Garmin nuvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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Our Price: $48.90 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nuvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Very happy with my Garmin Nuvi 350
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased my Garmin Nuvi 350 a couple of weeks ago. The shipping was very fast. It came with a 2008 map, and I went to the Garmin website and downloaded the free 2009 map with no complications. It did take about 4 hours for the completion.
I have never had a GPS before and I am truly amazed at how accurate this is. I will never be afraid of getting lost again! I did a lot of research on GPS and found the Garmin Nuvi 350 to have very good reviews. The cheapest I had found it previously is $399.99 and as I did not feel that I needed a GPS, I did not want to spend $400. When I saw that I could get this for under $200, I bought it immediately.
I am so glad that I bought it, because it takes the fear out of driving to a place that I have not driven to before and possibly getting lost.
It has a very clear screen both in the daylight and at sunset when it changes over to the dark screen. The screen has a matte finish so there is no glare. The voice is very clear and the volume is sufficient. It tells you to turn on the named street well before that street comes up and then it tells you to turn again right when you are at the street. It also tells you which direction to turn. It also has this in text on the top of the screen. Another thing I like is that it always shows which way North is and tells you in which direction you are traveling. I love this feature.
If I take a different road because I am taking a short cut, it immediately recalculates the route and picks up from there. It also shows you what time you will reach your destination, and how far until the next turn, which I really like.You can also view the directions ahead at any time, which is a very nice feature. I have not yet lost the signal.
I really like the photo displayer. I just insert a SD card with my photos on it, and I can show my photos to people right on my GPS.I cannot comment on the battery life yet, because I always have it operating on the car charger. When I first got it, and was checking out all of the features, I had not charged it first because it was working fine.Then when I went to turn it on the next day, it would start up and then shut down right away. I thought something was wrong with it, but then I put it on the AC charger and it has been fine since. So I probably should have charged it when I first got it as I'm sure the battery was probably not fully charged when I received it.
I also bought the friction car mount because it is illegal to have a windshield mount in my state. The friction mount works fantastic. It does not slide around on the dash at all - even when you turn a corner. And the unit detaches from it very easily. I would definitely recommend this friction car mount.
I also use it at home when we want to go someplace different to eat that evening. I just check different cities close to us and then check what restaurants are there and how far away it is. No more driving around a different city and looking for a particular restaurant. The Garmin Nuvi 350 takes you right there. I love it!
It comes with a non-replaceable battery, so I hope the battery lasts a long time. Also, I read that this unit is discontinued. However, I still had no problem downloading the 2009 map from Garmin. And for this price, you can't go wrong. To me this is well worth the price to feel so at ease driving knowing that I will always get where I am going with the help of this unit and never get turned around again. It also has a place where you can "go home" from any place you are and it will direct you to your home.
Customer Review: Be a "local" wherever you drive!
Summary: 5 Stars
First let me say that I have a MS in Geography so you might say I'm spatially oriented. I can read a map, even have drawn maps. I can usually find my way around in unfamiliar territory. That said, when traveling you often need to know what lane to be in before you turn, and even more important, in the NY or New England area, what lane to be in of the two or three turn lanes on the specific ramp...if you "guess" wrong, you're toast! So on this last trip we took to Maine from Virginia, we tested out our Garmin Nuvi 350, mounted on the optional bean bag mount (better than the windshield mount, in my opinion, due to less view obstruction). It got us where we needed to be with no stress, no mistakes, leaving us time to ENJOY the view rather than worrying about making a wrong turn. We even used the lodging features and found a good hotel right near where we expected to be that night in our trip. Called ahead, made a reservation...sweet...as I was conducting that operation in Freeport, Maine, a person walked by and commented how great these GPS units are. On one section of road in Massachusetts, we saw a young guy in a sports car ahead of us with the same unit as ours and his turn signal came on the same time ours did as he was following the route of "map lady"...that's what we've named her! Both my wife and I love "map lady"...and we'd never take a trip anywhere without her leading the way! I think this GPS device is one of the most valuable tools I've ever had...as good as having a cell phone, if not better! I would characterize it as very close to perfect...but a few things could be improved. One, would like the screen to be a tad brighter (perhaps bigger too would be good) and sharper in daylight, particularly full sun (not that you can't see it, it's just that when you have sunglasses on, it just isn't bright enough for these 55 year old eyes of mine). Second, I'd like to see a feature to add more waypoints in a trip (currently only one can be added). The reason for this is when traveling through Connecticut; we wanted to