Best Portable GPS

Review by Schultzie:

I actually could not decide between the Garmin Nuvi 255w or the 750 model, so I decided to buy them both for comparison. I mounted them both to my car windshield and gave them various addresses to find together. I found that both models took the same routes and announced upcoming turns and street names at practically the same time. One thing I noticed about the 255w was that it was updating my position on the road more often, I’d say about 3 times as often as the 750. This made for smoother graphics on the 255w of the vehicle moving along displayed roads, where the 750′s display was more of a “jerky” movement. I also found that the display on the 255w was a bit brighter, clearer, and more vivid than on the 750 in both daylight and at night. Another feature I like on the 255w is the graphic turn indicator in the upper left corner, which the 750 lacks. This is a small arrow which shows upcoming turns and the distance to that turn. It also show things like a fork in the road, (ie: a Y intersection), and which fork you will be taking. The 750 just displays text on the top line for upcoming turns without the arrow. It’s just a little extra feature on the 255w which I happened to really like. The 255 also automatically adjusts the font size of displayed text so that even lengthy text will fit.

Another feature on the 255w is a display of the posted speed limit on the road which you are currently on right above your current displayed speed. I found myself not even looking at my car speedometer as I could easily see my current speed and the speed limit of my route at a glance. The 750 doesn’t have this feature. I also like how they moved the zoom in (+) and zoom out (-) buttons on the 255w to the same side of the screen which makes it a bit easier. On the 750 the zoom buttons are on opposite sides of the screen.

Now there are some features on the 750 that the 255w does not have. The 750 can broadcast it’s sound over your FM radio with the supplied cigarette lighter cable, and it has a headphone jack, which I found to be nice features. The 750 also has an MP3 player and an Audio-book player, which the 255w does not. Another really nice feature of the 750 is the car locater. This is a great feature if you are parking in a really big lot, such as at an amusement park or a fair. The 750 marks your location when you remove it from the car, then you take it with you and it remembers where you parked and takes you right back to your car. The 255w doesn’t have the car locater.

I also thought the the voice prompts of the 750 where more pleasant sounding than the 255w’s. The 750 sounds more like a real female voice, where the 255w sounds more robotic.

Another thing to consider was that I paid less for the 750 and it came with the FM transmitter cable and a USB cord to connect it to your computer for updates and downloads.

My final decision was to keep the 255w and return the 750 because I really liked the graphic turn indicator and the posted speed limit and current speed indicators. I didn’t find a need for the 750′s MP3 player and Audio book player, but that is up to personal preference. Since the USB cable was not included with the 255w, I purchased it on this site for . I also intend to purchase the MSN direct cable when it is available in August 2008.

Review by EmbeddedFlyer:

If you spend much time driving in unfamiliar territory, especially if you rent cars in big cities, a good portable GPS makes an amazing difference. And the Garmin 255W is the best one I could find in the 0 – 0 range.

First this thing just plain works. I haven’t had any issues with mine. It was easy to set up and figure out right out of the box, and it’s easy to use. It never has had trouble getting sufficient signal unlike earlier and cheaper models.

I chose the 255W for several reasons: It uses some of the newest and best maps available. It has one of the more usable touch screens for entering destinations. It’s fast to acquire satellites. And Garmin almost always comes out on top in reviews–especially in routing.

Ultimately, you buy a car GPS to get you from Point A to Point B as easily and efficiently as possible. And that’s what the 255W does best. If you’ve ever had a “Brand X” GPS take you on some strange route that adds 20 minutes to your trip, has you turn the wrong way down a one way road, tell you to turn AFTER you’ve passed the street, frequently loses the satellite signal, or has old maps missing streets, you know how important this stuff is.

The 255W has a really clear display that’s easy to see in any light. It’s small enough to use on foot. The windshield mount works great and it’s easy to toss in the glovebox when you park. It even tells you the speed limit on most roads. The “points of interest” feature works very well to find places to eat by type of cuisine, gas stations, etc.

