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If you don't own a navigation unit by now you are probably lost or missing out on a lot of things to do. Never have to stop for dierection again. Not only a great mapping device but it has lost of extras as well.
She uses it constantly here in Texas and in Germany. She's happy-I'm happy. This was a 2008 Christmas gift for my wife. It is one of the few digital devices she like to use.
BE SURE you get an international model if that's what you want to do. The newer model is the 775, which as some added features, but is essentially the same product. One of the little discussed features is the ability to take you to 'lodging' or 'hospital' if you need to. American maps. It wanting to take us up sidewalks was a little disconcerting, but I can't really blame the Garmin for that. But, I have to say, over-reliance on any navigation system can get you into some trouble because you forget the skills that could get you around without one.
Take a map, but take the Garmin, too. It works great on both continents and I have not had any issues with it except my own stupidity. I will say that in Germany it kept us off the autobahns for fifty miles so we saw more back country until we figured out the odd roundabout directions we were getting. We used this feature to advantage on our last trip back east where we needed a hospital fast. Twice now, once on each continent, I accidentally left this in 'walk' mode while driving. I got this a couple of years ago because we were going to Germany and this model has both European and N.
You can imagine the comedy of errors that resulted. It really allows you to appreciate where you are and not worry about getting lost.
It has all the features we were looking for. It's harder to find a clear channel for the Garmin. We absolutely love it. The only thing we would change is the built in FM transmitter seems to be weaker than our Ipod transmitter.
But, if you are using it for walking and POI's, it's a slippery thing to keep from dropping. We may have made a mistaken turn, but I distinctly didn't remember the characteristic "recalculating" it speaks when you do so. And, it was definitely set to "fastest route". First, you cannot toggle easily between North-up and 3D views. So, you are always calculating how long you have left.
Again, I was spoiled with my Dash, which does this.As far as the physical characteristics, it is a nice, big screen with a clean design. Dash.net gives multiple route options and a complete overview of the route (but doesn't include Europe). If you intend to use this for POI's, be warned. And, because it only gives you one option to choose from, I'm unsure how to force it to re-think the provided route. This is often critical when driving through cities that are not laid-out on a grid, or on mountain switch-backs with turns.
And, calculations can take up to 30 seconds. I was very disappointed. This will make you angry unless you have a saintly disposition. This happened a few times while driving, too. I assumed that by now there would be plenty of good POI data and content for Rome.
The roads are accurate as can be expected, so it will definitely get you around the cities if the roads are open. If it is something that I'm not understanding about these formats, the Garmin website is of no help in educating anyone on the topic. I purchased this because it had the European roads pre-installed. Third, you are presented with the arrival time, but you cannot change the display to duration or total miles.
Once it sent me down a dirt road on the side of a mountain when there was a paved option close by.I've gotten used to my Dash GPS, so was expecting the same level of quality in the software interface. I tried downloading gpx and gpi's from some websites and failed to make most of them work. I'm just very disappointed that a company that has been around as long as Garmin has such a poor interface and design flaws. All that being said, I'm unsure if there is a better value on the market for European travel if you reside in the US.
Additionally, if you want to try to go along a parallel route (such as along the ocean instead of the inland highway), there is no way of forcing a re-route except to choose an interim location along your route. I did experience some round-about issues, but a quick u-turn got me around that.
The switch is buried three icons-deep, which is tough to do in situations where you really need it. This can be very dangerous to do if you are already driving.
If it is in the locked-position and you try to unlock it, you could go 2mm too far and turn it off - requiring 2-minutes for it to re-boot. We lost an hour driving through Tuscany because of this.
I just returned from Italy. Second, you always have to review the total route before proceeding because it may send you down crazy paths that are obviously not optimal.
And - my biggest annoyance - is the lock-switch that is the same as the on-off button.
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