go on the Merritt Parkway, a very scenic and less congested highway than the selected I-95. The only selections in the unit are for the "faster" route or the "shortest" route...none for the "scenic" route...that would be a nice feature. My workaround method is just to make a number of short routes that take me the way I want to go...and then it was easy to customize the trip. We only came across a few instances where roads where mislabeled - in one case "map lady" said "take exit 23 H when the exit was 23 B...but not a problem since "H" was not an option. Bottomline, if you haven't bought one of these, do it now. And if you already have one, you are probably, like me, going to give one to all of your kids that drive so you can be less stressed when they are on the road traveling. My prediction is that when this unit comes down below $200, EVERYONE on the road will have one. Also, in looking into other places to buy the Nuvi 350, there was no better price than what I found on Amazon. The unit came in two days...right out of the box it worked perfectly giving us accuracy to 10 feet...didn't need to read the instructions since it's so intuitive. Even downloaded some POI files that indicated where speed traps are on the New Jersey Turnpike...and indeed when the beeping happened to us with a flashing Speed Trap Warning, we saw a cop had pulled a person over going the other way...how cool is that! So, go get this product right now, you won't be disappointed!! And Garmin, what is your stock symbol...I want to buy a few shares!Customer Review: SO Cool - it's the iPod of GPS Navigation
Summary: 5 Stars
After doing research on GPS units for about a month, I finally took the plunge and bought the Garmin Nuvi. Wow - it's so awesome! I haven't loved a new gadget this much since I got my iPod. Let me tell you the highlights of what I've learned:
PROS:
* The Nuvi is SO small and cool - it easily slips into my purse when I'm not using it in the car. When I'm driving, I have it mounted on the windshield just below my rear-view mirror and it does not obstruct my view of the road at all.
* The WAAS-enabled GPS receiver with SIRF is super accurate and fast.
* The Nuvi will tell me the street names in plain english ("Turn right onto Main Street"). My last GPS didn't use names, only vague instructions like "Turn right in 200 feet". That's not especially helpful in areas that are unfamiliar.
* It's easy to add "favorite" locations, like home. You can set these up off-line. We're leaving for vacation, so I added as "favorites" the hotels we'll be staying at. This will make it just a couple of touches to get to them.
* A nice variety of needed accessories are included right in the box... car adapter, windshield mount, dashboard mount, regular power adapter for charging at home, USB cable, really nice leather case.
* The car power adapter plugs directly into the windshield mount, OR into the Nuvi. This makes it super easy to disconnect the Nuvi when you are leaving the car, without having to fuss with any cords.
* When you go off of the calculated route, Nuvi automatically recalculates a new route for you. It does this quickly and accurately.
CONS:
* The Nuvi does not provide your latitude/longitude coordinates. Certainly it must know them! I can't imagine why Garmin didn't include this information on its "satellite" screen. It shows altitude, but not latitude/longitude. Grrrr! No GeoCaching for the Nuvi! (Update: 3/07/06 - Garmin has added this information on the "satellite" screen in the updated version 3.10 of the Nuvi firmware. Thanks Garmin!)
* The NavQuest database that the Nuvi uses is outdated, which surprised me. A hotel we regularly visit in PA isn't in the "hotels" listing, and the map doesn't even include the street which the hotel is on. This is not a new hotel, it's been there for at least 8 years! I am finding that in general most streets are included, but hotels and other points of interest are not as current as I expected.
* The software on the Nuvi is little buggy. I had one system crash, which required a hard reset using the button on the back of the Nuvi. And sometimes the "back" button doesn't work as the manual says it should.
* The Nuvi didn't come with a printed manual - you have to download it from Garmin's web site and print it yourself (?!?!). I would have expected that for such an expensive unit, Garmin could have spent a few extra cents on a manual to put into the box.
* I'm a little nervous about the battery not being user-replacable. I talked to Garmin tech support, and they said that the battery should last for 1000 charge cycles, and beyond that it's a flat fee of $225 to replace it. That's a lot for a battery!
I don't have a need for the travel guide, MP3 player, currency converter, or audio-book player, although I did try them. They seemed to work fine, but the real strength of the Nuvi is navigation, not the other stuff.
All in all, I am VERY impressed with this little Nuvi. My husband and I are enjoying the stress-free driving, with Nuvi doing all of the navigating!
Customer Review: Words Cannot Describe...
Summary: 5 Stars
how wonderful this little unit is. I bought it because I smelled disaster on an up coming business trip to a convention in which I was required to drive a considerable distance to a rather large city on highways I was not familiar with.
So I took the window mount, power cord attachment and my unit and off I went. The unit took me to my conference and then back to my hotel without error. It was amazing and nothing short of a miracle. The text to voice feature is top notch and it is much better to be told to turn left onto Maple then to be told just to turn left.
I did a lot a travelling in Toronto with it and it knew when I was in the Express lanes and moved me over into the Collectors when it was appropriate for my exit. In Calgary it announced that I should take the 4th Ave. flyover into the city. How did it know that it was called the 4th Ave. flyover?
