A better way to not get lost.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Much better map updating whilst driving. Slimmer, and many more features.

Cons: Map data and built in POIs already out of date!!

The Bottom Line: 
If you're after a GPS that doesn't require constant online updating and is fairly cheap, this is good choice.

Author's Review
I'm on a bit of roll recently, with various new toys.

The trusty old Garmin i3 is still working, but has suffered somewhat at the hands of her indoors. The battery cover has been damaged and doesn't stay in place properly. Anyway, that is besides the point isn't it? 

My wife bought me a replacement, a Garmin Nuvi 255.

First things first, the picture that the Epinions uses to illustrate the Muvi 255 is wrong. What is illustrated looks more like the 255W, which is a wide screen unit. The 255 is a 4:3 aspect ratio unit.

To compare it to the i3... well for a start the screen looks considerably larger, with an increase in screen size from 5.4cm to 8.9cm. The 255 is also only just about 2cm thick, whereas the i3 is quite deep.

The i3 and 255 use the same sized ball mount, however unlike the i3 the socket the ball clips into is separate from the 255. The ball socket for the 255 is a clip that clips to the back of the 255. It is designed to make the 255 easier to remove from the vehicle mount, and also allows the 255 to be thinner and to have a completely smooth back, so it can be pocketed I guess. The two main problems I have with this approach:

(1) The ball socket clip could be easily broken by someone not familiar with how it is fitted and removed.

(2) It doesn't save you from having to remove the ball mount from view. Leaving a ball mount in view in a vehicle has lead to thieves breaking windows to see if the GPS has been stowed in the glove box. 

The 255 does feel substantially better made than the i3. The body and fittings of the i3 feel strong enough, but over the years the buttons on the front have become wobbly and look about due to fall out, and as I have mentioned already the battery cover is damaged, and possible it could be argued too easily damaged. The 255 by having no buttons or knobs, except for the power/lock switch has removed the button weakness. The remaining switch is a proper good quality slide switch. Also with a rechargeable battery built in, there is no battery cover to worry about.

With no buttons to speak of, the 255 uses a touch screen for input. This makes it far simpler and quicker to enter details that the click-roller of the i3. I do wish the on-screen keyboard had a switchable mode, because I am used to finding letters on a keyboard in QWERTY layout, having an ABCDEF layout is quite simply irritating. I can understand some people may find it better, but give me a QWERTY keyboard anytime.

One thing that can be done with the 255 that is not possible with the i3 is to browsed the map. In 2D map mode, you can drag the map around with your finger. It is even possible to find and select destinations this way. This is actually quite useful, as often I know some local detail of a destination, but perhaps not street names. I can however work it out by browsing the map.

The processor inside the 255 must be in a different league to the i3. The i3 was good when I bought it, because it worked and it was cheap. This 255 actually cost about the same, but does everything a lot more quickly. Calculating routes (or recalculating when I take a wrong turn) is often almost instantaneous. The annoying thing about the i3 was that if a turn was missed, it would take so long to calculate a new route that often you had already gone past the recalculated next turn, by the time it had completed its calculations. The only way to stop this was to stop and allow it time to catch up. Depending on what type of road you are on this is not always possible. The 255 is so quick I haven't seen this happen yet, except where alternative turns are so close together, that even a split second recalculation is not quick enough. 

The map movement on the 255 is much smoother than the i3. The i3 had a tendency to get left behind. Driving in London could be difficult for instance, because the complexity of the streets surrounding the route you were driving would slow down the screen update rate so much sometimes, it almost stopped. I have seen no such problem with the 255 so far. It seems to keep up very well with the actual position of the car as I drive along.

Whilst following directions the map screen has significant extras, over the i3. For one the GPS calculated vehicle speed is always visible. On the i3 the speed is only shown when no route has been calculated. Touching the speed readout on the 255, changes the screen to a sort of dashboard display, showing the speed, direction (N, NE, E, SE, S, etc.) and various trip meters, and distance to destination. The only issue I have with the dashboard display is that speed camera warnings are given as a pop-up box which covers the whole dashboard, had to be cleared by touching an OK button. Why a smaller banner that times out on its own couldn't have been used I don't know. It is particularly annoying in areas where there are lots of cameras, as the box seems to reappear almost as soon as it's  cleared.

The other useful addition is a small speed limit roundel that appears above the speed readout. This being a small red bordered, white circle with the speed limit for the current location in black. Sometimes it is not there, and I haven't worked out what determines whether it is shown or not, but probably when you are at, or over the current limit! Ooops!

The voice directions are loud enough and clear enough, although I'm not sure it is as loud as the i3. The 255 doesn't do full street names, but I'm not all the bothered about that. Turn left or right in so many yards is as much as I need to know, and with the map updating much more swiftly a quick glance to confirm is useful too. 

Unlike the i3 the 255 has a pedestrian mode, which is useful when you are on foot. The built in battery has ample usable time when used this way too, but if it does run flat, you will not have the option of sticking a couple of dry cells in to get it going again. Of course as it is powered using a microUSB port, it should easy to find an external pack to give it a boost if needed, using something like a Power Monkey.

I haven't had a chance to try it in Europe yet. I tried to use the i3 in a couple of European countries in the past, but although it was supposed to have some map coverage for Europe, it never seemed to have enough detail. Getting from city to city was fine, but once in a city in invariably ran out of information. The 255 is supposed to have full coverage, and browsing the map and zooming in, it is clear there is much more information there, as much as I would be able to see zooming into the streets of London. So I look forward to having chance to try this one in Europe.

As well as 2009 maps for UK, Ireland and Europe the 255 came with a preloaded database of Points-of-Interest (POIs). These are restaurants, landmarks like that, but also 'safety' cameras. These I hope are editable as the location and numbers of safety cameras is notoriously variable. There is also a function called "Where Am I?" which gives you a Lat-Long report of your position. The nearest postal address, nearest junction and then a set of four buttons, which are:

(1) Hospitals
(2) Police Stations
(3) Fuel
(4) Roadside Assist

I imagine the names of these buttons may vary from country to country, not least of all because of language. This feature is a little disappointing because my first test of it listed a petrol station nearest my home, which hasn't existed for at least six years!! This leads me to be a little doubtful of the reliability of the information this function will provide when it is needed most. A query to Garmin lead to the response that these particular POIs are built into the map data, and are NOT editable. I would have liked at least the possibility to instruct the unit to ignore entries I know to be wrong. I also know the latest 2009 map data to contain information about temporary road closures which are no-longer in place, so there is at least one junction within five miles of my home, where the 255 will divert me a couple of miles around a left turn it thinks isn't available. I understand that the maps are not produced by Garmin, but it is their name on the box. Other GPS suppliers are beginning to provide incremental, map updates and methods whereby users can make map alterations, but not Garmin, at least not that I'm aware of, and definitely not on the 255. That being said, the i3 was up-datable in this way either, and it has served me well for many years, and get that sort of feature probably costs a good deal more money.

There are plenty more features that I could try and describe but I am unlikely to actually use, like photo viewer, and a function whereby you can build photo tour guides into the 255.

However, I think that is enough for the time being.