 Garmin Satnav |
| Review Date: August 31, 2010 |
| Reviewer: G. Ramlagan-Singh, Surrey, UK |
| gave previous same model to my daughter and bought myself a new one as I was very pleased with the product. |
better than maps
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| Review Date: August 15, 2010 |
| Reviewer: grayee, |
just used it for holiday in Lancs and Edinburgh. First holiday didn't get lost (except for when I put in the totally wrong post code). Instructions a little naf. Used to find petrol station when running empty. Its a "Which best buy"
You need to trust it as it will take you down different ways to avoid trafffic. So far so good. |
Hate Tom Tom
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| Review Date: July 30, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Medicman, |
I purchased this after my Tom Tom failed to hold its charge even whilst plugged into the cigarette lighter.
I found their customer service unhelpful to say the least.
So I decided to try the Garmin Nuvi. It's easy to set up and use which it needed to be, as it was to be used by my wife during the school holidays.
My only concern is it's attempt to keep up to the speed your actually doing.
The Tom Tom had an option to match the speed.
I read all the reviews and this one seemed to stand out, I also brought a cable to connect to the computer as another reviewer had recommended.
Good piece of kit at a very reasonable price. |
Garmin Nuvi 205W Traffic Widescreen Satellite Navigation
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| Review Date: July 24, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Dave The Ogre, Somerset, England |
| (Reviewed after 7 month's ownership) Generally, been pleased with this. Some very useful features, but can be awkward to find / enter where you want to go. What's more, the wife hates Sat Navs! |
No better than reasonable, sorry
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| Review Date: June 24, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Kilrymont, Somewhere in Scotland |
Mine is a refurb unit but although it arrived in a plain box it was nevertheless spotless. My only previous exp. of non-marine GPS units was with Tom Tom's "one" base model which I'd have had if TT's customer support rep had been better. As it seemed to be extremely poor going by user feedback from the web I looked elsewhere and found this one's spec to suit me fairly well. Mine has UK mapping only, although if you go looking over the continent you'll find that EU countries are present too.
Report readers usually want to know what are the gripes rather than have subjective praise heaped on the device in question, so here goes.
Satellite acquisition is slow.
Voice startup takes a while.
Directions are sometimes unhelpful - and sometimes repeat.
Directions are often close coupled, which can make you think you have two manoeuvres to complete with little distance between. (In fact the second mentioned one may be some distance away, and is repeated just before you get to it)
Directions for roundabouts are too late to let you choose the appropriate lane. TT is far better in this respect.
Nuvi 205w hasn't heard of some postcodes and some bits of the country. For example mine can't navigate to Tarfside in Angus. It has the update prior to the current one (writing this in June 2010) and updates are crazy expensive squared. And I've no guarantee that updating will plug the gaps in my present error discovery list.
You can go "faster" or you can go "shorter". Remember how you set the machine previous time out and be sure to look at the route it's plotted for you. Mine is quite prepared to send me on stupid roundabout route-choices which defy logic, and ignore small roads that would get me there both faster and/or with less miles. It also sometimes develops a liking for some - but not all - farm tracks if "shortest" is the setting. But force its hand by ignoring its directions, use the road you know to be the better option, and suddenly it finds this road and proceeds to guide you accordingly.
So I ALWAYS look over the plotted route before setting off. On more than one occasion I've been guided to entirely the wrong location in Perth despite putting in exactly the correct postcode. I checked the postcodes with RM and found them to be quite correct. Garmin had got it wrong.
Garmin doesn't want to know when you complain about mapping glitches. It will ignore you.
The price of updates is such that you will almost certainly go check for prices of replacement units before buying the download.
Keep a weather eye on the screen if it's safe to do so, and never blindly follow GPS directions when common sense might suggest it's made a bad choice - remember it's you who's in charge of the vehicle, and the police won't like you if you drive up a railway line like a taxi driver did last year and then blamed his GPS for his "mistake"!!
Users for whom "time is money" should look at alternatives, and indeed satisfy themselves that the poorer aspects of the 205 aren't replicated in higher Garmin models. As an occasional get-you-home or only for leisure drivers - provided you do as suggested and check the route before starting off, it'll do, mostly.
Oh yes - the accessory friction mount is a very good buy indeed. Everything good in the reports about it is true. Since I got mine I've never once used the stock suction bracket on the screen. It's probably more expensive than it should be, but it's better than the generic alternatives, so I'd still buy it again.
As to reliability, mine has been as reliable as I could wish - in terms of not dying on me. Its battery life is poor, way too poor in my opinion. These days lithium cell technology is everywhere, NMH is similar. Given the price of these things, we should get a more usable length of use than Nuvi 205w provides. (a little over an hour, best) So it's hardly practical to use it on battery except on shortish routes - mine has its cable plugged in all the time it's in use.
The voice is pleasantly female with a UK English accent, clear, easily understood. But there's no choice so you better like it. You can set the volume in the menu system, and the screen brightness. At a predetermined time it shifts its display colour-set to compensate for driving in the dark. No moans here, the timing is about right and the colour shift to a subdued display is fine by me.
Chances are your camera's mini USB cable might fit this GPS unit, so don't buy Garmin's cable.
And keep an up to date book of maps in your car too. It can help you resolve glitchy route choices. |
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