Very nice basic navigation system with a couple extra bells and whistes

Author's Rating:

Pros: Full-featured for a budget model.  Navigation routing works well.  4.3" display is a good size

Cons: Speaker quality is so so, bluetooth works fine but could be better.

The Bottom Line: 
Handheld GPSs have come a long way so that even the budget ones have nice features and performance.  This Garmin is definitely one of those!

Author's Review
First I have to say, as of today (01/05/08) the picture associated with this item on epinions is incorrect.  It shows the 265T, which is pretty much the same thing as the 265WT but not widescreen.  Regrardless, it is still the incorrect picture.
EDIT: (03/23/09) All right!  They finally fixed the picture!

I got this unit for my wife for Christmas a couple weeks ago.  Even though we've never owned a Garmin before, we've had plenty of opportunities to play with Garmin's in the past because several friends and family own one.  Because of this, I was pretty comfortable buying a Garmin for my wife.  I chose this one because it's the highest of the low end models in the current Garmin Nuvi lineup, which means it's the only budget one with Bluetooth (a requirement for us).  And I felt the widescreen of the 265WT was worth the extra $30-$50 over the 265T.  So what does this high-end budget model offer?  Here are some of what I feel are the highlights:

- 4.3" Widescreen display (480x272)
- Voice prompts that read street names
- Bluetooth handsfree for cell phones
- Free traffic updates (with small ads)
- SD slot for updates and picture storage
- View pictures and associate them with custom favorite POIs
- 4 hour battery life (comes with only a car charger)
- Automatic day/night color scheme change based on time of day
- QWERTY or ABC keyboard layout
- World clock, unit converter and calculator features

As you can see, it's a pretty basic unit, no MP3 player, no voice recognition, and no FM transmitter or lineout to connect to your car's stereo.  But the two main features that I feel sets this apart from most other budget models out there are Bluetooth and Traffic updates, more on both later.

Well, I have an Eclipse GPS system in my car so I will be drawing some comparisons between the two, just FYI.  Also, for those of you who don't know, Eclipse GPS systems are pretty much identical to the factory GPS systems Toyota puts in their cars.  This may be a high bar set for this little budget unit, but let me say, it held it's own compared to my Eclipse.  Ok, now onto the real review, how well does it work?


Navigation
This is the main function of this thing right?  To help you get from point a to point b.  Right from the beginning, it locks onto satellites very quickly, except the very first power up after you take it out of the box.  This is due to a feature called HotFix which stores some info about the satellites so next time you turn it on, it can find them more quickly.  Another note about acquiring satellites, this thing can even pinpoint satellites through the roof of some buildings.

Entering destinations is a breeze, press the "Where To" icon on the main screen and you can search by any of the numerous POI categories, or enter an address manually, or even search by intersections.  It also saves 50 recent destinations as well as up to 1000 favorites, which I think is a bit of an overkill.  Afterward, route calculation is plenty fast, at least as fast or faster than my Eclipse.  Cancelling a destination is equally easy, just press menu then the bright red "stop" button.  There is also a detour feature to find a nearby alternate route.  I haven't tried using this yet, but it doesn't sound like it's anything super exciting.  And finally, though you cannot enter multiple destinations and reorder them on the fly, you can add a single middle destination between your current location and your previously entered final destination.  This will first guide you to the middle destination and then eventually to the final destination.

The routes it chose have been accurate, though sometimes different than my Eclipse.  It has not gotten us lost yet.  Even with parallel streets that are close in proximity it does a reasonably good job telling you accurately where you are.  The screen updates very quickly compared to older Garmins I've used, just as fast as my Eclipse.  This makes looking at the map much more pleasant.  If you stray off course, the recalculation of the route is very fast as well.  I never timed it, but it's on the order or seconds.  When it does recalculate though, it always announces it by saying "recalculating" over the speaker.  I find this pretty annoying, it should just continue with directions.  But that's just a small nag because honestly, the voice prompts and speaking of street names is pretty good.  I'm impressed with how far computer vocalization of English words has come, especially in a small package like this.

