Postby connico » Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:49 am
I have a Garmin Nuvi 260, its small has spoken direction but not spoken street names. Last 4-5 hours on full charge, has not other function but GPS (no AVI, MP3 and all that) just a simple small 3 inch screen with big buttons for fat fingers.
For: Reliable, and easy to use. Cheap as chips as it weights in at a lowly 215 from JB-HI. Free map upgrades and Garmin usually update every 1/2 year (easily done also). Pin protection on unit (IE must be sent back to garmin for unlock if pin is forgotten, cannot be reset easily). Has Unit tracking but no SOS feature. Mount is decent and comes with Dashboard disc. Rerouting is fast and surprising smart. Requires no special USB cable to connect to PC
Against: Takes a little while lock on to satellites (up to 10 seconds), Looses Navigation whilst in tunnels and is not smart enough to realise connectivity will be resumed after exit (dumb errors). Points of interest suck arse (Parking locations good and reliable but). In built speaker can be a bit static at times. No Blue tooth, but for a unit this cheap you cant really expect it.
Its a solid unit that i like and use frequently. With a strong battery life and a easy to attach mount its easily transportable. The unit has a walking mode which is nice, but never used.
Compared to In Dash units that I own in current cars any portable GPS does not compare. But this one does the job nicely while maintain compactness and being relatively cheap.
BTW I find in an MX5 getting a wide screen or a large screen unit is very distracting.
