daveroker2002's Full Review: Garmin nuvi 255W Car GPS Receiver
I bought the 255W a few weeks ago in the UK and find it very easy to set up and helpful for getting around towns in the UK. It is slim enough to fit into your pocket, but I would suggest purchasing a case. I am amazed at the technology but it does have its limitations, some must be Garmins fault, others must be attributed to the map database. There are a lot of downsides to this product. The instructions supplied are very basic but the help menu is good, and after a few hours playing around, it can do a lot of extra things that you did not know about. I set it to Pedestrian, and found that it did not know any footpath’s, it took me miles further going the long way around walking instead of using footpaths. It took 10hrs to download the new maps on my broadband. (3GBs) together with new software. A stylus would have been helpful for the touch screen; I am using a wood toothpick.
I would suspect that all Sat Nav makes use the same database for maps. I live in Ireland and found the maps hopelessly out of date. It seems to insist on taking the back roads instead of the main routes, even though I have it set to “Fastest Time” It has petrol (gas) stations, and cinemas that have been shutdown for years, in my home town it tried to take me the wrong way down a one way Street. It took me to a dead end, a lot of restaurants, banks, etc. are missing from the maps points of interest, and it has not got one of the main hospitals in Cork City. A helpful addition is the on screen display that lets you know what speed limit restriction you are in, in case you missed the signs, it changes as you pass the sign post quite promptly, but the system is only as good as the feedback given from the authorities and some of the speeds displayed are incorrect, you could get done for speeding. It showed me in the UK where there was speed camera; this does not function in Ireland.
The picture viewer does not work; I put my camera card into the Garmin memory slot, and could see the picture in the thumb nail view, but when I tried the full screen view it told me they were the wrong size. I did not buy it for a picture viewer so this did not worry me.
I have come to accepted the limitations on this technology
Update There are recent motorways(Freeway) Cork to Dublin, They are not on Garmins latest Maps To update now, Garmin are asking €80 for a unit that is still not out of warranty, nearly half the price of the unit. I also tried some of the later units in the retail store and these do not have the motorways loaded either. Because of the download time, I was also trying to update without using website access by using a CD or memory card which to date I cannot obtain. I have had a reply from Garmin product support, they are not interested in my complaint .
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