Just a few more miscellaneous navigation items, you also have the option to display a turn by turn list of directions vs the standard map view.  And as expected, you can see an overall route map of the route currently programmed.  Overall, the navigation features are very comprehensive and accruate.


Display
Like I said, I purposely spent a little more on the widescreen display because I felt it was worth it.  But that's just personal preference.  It's plenty bright for most scenarios.  It also automatically changes daytime color scheme (white background) to night time color scheme (black background) automatically depending on the time of day.  The color schemes are pleasant and functional.  Brightness for day and night mode can be adjusted separately.  The only time I had a very hard time seeing the screen was at sunset with the sun shining directly through the rear window.  It was almost impossible to angle the thing to get a clear view of the maps.  Aside from that, it's been easy to tilt the display to view comfortably.

The maps are well drawn and easy to follow.  You can change the detail level of the maps to display more or less streets at once, there are 4 levels of details.  You can also customize your "current location" icon (default is a little car) and you can even download new ones from the internet.  There are 3 different map display options to choose from, 3D view, which is more like birds eye view, track up, your standard 2D where up is always the direction you're facing, and north up, also 2D but north is always pointing to the top of the screen.  3D will probably be the most popular, but I find 2D track up to be equally if not easier to read.  Perhaps this is because I'm so used to my Eclipse which is all 2D.  Also, the zoom automatically adjusts, according to speed I believe, so when you're on the freeway, it zooms out automatically to show you farther ahead vs when you're travelling slower or approaching a stop, it automatically zooms in to show more details of your immediate surroundings.  This can be nice or annoying depending on how you look at it.

Speaking of zoom, you can temporarily override the auto zoom by pressing the zoom button icons which are both located on the right side of screen.  On the older Garmin UI, the two zoom buttons were placed on opposite sides; I like this new layout better.

When not in route guidance mode (i.e. you don't have a destination entered), the street name you are currently on appears at the top of the screen.  When in route guidance mode, the next turn appears at the top.  Unfortunately, when in route guidance mode, you cannot see the name of the current street you are on... that's very annoying.  Besides that, everything else is pretty standard, menu button, current time/time to destination, and current speed are all there.  For this model, since it has bluetooth and traffic features, there are two optional icon/buttons shown when either are enabled.  Oh and one other bonus, but not necessity, is that it shows the speed limit of the current road you're on.

And finally, you have the option to display various trip information such as max speed, time moving, time stopped, etc... nothing crucial but something fun to display and look at once in a while.


Bluetooth and Speaker quality
The speaker is just so so.  Even at 80% volume, you can hear the unit vibrate and crackle a little bit.  You can understand what is being said, it's just a bit annoying.  Pairing a phone with the Gramin was a breeze.  And once paired, every time you turn the unit on, and your phone is in proximity, it will reconnect automatically.  You can do pretty much everything expected, voice dial, dial a number via the Garmin (either manually entered via virtual dial pad or directly from a POI entry), and it will even automatically sync your phonebook and call list if your phone supports it.  When you do have a phone connected, there is a new Phone icon/button that appears in the main menu screen.  And if you are on a call, there is a phone button that also appears on the map screen.  But how does it sound?  Well given the fact the speaker itself is just so so, don't expect too much.  My wife has held a conversation with me before, her driving and me at home.  You can hear some noise in the background, and I had to tell her to turn down the radio, but at least it worked and I could hear her.  I'm not sure how well it would be in a convertible or with the windows down.  It gets the job done though and is a very convenient feature, especially for those people who live in areas where holding a cell phone is illegal while driving.  Also worth noting, I've seen this unit get into a weird state when I disconnected a phone but it still thinks the phone is connected.  I had to disable and re-enable the Bluetooth on the unit to fix it.  Even with the average audio performance and slight bugs in the system, I'm still glad we got this model for the Bluetooth feature.

