k_one1984's Full Review: Garmin nuvi 200W Car GPS Receiver
The Garmin Nuvi 200 series; simple, cost efficient, helpful if you're completely lost...
What can I say, I paid around $250 for this little guy and I got what I paid for, and that's not necessarily a bad thing in this case. Sure it's not the most fancy GPS ever, it doesn't say the street names or have bluetooth and it doesn't tell you anything about the traffic for that matter, but it works.
I can't say that it's the best GPS out there but from the research I did (which was a lot) it was the best for the price. The TOM TOM One series models were about the same, except they were cheaper by almost $100 at the time because of their huge sale around Christmas time. The TOM TOM however, didn't get as good of reviews because of its suction cup for the window and dash mounts were cheap and easily chipped or broken. I did like how you could rig your TOM TOM up to the computer when you saw something you didn't like. Let me elaborate; if you saw a road block where the TOM TOM was leading you, you could push a button to mark that it was there and hook it up to your computer (with the internet) and have it upload that and tell others that it was there as well as let you know what others have found. I'm wondering if you have to let it know when it's gone as well before it will guide you past it.
The suction cup on this little NUVI is beautiful, it's only fallen off of the window twice and it was FRIDGID so I can't be mad with its temperment against the great Michigan weather. I haven't tried to dash mount but it did come with the package, which was cool. I haven't needed it, so I've been sticking with the window mount. It does easily detach from it with one hand, so that's a plus as well.
The battery life is alright, around 4 to 5 hours, give or take a half hour depending on how much you play with it while it's running. It doesn't take long to charge, but I find it best to just leave it plugged in (you don't have to wait for it to boot up if you do). The cord to plug it in is pretty long so you could even stick it in the lighter outlet in the back seat (for whatever reason) and have it reach. It's not a coiled cord either, it's just straight, so that could be a good or bad thing depending on what you're interested in; I don't find it to be bothersome.
The screen is quite clear and can be viewed from pretty much all angles, I haven't run into any problems. I thought that it was pretty neat that, around 6pm or so, it will switch onto a night time screen where the colors are darker so that it's not so bright and harsh on your eyes. It's very easy to read the letters and know where you're going, as long as it tells you the right way...
The directions are decent at best. Sure they get you to where you need to go and that's pretty much all that matters, but if you want to get there the fastest way, it may not be so great. For instance, I wanted to play with it when I first got it, as you will too, and I set it to lead me to my friend's house. Of course I knew how to get there and I tried to follow where it wanted me to go and it kept leading me due East and I needed to go just the opposite! I kept getting frustrated with it but it ended up taking me to where I wanted to go, just the long way around.
I also took it with me to Chicago, which I have no knowledge of, and it lead me around pretty well. It was a little haphazard with the roads being so close together and tunnels having roads above them, but for the most part, with a lot of common sense, I made it. The GPS couldn't distinguish which road I was on at times, but I looked around at the street signs and eventually found my way using just the onscreen map without the directions. Without it, I definately would have been lost!
There are different settings you can put it on such as Pedestrian, Off Road (which I'm still curious about), and the obvious automobile. The pedestrian setting was used on the Chicago trip and did us absolutely NO good, so I don't recommend it unless you're using it only for the map and not to get somewhere on foot.
You can also change the character of your vehicle on the screen (I have mine set as a monster truck). It comes with a few presets like a sports car, monster truck... but you can also buy new ones online - unfortunately the NUVI doesn't come with the USB cable, so that'll have to be an aftermarket purchase. I saw that they had reindeer around Christmas, that was cute.
All in all, I'm decently happy with the unit. I kind of wish that I would have bought the TOM TOM just to try it out cause if I paid $250 to get lost, I might as well have paid $150 and have it be my name on the machine twice :) (My name's Tom if you couldn't figure that one out).
The NUVI is very user friendly, unlike a MIO that I played with for a few minutes and had no clue as to what I was doing and, to my friends, I'm the Asian tech guy, so that's pretty bad.
You can save destinations or view recently found ones. Change the view mode (zoom in or out), type in names of places and find them and how far they are from where you are standing/driving, and there are tons of POIs (Points of Interest - Museums, Airports, Entertainment, Restaurants...). And under each one there's more headings to choose from, for instance; Restaurants will lead to you pick from a multitude of different types of food be it fast food, french, italian, american... literally there's about 25 to 30 different types, so that's fun when it's late and you want Chinese!
Oh, and I forgot to add, when you select a destination it will let you know when it thinks that you'll get there. It always ends up being around 5 or 10 minutes off (sooner than you actually get there), so plan ahead. It moves the time back as you're driving; meaning that it recalculates itself, which is cool.
When you don't have it set on a certain destination, it will let you know how fast you're going and in what direction. You can also see how long you've been stopped as opposed to driving and what your top and average speeds were on your trip (these can all be reset at any time).
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