nüvi 2597LMT 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth Vehicle GPS with Lifetime Maps and Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)
- Easy-To-Use, Dual Orientation, Touchscreen Interface;The Traffic Feature Does Not Require A Subscription. There Are No Additional Fees For This
- Garmin Real Directions With Garmin Real Voice Guide Using Recognizable Buildings And Landmarks
- Photoreal And Bird'S Eye Junction Views Offer Detailed Images Of Junctions Along Your Route, To Ease The Stress Of Merging On Or Off A Roadway
- Up Ahead Displays Nearby Services Info Including Restaurants, Stores, Hospitals And Fuel Alongside Your Map And Updates As You Drive Your Route
- Smartphone Link Is A Free Mobile App That Connects Your Nüvi With Your Smartphone. When Paired, Your Nüvi Can Use Your Phone’S Existing Data Plan To Share Information - Such As Where You Parked, Pois And Your Destination
- Please refer User Manual before use
Brand : Garmin
Category : Automotive,Motorcycle & Powersports,Accessories,Electronics,GPS Units
Rating : 4.4
Price : US $249.99
Review Count : 4282
Garmin nüvi 2597LMT 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth Vehicle GPS with Lifetime Maps and Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)
- We just returned from a long road trip to Colorado and New Mexico and can report back on how happy we are with the Garmin nuvi 2597LMT. Excellent device.Pros: We particularly appreciated the lane guidance telling you which lane or lanes to be in for highway exits. It says, for example, \"Be in either of the two left lanes.\" It alerts you in plenty of time to maneuver for the turn. The 3-D display shows exactly where you should be and the split screen that appears at exit time clearly illustrates your path. Important information such as distance to the next exit, turn direction, and exit name appear at the top left of the screen so you can see at a glance when your next maneuver is coming up. By tapping the turn info, a drop down display shows the list of turns to your destination. The speed limit for the road you\'re on is posted on the left near the bottom, along with your current speed. The current speed matched our speedometer closely and it was amazing how the speed limit shown updated instantly when we passed the sign on the road. Now, it wasn\'t perfect - several roads showed a higher speed limit than the GPS posted, and it didn\'t update for road construction speeds, but it\'s a nice feature. If you\'re going faster than the speed limit, your current speed turns a reddish color on the sides. School Zones are announced with a bell tone and a yellow band at the top to alert you. A helpful feature. The \"Up Ahead\" feature is configurable to let you know how far to rest stops, gas stations, restaurants, parking, etc. You do have to \"add this tool\" which I think should be standard. Look that up in the manual (see below). Traffic alerts popped up twice on our route. Both were more than 50 miles away alerting us to an accident and congestion. It shows a time estimate for the delay and says whether there\'s a better route. As we got closer, the delay time diminished and by the time we got to the congested area, there was just a slight slowdown. Note: I was worried that we didn\'t get the Traffic receiver with our GPS because it didn\'t have the extra cylinder shown on the cord of other models, but the plug for the 2597LMT model includes the receiver and it worked just fine. The default female voice is very clear and we never changed it. It did have some humorous pronunciation problems with some of the town names, but understandable none the less. Satellite lock-on was very fast - just a few seconds usually. When I first got it and plugged it into the car to charge the battery as directed, it locked onto the satellites even in the garage. We sometimes plotted our next day destination in hotel rooms and even in the room, the satellite signal was strong. We got the Garmin Portable Friction Mount with the little sandbag-type base and it never slipped once, even on twisty mountain and rutted roads. Very pleased. Just in case, we printed out Google maps for each leg of our trip. There were some minor discrepancies, but they pretty much matched. Even so, it\'s a good idea to have printed road maps with you.Cons: It seems to have a very limited database for Attractions. It couldn\'t find some of the parks and wilderness areas we were looking for so if you\'re going somewhere off the beaten path, it\'s best to get directions or at least an approximate location before going. Addresses work best. Intersections were hard to search on. It seemed to require whether it was a road, highway, route, etc. I was hoping just to type in the numbers of each road, but that didn\'t always work. I\'d like to see a Pause/Resume feature on the main screen. When you go off the highway to get gas or make a brief stop, it keeps directing you to get back on the road. You have to Stop, then go to Recent and start up again. We weren\'t real impressed with the Voice Command. It often couldn\'t understand road names and even if it did, you have to keep looking at the screen and say a line number (1 - 4) or \"Down\" for more choices. We never used it after the initial test run around home. Also, Voice Command was triggered twice on our trip by accident - once by something in our music and another by conversation. The online map update did take a bit of effort. I didn\'t have a problem navigating the Garmin site, but once I started the download, it updated the firmware quickly but then took about 3 hours for the maps, and just hung for the last 5% or so. I let it go for another hour with no change, then disconnected and reconnected, worrying that it would take another couple hours, but thankfully it picked up where it left off and finished in just a few minutes. I also downloaded some new vehicles (I like Marley with the dog hanging out the window). The map updates aren\'t perfect. We came to several new-looking interchanges and the GPS thought we were off course for a bit, but resumed quickly. Also, I noticed some minor nits - the Post Office near home was closed quite a while ago, but it still shows up in the menu. There\'s no printed manual in the box. You\'ll get a sheet with pictures of a gumby-looking character showing you how to connect the mounting bracket, directing you to plug it in to a 12 volt outlet, and some confusing pictures on the reverse side telling you to go to garmin.com for updates and manuals. There\'s also a tiny booklet with safety info in a dozen different languages. I would recommend going to the website and printing out the manual. It\'s only 18 pages and it\'s a good idea to keep it in the car. I skimmed through it before we left, but as I became familiar with using the GPS, I found the manual useful to learn more about tools and functionality I didn\'t know about.We were very happy with this GPS. I never worried that we would get lost, no matter where we went. The screen is big enough to see, but not so large as to block your view. Prior to this, we had a Garmin eTrex Legend handheld GPS for use on hikes and, with a North America City Navigator micro SD card, it became our chief driving GPS and we came to trust Garmin. It gave us driving directions, but it\'s really meant for hiking. Get a car Garmin GPS - you\'ll love it!
