I bought one of these about a week ago and I'm really happy with it. It's operation is similar to the C3xx that have been reviewed on here before. The voice prompts are great and I chose a nice sounding Aussie girl to give me directions.

The Nuvi is smaller which I thought would make it easier to mount in the cubby. The downside is that it's more $, but it IS for my G!

Here are pix of the little mounting disk peeking out, the cradle, and the unit.

Cavu

 

In the last week, I have bought and returned 2 gps units - the Magellan 800 and the Garmin 2720. I really liked the Magellan, but with this newest model, the they removed the voice prompt that gives the street name (I only got "turn right in 100 feet"). The Garmin unit, while having the voice prompts, lacked the battery. Also, the voice (Jill) somewhat sucked. Here in San Diego, a lot of our streets are derived from Spanish words. Any street that contains "Del" gets spoken as Delaware. The first time I heard "Turn right on Caminito Delaware Mar Sands" I cracked up. Also, La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya) becomes Lake jolla (with the 'j' and 'l' English sounds). Also, the unit was pretty large (but it did have a great screen). The mapping / routing seemed better on the Magellan. Also, the Garmin has the speaker in the 12v plug. Odd...
Have you had any issues with the Nuvi? The ratings seem pretty good from users thus far. I see that you are running off of the battery. How long does the battery last?

Thanks!
sd_diver

 

i played with Nuvi at Fry's and was very very very impressed with it. screen refresh is so-so and viewing screen at an angle is not recommended - but it is very nice nonetheless. i have garmin 2610 currently and i though Nuvi was ages ahead of it.

 

I'll get a chance to use it on a 3 hour trip this weekend so I'll check out the battery life. So far I've just used it around town a little. The routing has been good on short trips and the voice prompts have been very accurate, but no Hispanic street names that I can recall.

I'll post with an update on Sunday after my trip.

 

I have had my nuvi for over a month and love it. I have it placed it in 2 locations in my G and 1 is similar to where you have it placed. It has a couple a quirks that I have noticed but it is sweet

 

On my trip this weekend the low battery announcement came on after about 4 hours of use. I don't know how much longer it would go before losing power because I plugged it in. I have Backlight set to ALWAYS ON so the display never goes off which certainly burns more battery power and isn't really necessary. The backlight would come back on when you approach a turn so that would have saved a lot of battery life.

The voice prompts were good, but my new Aussie girlfriend had a funny habit of saying things like "turn onto CA-85", with "CA" sounding like the first 2 letters of the word "candy". She didn't do this all the time, but sometimes.

All in all I'm very happy with the unit. The size of the unit and the user interface are both great. I would recommend mounting the disk a tiiiiny bit higher than I have it in the picture so that you can tilt the screen down farther if sun is glaring on it.

FYI, I bought it off EBAY from a guy who seems to have them pretty regularly.

Cavu

 

Just wandering how you mount it? I just use the dash mount but realize it's illegal in Califronia.

 

If you look at the pix in my first post of the thread it shows where the little mounting disk goes. It just glues to the front side of the box where the in dash GPS would normally go. Mount it up as high as you can without exposing the glue over the lip.

Cavu

 

well mattie........how much?

 

huh?

 

The Nuvi is great if you have the $850-900 to spend on it. I think it is the best unit out there.

I bought an i5 for $350. It is smaller, uses AA batteries, better quality sound and also includes built in maps of North America. The downsides are that it doesn't have mp3 and audiobook playback and it has an easy to use scroll wheel instead of an easier to use touch screen.

It also uses the older chipset so it is not quite as accurate at knowing within 2 feet of where it is, but still excellent.

If you don't have $900 but you do have $350, the i5 is a great choice.

If you have the money, go Nuvi. It beats Tom Tom in the US (due to map errors on the Tom Tom+ features and size) and it is better than the Lowrance 350c.

 

It's legal actually:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc27602.htm

27602. (a) A person may not drive a motor vehicle if a television receiver, a video monitor, or a television or video screen, or any other, similar means of visually displaying a television broadcast or video signal that produces entertainment or business applications, is operating and is located in the motor vehicle at any point forward of the back of the driver's seat, or is operating and visible to the driver while driving the motor vehicle.

(b) Subdivision (a) does not apply to the following equipment when installed in a vehicle:

(1) A vehicle information display.

(2) A global positioning display.

(3) A mapping display.

 

i bought a nuvi from www.gpscity.com, they have amazing prices

 

Thanks cavu, I will try it.

As for the law, here it is straight from Garmin. \


NOTICE TO STATE OF CALIFORNIA DRIVERS: California Vehicle Code Section 26708 (a) provides that drivers in California should not use the suction mount on their windshield or side or rear windows. Other Garmin dashboard or friction mounting options are recommended. 010-10567-04

 

Yep, using a windshield mount is illegal in CA. I was referring to statement that the dash mount is illegal in California, which is incorrect.