The difference between the 255W and 205W is the 255 speaks street names and includes Alaska and Canada. The 205 and 205W will tell you to “turn right in 500 feet” which isn’t as helpful or obvious as “turn right on Ivy Street in 500 feet”. The “W” models are widescreen which makes entering destinations easier due to having a bigger “keyboard” and also lets you see more map area while driving.

All in all this isn’t the cheapest GPS in its class but it’s one of the best. My only gripe is you need an expensive add-on to get live traffic data–something that’s included with the Magellan Roadmate 1430 which is close to the same price. But the Garmin 255W is a better GPS in every other way.

Review by Robert R. Birge:

I got the Onix350 during a wootoff for about . The hardware is excellent. The software is incredibly bad. The pros and cons are below:

Pros:

The GPS system is extremely sensitive and unlike the majority of GPS systems, can acquire satellite signals below deep forest canopies. I had read about this capability before I bought the unit, and choose it for that reason. I live in the middle of the woods and wanted a unit that would work while hiking in the heavily wooded areas near my home. In fact, the unit acquires signals inside my house which is surrounded by trees. I am writing this review in my living room, and the unit has acquired seven satellites with three in the green (strong signal). My garmin unit cannot acquire a single satellite when I am inside the house. I do not know whether this is due to the electronics or a good antennae, but it matters not … this unit has superb signal acquisition.

The display is very good but not outstanding. It is plenty bright, but the resolution is only medium. But the color is excellent and the ability to overlay either topographic maps or aerial maps is a very nice feature. But you will have to pay for these maps, and you should count on adding at least another to collect enough maps to make this unit useful (see below).

Cons:

The web software is terrible. The Bushnell web site is disorganized and seemingly designed to prevent the user from getting to where they want to be. For simply registering the product, you get four free downloads which is enough to get you around your neighborhood, and thats it. The maps are small in area coverage, and hard to download. You will need to use trial and error to get what you want, so only having four free downloads is a tease and an insult.

If you are running Vista, then I recommend you buy another GPS. The combination of Vista paranoia and the Bushnell web site makes it nearly impossible to download maps. There is no Mac support, so forget about that as well. But I was able to download maps using Windows XP, although the process was convoluted and tiresome. The instructions are obscure, and often incorrect. Downloading maps to the GPS is a three or four step process, involves multiple windows, great patience and adequate karma. You will be cussing out the software engineers who designed this junk well before you have achieved success. I am guessing the software development was farmed out to Siberian potato farmers without access to computers or heat.

Summary:

Great hardware, terrible software. Count on adding another for map downloads. This will give you unlimited downloads for 90 days. I paid for one year of “free” map downloads, but in retrospect, the extra may have been a mistake. I will lose patience long before 90 days are up. Nevertheless, after you suffer the indignation of dealing with the obscure and obscenely incompetent map download system, you will have an excellent GPS that works well in the deep forest. I know of no other GPS with comparable signal acquisition capabilities.

Review by Timothy Lam:

I’ve had the Onix 350 for a month now. I have read some pretty bad reviews on this unit which had me worried until I bought this unit and tried it myself (the price was too tempting). It takes a little bit of savvy to figure it out but once you’ve done that it is MOSTLY completely functional and quite usable.

I’ll just give a few tips:

Donwloading maps:

Go to the Bushnell website, register your unit, get to the download maps page, go into the “New Users Start Here” link. Scroll to the bottom of the page and get the PDF files. Follow them to the letter and save yourself a ton of time fooling around. I have had to use I-Explorer for downloading maps due to some activeX thing. You can get rather large areas of topo maps using the “grab area” function on their page. Buying maps there? Get a years worth of unlimited downloads for . Maybe it hurts to pay that for you but it is not a bad deal really. The topo maps are USGS and not updated frequently. The satellite images that I have seen are less than a year old as far as I can tell. Resolution is not that good it is true but I found them to be MUCH easier to follow than on the Garmin Etrex I was working with the other night. Of course there is the fact that you can get free topos for Garmins on [...]. Nothing seems to exist like that for he Bushnell … yet. Another hint, after downloading maps copy them directly to the SD card. Using the software “PC Companion” will take much longer and add no value to the process.