If I could kiss someone at Garmin I would. This is not just excellent technology and implementation - it offers a significant improvement on the quality of life.
OK what would I change:
1. With the exception highways like the 401 in which it gave me directions on what to do at each transfer point such as 'keep left', on normal highways it only gives directions prior to a turn. So you may go a fairly long time without it saying anything. I would appreciate it if the unit would chime in every 15 or 20 minutes or so and give me the distance to my location or next turn. I found that if I didn't hear it regularly I was concerned that it had failed. (As a rule I mounted the unit on the driver's side passenger's window and just listened to the unit as I found having the unit where I could see the map too distracting.)
2. On the text to voice mode it seems that the distance and time to turns was reduced as opposed to when it was just directing me without naming the streets. This meant that in a few instances where turning is required before 1000 meters I had to pay attention and keep myself in the centre lane and able to move left or right easily. Oddly enough timings seemed to improve if I moved the unit from km to miles.
3. On long passages it would often only say continue on road for 47 km for instance when I would have preferred hearing what my next move was going to be even though it would be a while before I got to it.
But nothing about these quirks should make you hesitate in buying this unit. It is expensive but it is worth every penny. I am a Garmin Nuvi fan and if there was a fan club I would join! The unit is simply that good.
Update!
I have just returned from our first vacation driving trip with the Nuvi. It never failed and we were on some pretty obscure country roads in Kawartha cottage country and in the Niagra wine country in Ontario. The listing of vineyards was simply amazing and made touring for an afternoon a pleasure. We used the Nuvi to find attractions, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, shopping malls, and banks.
In addition it always recalculated for my poor driving and I have to say its Detour button saved us on more than one occasion.
We were even surprised when heading back to our hotel from a day's shopping in Toronto to have it chime in that it had calculated a more efficient route to our destination and ask if would we like to take it.
My new favourite words are now 'arriving at destination'.
Customer Review: At last. . .
Summary: 5 Stars
I finally broke down and admitted that no matter how much I wanted to be, I was never, ever going to be directionally literate. For 36 years I was 100% wrong whenever I thought I was 100% certain I should turn right. This led to being low on gas in my hometown of Atlanta, late at night, surrounded by folks on the street who were not all that excited to make my acquaintance in any positive way (for me, anyway).
When I moved to L.A., I thought HOORAY, I will no longer be little girl lost. It is not my geographic magnet that was screwed up all along, but Atlanta's rapid re-build after the fire. One-Way Streets, the facts that it is not built on a grid and every street is named Peachtree were my problem. Liberation awaited by merely switching coasts. Now I would have a grid, a constant sun, an ocean on one side and mountains on the other to guide my homing instincts. I would always be able to figure out where I am by applying simple reasoning. (Since I am writing a review on a navigation system, I believe you know where this ends up).
Unfortunately, I moved to a peninsula. There's a marine layer blocking out the sun half the time, while smog blocks out the mountains most days and buildings block out the ocean 99.5% of the over-populated time.
Enter my Nuvi 350. Yippee!! No more unplanned journeys into sketchy places. . .
This is an amazing purchase that has really changed my life. I got the 350 so I could avoid having yet another electronic accessory in my car. I did away with my iPod, since this has a built-in MP3 player. The actual use of street names (no matter how cutely {yet inaccurately} the Aussie voice on my machine says them), is quite wonderful in helping me turn in ample time as well as commit to memory what nature can't let me do naturally. (L.A. has not seen fit to actually have street names on every corner like I was used to - not that it helped in reality, but it did help me pretend for two decades).
It is totally worth the price of $240 I paid on Amazon (and I am completely ashamed it took me this long to get one, considering my inherent gepgraphic handicap). If you don't want the MP3 player function, go with the basic model - just make sure it has text-to-speech capability. If you want Blue Tooth, go with one level up. My radio already has an MP3 plug, so this was not a big deal and not worth the extra $$. When plugged in, the nav system pauses the music or book that is playing to alert next action. You can hear it quite well that way. It has a smart card slot that'll store tons of tunes, Podcasts or books so you will always be entertained on your efficient journey.
If you know you can't find your way out of a paper bag, get a Nuvi. Just take a moment to admit it to yourself. You'll be surprised how much not knowing how to get somewhere holds you back. You also won't get stuck yelling at the Mapquest directions you printed out that are wrong and that can do nothing interactive to get you the heck out of where you are and on your way to home ASAP. The handy shopping (points of interest) function can find a grocery store (or gas station) on my route, too. My purse has a handy little pocket that this fits in nicely, so it is very easy to cart about.
Since this is LA, I may get the traffic module, too, because the basic instrument has been so invaluable. This series manufactured by Garmin is truly the best on the market.