I bought the Garmin as a gift for my wife and was thrilled about the lifetime updates for traffic and maps.
Setup and navigation is good. We like the big screen and the way the information is provided.
The lifetime map updates sounds like a great feature. Maps can be updated four times a year and the access using the web page was easy. But I have to wonder what Garmin considers "useful life" of the device. But even if they are only available for three years, then it is still cheaper than buying the maps.
The conditions of lifetime traffic updates are definitely not what I expected and the reason that I am thinking of returning the device. The ads that finance the lifetime traffic pop up on the screen and disrupt the navigation. This is obnoxious! This should be mentioned in the product description! I couldn't even find information about the ad financed traffic on the Garmin web page!
Garmin nüvi 2350 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator(Update posted on 5/17 at the bottom of this review, after 5 months of use)
I've written a rather long review, so this first paragraph a quick summary: The unit works as intended and is great with basic navigation, but there are some rough spots with some of the bonus features, and sparse documentation. Voice recognition works very well, but it's slow on the uptake and not perfect -- so expect to repeat yourself often. At each step it guides you with a voice prompt, or you can turn voice prompts off and follow prompts on the screen for faster entries. The touch screen is fine for entering letters and tapping the "OK" button, but the "drag" function when scrolling the map around with my fingertip is inconsistent and requires heavy finger pressure. The questionably-useful Junction View screen unpredictably takes over the navigation screen and hides all "remaining distance" and map data, though twist the display into portrait view and this problem is solved. Lane assist can be a help, but simultaneously may lead to confusion at complicated freeway junctions. Route recalcs could be faster, but processor speed and animation overall is fast and smooth. Display is adequately bright except in very bright sunlight, and the screen is just reflective enough to pose viewing issues unless adjusted precisely. Volume is more than adequate. The traffic feature seems to work OK, though not as good as Google traffic on my BlackBerry, and it doesn't make it clear when my route is being re-routed due to an accident or congestion.
So with that out of the way, on with my review...
I've used a narrow-screen Garmin 200 for the past few years, as well as Google Maps on my BlackBerry Storm. I hesitated purchasing a new GPS because between the two of those devices, I was pretty well covered to get anywhere I needed to go.
But the 2360LMT came along and I couldn't ignore the list of "extra" features it packed in for the price. And let's face it: A cell phone is great for finding stuff, but not actually navigating while driving, and the old nuvi 200 lacked voice recognition, which I considered a significant safety compromise as well as an input hassle.
Initial power-on / boot-up went smoothly with just a couple of "Accept" screens and reminders to register the product with Garmin. No additional setup steps were required, though it took a few minutes for my initial position fix to be calculated. After that, position fix occurs imperceptibly, even when I power the unit on in a city miles away from where I turned it off. However, boot-up takes about 25 seconds to where the device is ready to receive input, and that feels like an eternity when I want to get navigating.
Build Quality & Screen: the 2360LMT isn't "razor thin" like some of the recent, more expensive Garmin lineup. It's not much thinner than my old 200. The screen is reasonably bright, high resolution, and wide. Brightness can be adjusted with voice commands while driving. If I have sunlight shining on a light colored shirt, the screen tends to reflect that back at me, but can be minimized with very precisely adjusting the tilt of the unit. The animation is smooth, less jerky than my old unit, and the zoom level "flies in" and out depending on vehicle speed & location relative to upcoming turns. It's a very fluid presentation. The unit has an orientation sensor, so can be used in portrait mode, which is a nice change on long, straight stretches of freeway to "see" off in the distance. The unit takes advantage of portrait mode by automatically zooming back the display a notch, and adjusting the viewing angle at which it looks ahead, to maximize the view towards the horizon. However, for navigating around town, I prefer the standard landscape mode, where side streets are more visible.
The display colors darken automatically at dusk and, surprisingly, darken when I enter the long Caldecott tunnel near my home, even though the tunnel itself isn't depicted on the map. The daytime backlight brightness is stored independently of the nighttime brightness, so when I set it at 100% at noon and 10% at night, it stores both of those settings. One gig on the animation is in an instance when the unit expects me to turn left, but I choose to continue straight ahead, the map follows the predicted route through the turn, then recognizes I've continued straight, so quickly corrects back. If I were at a complex 6-way intersection or round-about in a residential neighborhood, this feature might mistakenly lead me to think that I had turned to the correct street, and I'd prefer it to not use this predictive positioning feature.
Touch Screen Sensitivity: not so hot. Finger taps register OK, but scrolling the map around, for instance on the "show traffic" overview map display, is frustratingly slow. It requires a unusually heavy finger press, not at all like my old nuvi 200. The map doesn't always move, or moves in the wrong direction, or "snaps back" to its previous location when I lift my finger.
