Ever found yourself lost trying to maneuver your way through downtown Ontario without a clue where you were? Or maybe you have taken one too many road trips that has landed you in an unknown destination… sure it’s fun to not know your destination occasionally, but most of the time we are all in a hurry ‘ whether it is to be at a meeting, picking up the kids or trying to make a personal engagement with friends – maybe it’s time to check out a new navigation system available to make your life a little easier.

One new product on the market destined to save you a lot of time and money navigating the streets alone is the GARMIN GPS NUVI 350. The NUVI 350 is not only an extremely stylish and slim lined navigation system it also has the ability to be an MP3 player, audio book player, JPEG picture viewer, clock with world time zone capabilities, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and of course an anti theft device to deter anyone who might be interested in stealing this attractive addition to your car!

The NUVI 350 can be bought and used just about anywhere due to the preloaded City Navigator® NT street maps. Depending on your location for travel it is possible to insert a micro SD/SD data card with the designated country map to find your way happily out of any spot of bother you might find yourself in.

Some features of this hot little product include a 2.8″ wide x 2.1″ high screen with the total product size being 3.87″ wide x 2.91″ high. The screen features a nice QVGA color antiglare TFT with white backlight and also responds nicely to touch screen commands. The rechargeable lithium ion battery will run for 8 hours and can be easily charged while driving. Further features include voice prompts, spoken street names, the options of either 2D or 3D map views, auto re route (fast off route options and recalculations for ETA), route setup (allowing you to achieve faster times, shorter distances and off road options), and route avoidance (if you are wanting to avoid tolls or freeways). Custom points of interest (POIs) is another strong feature which will alert you to when important town information is approaching such as safety cameras or school zones, ATMs, restaurants, and hotels.

Like all good technology these days the NUVI 350 is not just a navigation system and comes with additional accessories to boost your already highly efficient system including data cards, traffic receivers, accessory kits, adapters, antennas, cases and covers, memory, cables and mounts. From the accessories available, my top choice would be the data cards which enable the user to access travel and language guides for various countries. It is getting easier and easier to travel the world these days and it is in part due to the amazing technology which is now available globally. The SD data cards, relevant for the country you are traveling, can provide you with current travel information ‘ sites to visit, shops to wander through, and restaurants to eat in. The data is provided by Fodors who are one of the leading trip planning and information companies available. The language guides are equally as important as you visit new countries. The information is provided by Oxford University Press and contains comprehensive word and phrase banks and bilingual dictionaries! Global Positioning Systems (GPS) rely on a variety of satellites to assist you in figuring out where you are at any given time.

The one major benefit of buying an in-car GPS is so that you don’t end up wasting time and money finding a location that should have ideally taken you perhaps only 20 minutes. The technology now available for these systems is getting better and better and the GARMIN GPS NUVI 350 is no exception, it is sitting comfortably in the market at the top of the range.

The average cost of the GARMIN GPS NUVI 350 is $348.00 in the Canadian market. The NUVI 350 is available at most Canadian electronic stores and to save you hours on your feet you can now search online for the best deal in Canada.

The Garmin Nuvi range of Sat Nav units has got some fantastic ‘family’ members each unique in services and functionality from the basic GPS (Global Positioning System) with mapping through to voice recognition and multimedia capabilities.

The need for maps and several atlas’ just to get from one side of a county/state to the other is thankfully far behind us now as this technology advances. With fantastic coverage and accurate maps these devices can at the push of a few buttons effortlessly guide you on a journey of 100’s of miles without a missed turn.

This ability has be developed and perfected over many years from map makers to computer programmers all trades have been employed so the unit you see in front of you, with the colour touchscreen can guide you to a friends house or out of trouble in seconds.

One of the biggest yet most forgotten bonuses of the Sat Nav unit is that it will guide you through areas of your own city/town/village/hamlet that you never knew existed. You’ll see sights that would have passed you by all along this quicker route was around but you never found it.

As for guiding you out of trouble this is entirely possible with a short wait and a button presses a friendly voice will give you directions to where you want to go or at least feel safer. If for some reason you didn’t use your Sat Nav unit at the start of a journey, and found yourself lost never mind. Set-up the unit and plug it in while it boots up, you’ll then be asked where you want to go, press a few buttons and hey presto here’s your route.