- Upfront let me say that this is my third Garmin car GPS. I also own two Garmin marine GPS units that I\'ve used on my cruising sailboat. I have a lot of experience with Garmin, none with any other GPS brand, so I can\'t make comparisons between Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom. I\'ve always been pleased with Garmin\'s support and features, so I\'ve never been tempted to try the other brands, despite their generally good reputations.Second disclosure: I travel a lot in rental vehicles, often to unfamiliar areas or cities with lots of traffic where a GPS is very useful. I have a great smartphone (Galaxy S4) and I like Google maps, but I would never count on my phone to get me places. Some of the locations I travel to (Big Sur or northwest Arizona, for example) have little or no cell coverage, so a phone-based GPS isn\'t an option there.All that said, my Garmin 1390 LMT worked well, but I was ready to go to a larger screen with a few more features. After some research I chose this model. Having used it for a few weeks, I\'m very happy with it. First, the larger screen really does improve readability. GPS screens can contain a lot of info, and a larger screen is more useful when you\'re hurtling down the road at freeway speeds or trying to find your way through an unfamiliar city.The 2597s screen is bright and very sharp. The PhotoReal images in the right hand window pop up when available and are surprisingly realistic, mimicking the real scene on the road. I don\'t know how they did that, but it\'s a great feature. The Garmin \"Real Voice Guide\" promises more realism. I don\'t really notice that much difference other than a bit more inflection. It\'s still somewhat mechanical, but no different from Siri or similar e-voices.Startup is almost instantaneous and you don\'t have to scroll through a couple of nag screens reminding you to not play with the GPS while driving. I live in a neighborhood surrounded by very tall trees. My 1390 sometimes faltered for a while, struggling to find all the satellites. Not so this unit. I\'m online in a few seconds.I was able to transfer all of my favorites/POI from my 1390 to my 2597 in just seconds with the Garmin Express app. Whew! I also downloaded the free Garmin link app for Android, which is very handy. It links my phone to the Garmin via Bluetooth. I like being able to do a search on my phone and then send the address to the GPS. Searches on the GPS itself are easier than my last unit. As you enter characters a scroll bar displays possible choices under the search window. Very handy.The traffic feature is improved over my 1390. The traffic receiver is embedded in the GPS (as far as I can tell); at least there is no tell-tale box on the cable itself. The unit seems to pick up traffic signals in areas where the 1390 didn\'t. I have not tried the voice recognition feature yet. That\'s next on my list. There are other features (Eco-Route) that I\'m not particularly interested in. Neither do I plan on downloading the Garmin app that lets me create and upload new POIs. The POI icons that pop up as you are nearby are sometimes difficult to read because they\'re so small, but I can usually recognize the logos. Scrolling with my finger is smoother than with the 1390.So far, the directions have been flawless. Occasionally, the 1390 would get confused and tell me that a POI was on the wrong side of the street. That hasn\'t happened with this unit. The menus operate a bit differently than the 1390, but they\'re easy after a bit of practice. I did have some difficulty figuring out how to delete my trip/track log (go to \"Where I\'ve Been\".) Not intuitive.One quirk: I like switching to an overhead view when I\'m traveling long distances, to give me an idea of where I am. The only way to do that on this unit, as far as I can tell, is to activate the traffic feature, which can switch to an overhead view. It\'s a small thing.One final quirk: the 2597 uses a USB mini cable to transfer data and map updates from your PC to the GPS. A short cable is included in the package. Who uses a USB mini cable for anything anymore? A USB micro cable (I\'ve got lots of them and they\'re all longer) would eliminate the need to keep an outdated cable in my computer drawer.But, the bottom line is that this is an outstanding GPS. If your vehicle has a built-in GPS and you\'re happy with it, or you really want to use your smartphone, more power to you. However, if you need portability, flexibility, a big screen and lots of useful features, this is worth a look. And, if you have an Android phone you\'ve got even more features.UPDATE: I have been using the voice-recognition system and really like it. Oddly, NPR sometimes sets it off, which is more amusing than annoying. In any case, it\'s an excellent feature. You should articulate clearly and somewhat loudly (and turn down the music) and it will work just fine.Second, you can get an aerial view with the \"where I\'ve been\" feature, without using the overhead traffic view (which is not available in many remote areas.)
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