Voice Recognition: pretty impressive, yet frustrating. Thankfully, this feature has prevented me from having to use the touch screen much. I say "Voice Commands" and the unit pops up a list of commands I can say, such as "find address" or "search by name." I say "Pegasus" and (on the second try; 1st try got me "Recruiters") it confirms, "1. Pegasus?" I say "yes" or "one" and it searches and quickly finds "Pegasus Cycle Works" in Danville. I say "Navigate!" and it plots a route. Very clean.
Likewise, I say "find address" and it asks, "what city in California?" I say "Hayward" and after multiple tries getting that one right (kept wanting to send me to Orange and Onida), it asks for the house number. I don't have to draw out "Four... Two... Six... Eight" and wait for each digit; no, I say "forty-two sixty-eight" and it throws the whole address up on the screen pretty quickly. Again, very clean. Alternatively, I can say "spell city" and then spell it out, letter by letter. However, unlike with the typed-in entries, using voice commands I've found no way to skip the city and go straight to the street address.
The downsides? Besides having trouble recognizing some names, there are some other rough spots: When each prompt is spoken -- for instance, "*Boing* What city in California?" Then, as a user, I've got to wait a beat before I speak the city (there's a "lips" icon in the upper right corner; it's red when the unit is speaking to me, then turns green when it's ready to listen for my response or command, which takes about a second after it finishes its question). I'd prefer the *Boing* come at the end of the prompt, as soon as it's ready to listen. Alternatively, the volume can be muted to turn off voice prompts, or, as Amazon member maffeo pointed out in the comments to this review, there is an "expert mode" (Tools > Voice Commands > Wrench Icon) that turns off voice prompts (on-screen prompts only). Either method makes voice entry of addresses much faster, accurate and less frustrating.
I'm also finding that creating and using the Favorites list is not well integrated with the Voice Commands. Creating new Favorites from an address entered via voice requires me to back out to the menu, click on "Recently Found", select the location/address, navigate to it, click on the navigation screen to display the overhead map, then select the sidebar menu to bring up the Save prompt. Not intuitive at all, and requires me to begin navigation TWICE to a destination just in order to save it as a favorite. This process could be much more refined to make it easier to program favorites into the unit while killing time.
Also, as John Sellers points out in the comments to this review, selecting a Favorite from the list using voice commands requires me to scroll through the list, two Favorites at a time (unless I'm in portrait view, in which case six Favorites are displayed at a time), until the destination appears. The Favorites appear to be sorted in order of closest proximity, so when I want directions to Auntie Ginger's house 35 miles away in San Jose, it'll be at the bottom of the list, and I have to scroll down to her entry -- on screen at a time -- before I can select it. This is majorly annoying: if the GPS can find every Home Depot within the bay area with a simple voice command, it should be able to pick out "Ginger" from a list of 1000 favorites! Grrrr...
Lastly, Voice Command recognizes commands over steady background road noise, but doesn't seem to tolerate commands when I've got the radio louder than a whisper, or when I'm accelerating (presumably because of the changing pitch of the background noise?).
Lane Assist: Nice feature, but with problems. For instance, if two off-ramps are closely spaced, the lane assist arrows only take into account the exit I'm navigating towards. So if there's an extra exit-only lane for the first off-ramp, the Lane Assist may indicate that I could be in that lane. Need to pay attention to those overhead exit signs. Also, on city streets with double turn lanes, chances are Lane Assist won't know they're both there and only show a single arrow. Need to be aware that in situations where another turn, such as an on ramp, immediately follows that double lane turn. Lastly, when the GPS is mounted in portrait view, and there are more than 4 lanes on the freeway, the lane assist display gets squeezed down to just 3 lanes followed by dot-dot-dot -- not at all ideal on those big 6 and 8 lane interchanges.
Junction View: beginning anywhere from .8 to .5 miles from a freeway junction, this static pictogram is displayed to approximate what the freeway interchange looks like, providing assistance in choosing a lane. With the device oriented in traditional Landscape view, as reviewer John Sellers indicated, it removes all data (including the all important distance remaining countdown) from the screen. This isn't desireable if you're driving with the volume muted, as I often preferred with my previous nüvi. However, in Portrait, the Junction View takes the upper portion of the display, while the map and all other data remain visible in the lower portion. In Landscape, Junction View quickly disappears after .1 to .2 miles -- almost too short a time span to digest it, while in Portrait view, it remains displayed (taking over less than half the screen) until the junction is reached.
Voice Quality: oh, so good. The speech synthesizer has a slight warble and is "computery," but is very articulate and tends to pronounce difficult names well enough. Tricky Ygnacio (ig-na-c-o) Valley Road was admirably pronounced "Yig-nac-e-oh", which was good enough for me. Rosal (rose-all) is "rosl." Volume is very good; not at all difficult to hear, even with the radio on. Volume can be easily adjusted with voice commands while driving.