Traffic Features
I'm going to have to be up front and just say we haven't used this feature much.  However, with what I know about it, it seems pretty neat and could come in handy.  To enable this feature, you must have the unit plugged into the cigarette lighter because the FM traffic antenna is shared with the same cable as the cigarette lighter power cable.  Not really a big deal I suppose since most of the time you'll have it plugged in while in the car anyway.  When you plug in the FM traffic antenna/power cord, if there is traffic service in the area, you will see an extra little traffic icon/button on the map screen.  After you enter a destination, you can tell it to show any traffic on your route.  And even if you don't have a destination inputted, you can get a list of the traffic conditions of all the major freeways near your current location (assuming the service is available in your area).  The funny thing is, the 1st time I tried to use it, I had the car radio turned to the news station and they were reporting traffic.  The good thing is that the traffic report matched what the Garmin was displaying :)  Best of all, this service is free, but with a catch... random ads can and will be displayed on the unit... but only when you're stopped.  Since I haven't used the traffic feature much, I haven't actually seen one of these pop up ads yet, but from what I hear and read, it's pretty unobtrusive and you have the option to press a link in the ad to display more comprehensive info about the ad.


Battery and Charging
Garmin states you can get about 4 hours on a full charge.  I found this to be very accurate.  The battery meter has 4 bars, and one bar disappears for every hour used :)  The unit charges through a more or less standard mini USB port, it's got the standard mini USB pins but uses them a little differently.  Most people will probably just depend on charging it in the car, but if you need to charge the unit outside of the car, you can just connect it to any 5V USB outlet, on your computer or via an AC/USB adapter to charge it.  The cable provided with the unit is a standard male USB to mini male USB plug.  I had lots of these types of cables around the house from cameras and USB memory readers that I didn't even have to use the one packaged with the Garmin.  One note though, using a regular USB cable will make the Garmin to think it's connected to a computer, even if you're only connected to one of those AC/USB adapters.  Therefore, whenever you charge it with a regular USB cable, the screen will turn on and display a computer icon.  So what do you do if you want to charge it at home without turning the screen on?  You can check out this link: http://freakass.co.cc/2008/10/02/how-to-cara-charge-garmin-nuvi-screen-off-usb-wall/ . Alternatively, you can buy a special AC wall charger from Garmin which will make the unit think it's not plugged into a computer and thus leave the screen off.


Other Miscellaneous Comments
The map that came with mine is for all of North America (US and Canada) and is dated 2009, which in reality means, it's about accurate to 2007.  Except for the most recent road additions/changes, the maps are very accurate, at least for the San Francisco area.  You should not expect up to the minute accuracy.

It only comes with a suction cup for mounting.  You can either stick it to your windshield or a smooth adhesive pad that also comes with it.  I bought a separate custom mount that screws into my wife's car so I didn't have to use the suction cup, I really don't like those.

The unit doesn't have a dock you can just connect it to in the car like some Garmin's have.  To plug it in, you have to reach around back and plug in the mini USB connector each time you bring it in and out of the car.

You can change the mode between Auto, Bicycle, or Pedestrian depending on the type of transporation you'll be on while using the unit.

Plugging the unit into your computer will have it show up as a regular removable drive (I tried in Windows)  Then you can drag your pictures and what not directly onto it.  While plugged in, you can also download a program from Garmin to run to automatically get updates for the unit (again, I only tried in Windows).

The built in calculator can come in handy.  You can use it to calculate your MPG when filling up at a gas station :)  The world clock and unit converter applications are also fun and perhaps very useful if travelling to foreign places.

The built in picture viewer show all the pictures loaded on your SD card and you can play a slide show as well.  Too bad there isn't a video output to connect it to a larger screen.

While viewing the map, you can touch and drag the screen to pan.  Just like google maps and the iphone.  However, the panning is kind of jerky, unlike google maps and the iphone.

Lastly, one of the biggest nags I have is that there is no way to set roads to avoid.  Maybe I'm asking too much for a budget model, but I thought it was a pretty basic feature most GPSs should have.


Conclusion
This gets my thumbs up.  For a budget model, I think it's great.  GPS prices just keep falling and I'm sure within a few months it will be even cheaper.  But even for the price I got it for, $250, I'm extremely satisfied.  I really didn't want those extra features like MP3 player and voice recognition but still wanted Bluetooth.  Even compared to my Eclipse GPS unit in my car, this small unit does quite well.  This unit fit the bill in all the areas I hoped.