Garmin Nuvi 360 Pocket Vehicle GPS Navigator and Personal Travel Assistant

1. Posted: Aug 2 2008

   This is the first GPS I have used, and the product lived up to the reviews. I had read that the units were being shipped with the 2009 maps installed, but this was not the case, however the update was free at the Garmin website after registering the unit. Be warned though, even with a high speed connection the update does take several hours to complete. Also, Amazon recommends a couple of products that you dont need to purchase seperatly. They recommend buying the auto charging cord, and a carrying case, both of these things came with the unit in the box.

2. Posted: Aug 2 2008

   My last GPS (Garmin street pilot) was stolen so I bought the nuvi 360. It works great. It finds satelites much quicker. I don't use the bluetooth often but that also seems to work well. I recommend this GPS.

3. Posted: Aug 1 2008

   I figured I was getting a good product, but I never expected to be so surprised at how REALLY good this one is. It's very easy to use, and the screen is plenty bright to be seen even in the sun. It's about the size of a pack of cards, making it very easy to travel with - you don't feel like you're lugging it along with you, it just tucks away. We took this on a trip from Central Illinois to Kentucky, including several stops and detours along the way. The directions were very good, and in the one instance where a road no longer went through when Garmin thought it did, the device recalculated the correct route in seconds. It was equally good when we hit a detour on the way back home. I pressed the Detour button, and immediately had a new, very efficient route that only added three minutes to the total estimated time. The Points of Interest feature works well. It helped us find several restaurants and parks that we wouldn't have known about otherwise. It obviously doesn't know about *everything*, but it is still very helpful. When searching for POI's, you can look for locations near where you are at the time, along your route, near your destination, or near a different city. The POI's are also very nicely categorized so you can quickly find exactly what you're after. You can store locations in a "Favorites" list. These and other locations (such as but not limited to the POI's) can be inserted as "waypoints" on the way to your main destination, which is a nice feature. The most helpful feature is how much time the device gives you to make your next turn. You get about a mile on the Interstate, which is generally plenty of time even in heavy traffic. Unfortunately this time is cut down when you're driving in town, and sometimes you don't get enough notice to make the turn on time. However, the device compensates for this somewhat by giving directions such as "In .3 miles turn right on Main Street, then turn left." In that case you at least know what you're going to have to do next and can be ready to do it quickly if you need to. I also like that it tells you which side of the interstate your exit will be on. It will even tell you when you need to "keep left" or "keep right," so often you don't even need to watch the highway signs. The text-to-speech feature works well and provides audible directions that are loud enough to hear easily even over an older vehicle that has a lot of road and wind noise. Accuracy on the open road is usually about 9 or 10 feet, which is shorter than most cars and therefore plenty good. The device will tell you what time you can expect to reach your destination, which is very accurate. It tallies the amount of time you've spent driving and the time you've spent stopped. It also tells your current speed, your average moving speed, and your overall average speed including time stopped. As far as the "extra" features go, the MP3 player is remarkably full-featured (browse by album, artist, etc.) and easy to use. The speaker isn't really good enough to get great sound, but it's nice if there's nothing good on the radio. The bluetooth feature is also pretty good, although not outstanding. I can hear callers well, and they can hear and understand me okay, but they do hear some background noise. (I don't know how you'd avoid that in a moving car.) There are a couple features that I'm not sure are mentioned in the owner's manual that are worth pointing out: 1.) From the menu screen, you can tap the GPS signal strength icon for a report of current positioning accuracy 2.) While traveling to a destination, you can tap the "Turn In..." icon at the lower right to have the next turn read to you, or to scroll through the rest of the directions for the trip with a map and mileage and time estimates for each step. 3.) You can get a short list of remaining turns by tapping the green bar at the top of the map that displays the current information. 4.) Tap the "Estimated Time" button in the lower left to pull up your current speed, average speed, distance driven, etc. I am highly satisfied with this unit. I can't imagine going back to traveling without it. This makes trips so easy.

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