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Garmin Nuvi 260w Car GPS Receiver

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

One basic feature needed for a car GPS system is ease of use. And the Garmin Nuvi 260W Car GPS Receiver is the leader in its class. This GPS is portable and can be fixed to any car. It is the best product for customers looking for basic navigation aid. It also comes in various mountable options as to where it is supposed to be fitted, like friction mount/windshield mount.

One of the many appealing features of this product is the text-to-speech feature which allows the unit to speak aloud the name of the street one is turning on to, along with the distance and direction, which can be very useful in urban areas. The ease of use of this product of great importance, as there is no need for a person to read the manual to operate it (even for a person who hates to operate electronics). The Garmin website allows the user to download new voices for the text-to-speech feature and also update it with new maps and firmware and this website too, is very user friendly. It has the auto up-scale feature in it, i.e if the map is set to a fairly small scale to see a large portion of the route, the unit automatically scales the map larger to give more detail of a turn, as the user approaches it.

There is an SD card slot that can be inserted in the Nuvi, which can be used to add new maps and keep it updated. The 4.3 inch wide screen has amazing clarity and does not lose its clarity when the user uses Polaroid sunglasses. There’s the detour option in this GPS that comes very handy when the user needs alternative routes and avoid certain points in the route, if he/she is aware before hand that there is a construction going on in that particular route or something else. In case the user misses a turn and goes in the wrong direction, it automatically recalculates the new route that has to be followed within seconds.

The battery life is as promised by the company. It can go for 2 hours straight without losing a single green bar. Moreover, the battery life can be extended by lowering the brightness level o the minimum acceptable. The size is one more feature in favor of the product. Its sleek design allows portability and therefore is easy to carry even in ones pocket. The Points Of Interest (POI) available in this gadget are plenty and the ease of access of these points is also very good.

The satellite acquisition is not up to the mark in the Nuvi. It may not receive signals to recognize the current location when the unit is switched on in a few cases, and sometimes may lose signal in the middle of a journey. There are a few locations that are not recognized by the system too and this is considered a major drawback for the product. The documentation is another letdown for the Garmin Nuvi 260W Car GPS. Apart from the quick start manual, there is no additional information, even on the Garmin website, on how to use the device to get additional features to work.

These drawbacks are very minute and not true always when compared to what the gadget has to offer on the whole. So it is a highly reliable and recommended product.