Route Recalculations: needs improvement; I swear my 200 was faster! I've thrown a few wrong turns at the 2360 and it catches it quickly, but often takes so long to spit out a new route that I'm already past the next turn, which spurs another recalc.
Speed Limits, Cameras & EcoRoute: neat gimmick, but still a gimmick! The map usually displays the current speed limit in the lower right corner, right next to current speed -- which appears in red if it's too fast (though the readout in red numbers don't "pop" and easily go unnoticed). I usually drive with the volume muted, but I believe there's an audible warning (a pleasant chime tone) to go along with overspeed, however it's either inconsistent or sometimes I must not be hearing it. If speed limit data isn't available, a '+' sign appears that can be pressed; the screen changes to one where the speed limit can be entered manually. Speed limits through a local school zone were almost exactly matched to the physical locations of the signs. This, of course, is dependent on the data available, and at other locations the speeds haven't matched up correctly. Intersections initiate a double-chime if a red light camera is nearby; however, this is annoying when I receive a double-chime on the freeway when there's an intersection off on a side street with a camera.
EcoRoute goes one further and, when activated, critiques items such as acceleration, braking and speed and assigns a score. You'll need to input your vehicle's city and highway fuel economy and the current price per gallon to enable this feature, which gives some routing alternatives, too. A small "current (instantaneous) score" icon then appears on the main map display so that I can challenge myself to save some gas, however hitting a perfect 99% is as easy as driving the speed limit, so any sins committed due to hard acceleration, speeding or lots of brake tapping can be nearly instantly forgiven, making this instantaneous display of questionable value. I'd rather have it display a score for the current trip or for the day, just to give me an objective to strive for.
Where Am I: this is kind of a neat function. When pressed, it provides a one-screen readout of your GPS coordinates, elevation, nearest address and intersection, and buttons to "SAVE" to Favorites, or locate nearby gas, police or hospitals. Seems valuable on a couple of different levels. However, if you park in front of the dry cleaners and select "Where Am I" and then "Save", it will guesstimate an address on the right hand side of the steet, and thereafter always say "Arriving at Dry Cleaners, on Right" each and every time, even if it's on the left.
Traffic: In the SF Bay area, most of the highways are covered. Garmin has a coverage map on their website. Traffic data is received through a module integrated into the power cord, and if the GPS is running on battery, you'll receive no traffic data. The traffic alert screen pulls up a list of highway incidents in the area, even if there are no delays. Or, you can drill down a level in the menu and see just the delays along the planned route. Unfortunately, this requires a bit of tapping on the touchscreen, and there are no voice commands I'm aware of to delve into any of these traffic sub-menus.
On a recent trip home, for no obvious reason, the unit tried to route me via a slightly out-of-the-way freeway. I drove to my preferred freeway, so it tried to re-route me onto yet another out-of-the-way freeway! It wasn't until I ignored the GPS and merged on to MY preferred freeway that the "traffic" icon lit up red, indicating a delay on this route. On the other hand, another recent drive home directed me to stay on the freeway one exit further than it normally navigates to, yet at the same time gave me a traffic warning for that particular stretch of freeway. Weird and inconsistent.
I'd love for Garmin to provide some sort of integration with smartphones, because the traffic data I receive on my BlackBerry's Google Maps application is so much more realistic than the smattering of incidents the nuvi receives from Navteq.
Multiple routes: After I select my ultimate destination, I can add additional destinations in reverse sequential order. However, there's a bug. If I'm picking my son up from day care, then heading home, I'll enter "Home" first, then "Day Care." But, say I'm now leaving day care and get a phone call to pick up something from Target. I search for nearby Targets, add it to my route, and get directions. Upon arriving at Target, the GPS tries to route me back to day care before directing me home. Odd. Definitely a bug, and an annoying one at that.
Alternately, I can dig a little in the menu and choose the "Trip Planner" function, which lets me pick my destinations more rapidly (saving route calculations until the end). This tool also allows me to set desired arrival times to the destinations, presumably to alarm me when to leave. It also allows trips to be named and saved. The drawback? Once I'm driving a "Trip" I can't modify it. If I interrupt navigation and search for coffee near by, it doesn't allow me to "Add to Current Route" as is normally an available option; instead, it automatically cancels my "Trip" navigation and selects the coffee shop as my new ultimate destination. And I've found no way to resume the "Trip" without starting from the beginning.
