This GPS is very easy to use. It checks the traffic very frequently (maybe constantly?). I haven’t had it long but already it has sometimes directed me to get off the freeway and take an alternate route. Happily, it lets me know a change is needed before I am even aware that there is a problem up ahead. I no longer stress about traffic, straining to see what may lie ahead; I know I’m taking the best route available, so that’s that!

The downsides- it automatically switches to a dimmer setting when it is night. It is too dim for me, and I have yet to figure out how I might stop it from doing that. I can change the brightness when it happens, but it’s hard to do when I can hardly see the screen. In fairness, I have read NOTHING from the manual; just started using it out of the box, and this is the only problem I’ve had as far as working the device goes. It is very easy to use.

Occasionally, the device has lost satellite reception when there has been inclement weather. So far that has only affected reception for traffic, it has been very brief, and the map feature has still worked (the trip was already plotted). I still understand it as an indication that if I were to take a longer trip, it makes good sense to print a map from online (as a backup) before I go. For an extended trip, be aware that it gave a time of arrival, but not a day of arrival (unless I should have read the manual to learn to switch views or something).

Lastly, it does appear to consider the speed limit when calculating arrival time. However, I think that it does not consider traffic lights. Add in whatever minutes you anticipate needing for that purpose, as there seems to be a slight underestimation in travel time. It still gets me to work faster than I was getting there on my own, so overall I am THRILLED with this purchase. If anything happened to my Garmin, I’d purchase another one immediately. It has been well worth the price in stress reduction and making me look wonderful as the employee who is now always early!
Rating: 5 / 5

Features:

I like the new menu interface, especially where I use the finger to swipe up/down the screen instead of touching the arrows at the bottom of the screen, so it’s much less tedious to scroll. Also, what’s new is that on the map screen, I can even switch between the arrival time, current time, distance to destination, elevation, and the approximate time to destination by touching the lower-left corner of the screen. I even like how it displays the speed limit in the lower-right corner, so I don’t have to worry about getting a speeding ticket and ask pedestrians “what’s the speed limit?”

Besides the menu interface and the map screen, it speaks the street names louder than the older models, so it’ll say something like “in 0. 2 mile, turn right on SE Anderson Rd” louder. I like how it speaks the street names so I don’t have to take my eyes off the road, and it’s even great for cities where the roads are very close to each other. Therefore, whenever I buy a GPS device, I’ll definitely buy one that speaks the street names out loud. You should definitely get one that speaks the street names if you travel a lot.

I also heard that this device comes w/ a traffic receiver and the free lifetime traffic too, so I don’t have to order another separate traffic receiver from garmin. com and keep paying $50/yr to renew my traffic subscription. Plus, I heard from somebody that you don’t need to use a computer to install traffic status on this device, so you just simply connect the traffic receiver to the device to get the free traffic status. The voices that speak the street names can also announce the traffic alerts out loud, but the basic voice prompts that don’t speak the street names don’t announce that.

This device also has the ecoRoute, which helps me save gas and money!!! How I make it work is that I just program the current gas price and the city/highway gas mileages of my car into the device, and it’ll automatically calculate the fuel cost to get to a destination. I can also go to the setting menu and then select “less fuel” under Route Preference if I want the most fuel-efficient route.

Not only those features, this thing even has millions of points of interests like restaurants, shopping malls, movie theaters, theme parks, museums, airports, gas stations, and schools!!!!!!!! However, you wanna be aware that some points of interests may be outdated. Update your GPS maps once a year if you want the most up-to-date points of interests, and every time you update your maps costs about $90, so that’ll cost you only about $7. 50/mo to update your maps. You can buy map updates (either in the micro SD card format or DVD format) at Best Buy or download through garmin. com.

But here are some minor issues:

-No QWERTY keyboard, but it takes me a while to get used to the ABC format, although I can type very fast with the QWERTY keyboard on my laptop. If I want one w/ the QWERTY keyboard, I’ll have to buy the one w/ the 4. 3″ screen (the nuvi 1350T), which costs $100 more than this one.
-No lane assist (must buy the nuvi 1350T).
-No bluetooth (I don’t need that unless I have to deal w/ people at my job and family situations).

Overall, this is a great device that can help you go to places w/o asking people for directions. It really saves you time, money, gas, paper, life, and it even relieves a lot of your stress!!! I’ll give it an overall grade of A- since it has some minor issues I mentioned above.

If you’re gonna buy a good, helpful GPS without spending too much money, this is the kind you should buy. They sell it at Best Buy for $250.

Hope this review’s helpful.
Rating: 5 / 5