Liberty's Blog

Review Garmen Nuvi 360

I tend to travel quite a bit, in last 6 months I've been to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Austin a couple of times, Jay Florida, Biloxi and all over Texas. Sometimes I fly but even then there is usually driving involved to get to the final destination. There have been a couple of incidents that convinced me I should get a new fangled GPS navigation system. The last straw was circling around in Austin trying to get to my Hotel at midnight.
I decided on the Garmen Nüvi 360 It has a larger screen at 2.8"W x 2.1"H; 3.5" diagonal and it has Bluetooth. This would allow me to retire the Bluetooth earpiece that I've been using.

The screen is bright and easy to see in the brightest daylight. I had intended to mount it on a center platform on my dash. But mounting the suction cup holder proved to be impractical. Fortunately it mounts quite well on both my Dodge Nitro and Equality's Accord. Ive noticed that people tend to mount these things in the middle of the windshield. I mount it on both cars low and on drivers side so that it in effect becomes part of my dashboard instrumentation. The mount for the Nuvi is somewhat ingenious. Navigator pops out pretty easily to remove the temptation for potential thieves. The power from the Cigarette lighter adapter is routed through mount although it could be charged directly into the Nuvi.

I was a bit concerned whether the navigator would be more of a distraction than it would be of help. Once i got used to it being there it was just another console instrument much like the tachometer or speedometer. In fact I often use its speedometer/odometer function because it can be a little more useful. While traveling unfamiliar roads it the 3D maps serve as a look ahead and provides one with that extra bit of useful information. The audible warning to turn off a semi familiar road serves as a nice reminder. And knowing how long until the nest turnoff is only helps ones concentration on driving.

I guess all GPS navigation systems will tell you how to get to where you are going. I paid $450 for my Nuvi 360 because it had some extra features. It works well with my Motorola Razr cell phone. The phone book is downloaded to the Nuvi. I can call up and dial through the Nuvi, talk hands free though bluetooth .and never touch the phone. I don't believe I can make voice commands through the phone but its still easier and less distracting to dial out using the bluetooth wireless functions of the Nuvi than it is to use the phones dial-up. The Bluetooth functions are excellent and have allowed me to retire the blootooth earpiece I was previously using. The Bluetooth functions alone make the 360 worth the extra money.

The Big screen. The screen is a little bigger than most of the units I've seen. It detaches from the mount and slides into a shirt pocket nicely.

I think most new units today come with WAAS accuracy up to 10 feet. The WAAS was disabled by default, to preserve the battery I presume. I turned it on. What surprised me is that the unit had no problem locking on to satellites even inside my home. I don't think I'me gonna have a lot of problems with trees blocking the way.

MP3 player with SD disk is nice concidering the tiny speakers the Nuvi sounds remakably good. I want to get a patch cord though so I can wire it directly into car radio.

As they used to say, "Don't leave home without it!"

Labels: Tech

posted by Liberty @ 7:32 PM