Product Description

Garmin 3.5 Inch City Navigator

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Garmin
• Model: Nuvi 255
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .80" h x 2.80" w x 3.80" l, 3.07 pounds
• Native resolution: 320 x 240
• Display size: 3.5

Features

• 3.5-inch Touch Screen Navigation with Turn by Turn spoken Directions
• Pre-loaded Maps for all North America, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico with 6.5 million searchable points of interest
• FM Traffic or MSN Direct Traffic/Content compatible (with optional GDB 55 receiver)
• Easy to Use Interface; slim, pocket-sized form factor; 4-hour rechargeable battery; Vehicle power cable included;
• Automatically Adjusts Your Time Zone While Navigating

Amazon.com Product Description----May 7, 2008
For peace of mind on the go, nüvi 255 leads the way with voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions that speak street names and optional MSN Direct to get you there on time and keep you informed. It's packed with millions of destinations and maps for North America or Europe. This portable navigator is priced right and ultra-easy to use.

Navigate With Ease
nüvi 255 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with turn-by-turn voice directions, 2-D or 3-D maps and and smooth map redraw rates as you navigate. Its digital elevation maps show you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain. In addition, nüvi 255 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. With HotFix satellite prediction, nüvi calculates your position faster to get you there quicker.

Take It With You
nüvi 255 sports a sleek, slim design and fits comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot. With its "Where Am I?" emergency locator, you always know your location. Simply tap the screen to get your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and fuel stations.

Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 255 includes many travel tools including JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more. With photo navigation, you can download pictures from Garmin Connect Photos and navigate to them. The 255 is compatible with optional enhanced MSN Direct content (subscription and receiver required) and our free Garmin Garage where you can download animated vehicles that show your location on the map. It also comes with Garmin Lock, an anti-theft feature. Enhance your travel experience with optional plug-in microSD cards such as Garmin Travel Guides for detailed data on attractions.

nüvi 255: Simple navigation at an affordable price

Customer Reviews

Don't pay more, this has everything you need
Let me set the scene for you: I arrive in Los Angeles at the airport, turn on my GPS system and instantly am ready to navigate. I then spend two days driving around Los Angeles not knowing where anything is located and haven't gotten lost once...

The nuvi 255, as in my review title, is everything you need. Don't spend more because you think you'll need to talk for navigation or that you want to connect to some navigation service or whatever else they're selling. This is a small, FAST, device that you can easily carry with you when it isn't in your car. And folks, that's part of a portable GPS system: you can take it with you so it doesn't get stolen.

I will give the following heads-up. The first time you calibrate the GPS system, it may take up to 10 MINUTES. Be patient, stand in a large open field, and don't move the device. Just let it sit. After that initial setup, you'll be walking on sunshine. Second, charging the device is easy. All you need is a standard USB cable that is used for most electronics. The downside, it doesn't show a progress bar on the screen as to when a charge is complete. Third, when you turn it on, make sure you have clear views of the sky from all directions. Otherwise, the system may not initialize properly. Plus, if you're in a city with tall buildings, you may be out of luck for getting signal (i.e. NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago). Normally, the difficultly comes from initially turning it on. After that, it's great.

This device is FAST in recalculating routes. Mere seconds and boom, you're back on track. No downtime whatsoever. This is really amazing.

You are given the option of navigation as a pedestrian or in a car. That is really great if you're on foot. You can easily switch between the two.

NOW... my word of advice. SPEND THE MONEY to get the 255 with the "text-to-speech." When you're driving in traffic in an unfamiliar place, you don't want to have to constantly look over to read the street names on the device then find them on the street. It is worth the extra cash.

All-in-all, I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. As I said to a friend today, it isn't often that I buy a piece of electronics equipment and have my expectations met and surpassed. As I continue to use it, new things continue to amaze me.

Very nice entry-level GPS.
After spending a few weeks researching this and that, I decided to go with the Nuvi 255. I would have liked a 255W, but just couldn't justify the cost. Besides, the 255 screen is sufficient. I chose it over the 205 for the extra maps and text-to-speech, which is a really nice function.

PROS:
The size seems small until you actually mount it on your windshield. Then it's just right. And the GUI is very simple and straightforward. There are a lot of "aftermarket" vehicle icons that can be just dropped onto the unit. It charges relatively quickly through a USB cord. I think with a little ingenuity, I'll be able to mount it to my motorcycle bars too. This thing is half organizer/phone book, half Nav system, which since I don't have an I-Phone is really cool. It's great to be able to look up a phone number and call a restaurant without booting up my PC.

CONS:
Even though there's 6 million POI, it's missing some surprising ones (a Walmart and a Lowes plaza, for example) that have been around for a couple of years. So to get there, you have to find something near them and that's a pain. Same with roads I KNOW are there, but not in this 2009 map software. Then there's the town names that seem questionable at times. My only other small gripes are that you can't change the text-to-speech voice...unless you want a lame elf voice or Death or something. And for some reason, mine doesn't want to charge if the unit is in use, which is kind of aggrivating.

VERDICT:
Seems solid, easy to use, and a genuinely decent product. Sometimes I know better than the direction engine (I'm sure you get that with any GPS), but if I didn't, I'd trust it. Seems to lack features of an upmodel unit, but for the money, I feel I've gotten a good value.

Job Well Done
I purchased the Nuvi 255 as a replacement for my Nuvi 350. There is nothing wrong with the 350Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text-to-Speech. The 255Garmin Nuvi 255 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator has safety features I want which include "Where Am I" that gives your location by street address, city, state, zip code, nearest intersection and coordinates. This is important in an emergency in a strange and/or unfamiliar location. Another safety feature is the display of the posted speed limit directly above your actual speed. This helps to avoid tickets and reminds one about safe driving.

Other improvements include a brighter clearer display, revised touch screen graphics, an arrow indicating direction of next turn and a TTS voice that sounds like a real person instead of an elocution professor.

The 255 also has a world clock, unit converter, calculator and photo
display.

In closing, I saved the best feature for last--the GPS function is fast, flawless and exact.