With the ability to track speed and fixed items such as cameras it is also possible to plot the amount of time the journey should take as well as warn you when speeding while approaching a camera. The ability to plot distance and time allows the unit to give you a fully accurate ETA (estimated time of arrival) so you can call ahead or plan your journey before it starts. No more guessing I think it will take 2 hours and finding out it will only take 1.5 or worst case scenario it takes 2.5 making you late for the meeting.

I truly believe as a professional driver my GPS device has saved me countless hours and pounds over the years in route planning and maps I didn’t need to buy.

Within the Nuvi range of units are several model numbers each with slightly different modules and functionality. I will review each of these units in a greater detail one by one in seperate posts, even covering some of the accessories that can be purchased for each unit.

The GPS system is fantastic and as a professional driver I can atest that my sat nav unit has probably saved my days worth of hours when making deliveries to customers. The need for the old paper maps and hundreds of street planners is something of the past (thankfully).

Being able to switch on the gps unit and although you have to wait for it to pick up a satelite signal it is well worth the wait. With maps being updated and whole countries if not continents worth of road maps available at the touch of the screen, it is much easier to operate than dozens of maps that maybe out of date.

We all know the usefulness of a sat nav unit espcially if your going to a new location or if your ‘lost’ in a town or area that you don’t know to well just plug it in, switch it on, and tell it to take you home, in seconds you have a fully mapped out route with details and travelling time to get you there. It will even show you a few short cuts you never knew existed depending on the planning settings you make in the devices menu.

With the voices most of which can be annoying but thankfully changeable via downloads, it is like you have company guiding you to your planned destination. I normally disable the voice personally as the default ones annoy me and the downloadable ones lose appeal very quickly.

With most Garmin sat nav units it is also possible to program the unit for the vehicle your in i.e a car or even an articulated lorry, this functionality is important to prevent a lorry going places it shouldn’t be on the grounds it’s to high or to heavy for the roads.

When a route is planned and set into the gps unit it is also possible to get the estimated travelling time, so you can work out when to leave to get somewhere at a specifc time, or even call ahead and tell the person your visiting ‘I will be there at ….. ‘ knowing you won’t get lost and the timing is accurate. The travelling is is worked out by knowing the speed limits of the roads onroute and multiplying by how far you must travel on the road, this is correct if you stick to the speed limit, if however you don’t adhere to the speed limit the timing will adjust automatically.

I will add posts on each of the Garmin GPS units in the Nuvi range below for you to read and make your own mind up on which unit is best suited for your needs.

In the post I will be writing a review of the Garmin Nuvi 255W Sat Nav device, currently one of the most popular units (purchased on Amazon.com).

As the base model in the Nuvi range it doesn’t have the full functionality of the higher spec models, having said that it is not to detract from the usefulness of the unit for getting you from A2B.

As a GPS unit it is an upgraded version of the Nuvi 205 model with the additional features of full mapping details and text to speech allowing street names and POI names to be read by the preloaded voices.

Not quite as sleek and asthetically pleasing as some devices you find on the market it does the core job of route planning for you without any problems. Many have reviewed this model saying it is both fit for purpose and GPS navigation on a budget both these comments should be read as compliments to the unit.

The unit measures 4.8 inches wide by 2.9 inches tall by 0.8 inch deep and features a color touch screen that takes up almost the entirety of the front panel. With a screen that measure in at 4.3 inches diagonally and displays full-color imagery at a WQVGA resolution of 480×272 pixels.

Power is switched on/off via a slider which is located at the top of the unit and doubles up as a screen lock depending on the icon you slide it towards.

On the rear of the unit you will find the speaker and mini usb port which is used for charging/data transfer.

On the side of the unit is the SD card slot used for the map storage or changing the map disk. Changing the map disk allows for when on holiday you can just swap disks without having to back up the currents maps and your unit will navigate around your holiday destination just the same as home use.

The preloaded maps come in various packages depending on where the unit is bought the lower 48 states of the US or Canada or one european country. The mapping for these countries also include speed limit warnings for the driver to ensure that no laws are broken.

Portable dashboard mount for your Garmin StreetPilot or nuvi navigator. It does not slide Or detach while vehicle is in motion. It is Adjustable To Position Nuvi In Variety Of Angles.

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