Waypoints and GEOCACHING:

I’ll give 2 scenarios:

1st scenario, get a GPX file from something like [...] or get a .LOC file ([...]‘s native format) Get GPSBABEL (the latest version 1.3.7-beta20100116 or later) You can convert directly from any of the other formats to the Bushnell WPT format. I found this to be rather easy… but again it takes a little bit of work to get started. You can copy the WPT files directly to the waypoint folder in the unit’s SD card… no need for the PC Companion and it is much faster. OK this requires linking to a computer… what will you do while sitting next to your friend in the woods who is using a Garmin and he wants to share a waypoint?

2nd scenario: Look at the coordinates of his waypoint, zoom into the map page on your Bushnell and move the cursor until the coordinates match or nearly match those of his waypoint. Set a waypoint on the Bushnell unit at that cursor location. On the Onix 400 I could not find a way to actually enter numeric coordinates and then set a waypoint. I can enter coordinates and FIND the location, but not set a waypoint when in the ‘enter coordinates’ mode…. But the cursor movement method is nearly as accurate.

It is not NMEA compatible (proprietary) in case anybody is wondering.

Satellite acquisition: I found it to work quite well. Sometimes even on the 1st floor of a 2 story building … but of course it works better outside as do they all.

Bigger SD card? This thing is supposed to come with a 512 meg. Probably you won’t find a larger card to be all that useful. I had loaded a large portion of northern Los Angeles county in topo maps on my unit that took up almost 400MB. It took 6 minutes to boot up. So I carry fewer topo maps now. It boots in about 45 seconds now when I am carrying just the Angeles National Forest.

Battery life: not bad. I can run it almost all day before the battery indicator turns red. (using 10% backlight which is plenty brigh I think) But I have not tried seeing how long it will run in the “safetrack” mode. I’m sure it is longer. Batteries are proprietery and rechargable. I’d recommend the car charger and extra battery accessory kit. Yeah it would be nice if it used AAs.

Visibility of the screen in bright sunlight? I’ve heard that it is hard to see when using polarized sunglasses. Maybe that is true; I don’t know. I have also heard that it is hard to see when in bright sunlight even without sunglasses.. definitely NOT true. The display is some sort of reflective LCD which I have found to display excellent resolution and to have very good visibility in bright sunlight. The screen is larger than most… I think that makes it easier to read.

Poor data port covers? Yeah they should have put more thought into that design. The data port cover was not attached. Once removed it does not want to snap back into place and stay there and it is not attached. So its like a loose cork in a way… A poor design there. I just leave mine out or I’ll lose it altogether.

I think the entire user interface is easier to use than the Garmin Etrex. Others may have a different opinion.

It is not very good for highway navigation but it was not meant to be.

All in all: I love it for hiking and geocaching, rather easy to use and rugged. I did not find most of the complaints to have a lot of merit but it takes a little effort to get everything lined out. But this unit had lots of promise. If Bushnell avoided proprietary map format and did a little more work to improve their web-site for downloading maps, a couple of improvements in port cover design and an alternate battery: they would have given the competition a run for their money.

Review by Samuel Waters:

Unit locks into a deep cupholder very well to hold any electronics without shaking or rattling. I drive a Dodge diesel truck (maybe one of the shakiest non-commercial trucks around) and it holds up great, never dumps my phone and stays out of the way of my gearbox/stick. Reccomended

Review by glresearch:

Description omits major feature, that the neck rod is flexible but stiff, for different angle orientations such as face-up.

Also this holder is one which can grip a small clamshell type cellphone properly,not pressing little side buttons — which some cannot.