Other Gee-Whiz: When arriving at a destination, a "coupon" pops up on the screen. "Click the coupon for savings at Best Western Rewards - 1500 points" reads my screen. Weird. When powering the unit down, a summary screen displays listing total miles and cost of the trip based on fuel consumption estimates. Neato, and puts a new perspective on what it's costing me to drive somewhere, even though it's only really a rough estimate of fuel costs (not total vehicle ownership costs -- that would be a shocker!!!).
Mounting and Power: The suction cup mount has a power adapter built in to it, so if you're the type who leaves the cup & clip mounted at all times, you simply detach your GPS from the mount and that's it! Or, alternatively, you can plug the power cord directly in to the unit. Note, however, that the power cord is a fat beast of a cord, thicker than the one that goes to my vacuum cleaner. Certainly makes me wish these units have better battery life. Like my older Garmin, this sits on my dashboard, mounted to a Gilsson Non-Skid Beanbag Dashboard Mount
Documentation: nil. There was a "Quick Start Manual" in the box, which should be enough for an intuitive GPS, but as you've read, this unit has many, many advanced features to explore and their operation (and the system's logic behind them) is anything but second nature.
Up to now, I counted the small screen of my old 200 as an attribute. Who needs a huge screen just to navigate streets and highways? Plus, small screens are easier to tuck away in the center console. But the wide, high res screen on the 2360LMT is proving to be so useful for displaying lots of data and nice images, with room for finger-worthy buttons and easily readable data. I certainly am appreciating the bigger display.
Despite the list of frustrations I've expressed, I'm pleased with this unit and find it a worthy update to my very capable, map-current nuvi 200. As a basic navigation device, it is excellent. But Garmin is attempting to market this as a "driving companion," something that will be on all the time, not just when driving someplace new. And from that perspective, it has some neat ideas built into it, but it needs a bit of improvement in function, voice integration, polish, and documentation (especially documentation!).
Looking forward to never paying for map updates again! Mine came loaded with CN North American NT 2011.31 and NavTEQ "Lifetime Subscription" traffic.
(Update 5/17) After about 5 months of daily use, I'm hot and cold on this unit and even considering dropping it to three stars -- again, as strictly a GPS, it's super, but as a tool for daily driving, it has some problems and a lot of untapped potential.
- I updated to the latest map and firmware. The process was SLOW on a USB port, over an hour do download, decompress and install all the updates.
- The newest firmware has increased the boot time by 10 seconds. It now takes 35 SECONDS from power-on to "Agree to Terms" screen. This is an incredibly long time in the grand scheme, in that I can start my car, put my seatbelt on, and drive three or four residential blocks in that period of time. This delay SEVERELY IMPACTS my desire to use this unit on a routine basis, as it's stored in my center console and is mounted to a bean bag dash mount that I store out-of-sight on my passenger-side floor.
- The Predicted Destination feature is extremely unreliable. Some, it gets right often, and then it's great. Most times, it doesn't work at all, or shows the wrong destination an an entirely oddball time. Example: I leave for work in the same 20 minute window on the same five days every week, yet it regularly predicts I'm going to work when I pull up to my house on the flip side of the clock, and almost never when I'm actually getting in the car to leave for work.
- The Predicted Destination is stubborn. If it thinks I'm going to some address North, and I ignore it an get on the freeway headed South, it sticks with that original anticipated destination for a long ways, then finally gives up.
- The inability to sort through Favorites by name continues to frustrate me, and makes it unnecessarily time consuming to pick stored destinations farther away (due to all the required scrolling through the list of Favorites).
- Battery life is inconsistent, and definitely less than three hours. Mine is plugged in almost always (in order to take advantage of the traffic receiver integrated with the power cord), but there are occasions when I run with it unplugged and I get roughly 2 hours, though sometimes much shorter.
- Voice Command responsiveness hasn't improved with use: sometimes it's fairly accurate, other times I repeat myself often at various voice levels before giving up and reverting to touch screen. A real mixed bag.
- Just try and voice navigate to a nearby Lowe's. Touch screen? No problem. Voice? I've tried a dozen different pronunciation variations of "Lowe's" and it won't find it.
- Traffic has been very good and very bad. A number of times, it has rerouted me into much worse traffic. Generally, though, it's handy. And ETAs are generally very accurate, though it does tend to come up with some funky street routings rather than sticking with the freeway.
My list of "dislikes" / complaints and suggestions has gone in to Garmin's customer service, but based on past communications with this company, I don't expect much. I sincerely believe Garmin put minimal effort into this unit to bring us something economical and slightly slimmer than the previous generation, with valuable but not fully developed features tacked on. I hope I hope I hope Garmin sees fit to address the lack of voice system integration into the base software (rather than added on) via a firmware update. But I'm more inclined Garmin is just coasting along with this unit and not really interested in developing it further. - Garmin - Usb Port'
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