First Impressions, December 2006
This is my latest navigational hardware (aka toy) for work (and a little play). I’ve used a handheld eTrex Vista and a Quest in the car. My comments will be a little biased due to the features I have (and love) on the Quest.

Right off the bat, let me point out that I love the “functionality” of the Quest. I like the fact that I can change all of the display information on any of the screens to whatever I feel like seeing (like altitude, arrival time, next turn time, etc).

To be fair, I did NOT pay money for this NUVI, I used points from a hotel program. So my “disappointments” will be tempered by the fact that I don’t feel the loss of value (see the negative section) as much as if I had paid $$$ for it.

Positives:

• The NUVI is VERY fast, with an impressive display. I like the fact that I don’t have to “download” the maps for the states I’m traveling to all the time. The old Quest only held about 3 or 4 “regions” at once, so when I’m on the road, I was constantly loading new map sets. All that loading is now a thing of the past.
• Although I didn’t get the Nuvi for this feature, I love the fact that it connects to my phone via BlueTooth. In fact, the unit kinda surprised me one day, as on day one I had set up the BlueTooth integration to my RAZR and forgot all about it. Then, a couple days later, the phone rang through the NUVI. It took me a minute to figure out what was actually ringing. I was easily able to answer it by simply touching the screen. I was pleased with the quality of the connection and sound, and disconnecting was very simple as well.
• The POI database is quite accurate, containing even small “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants that locals have recommended to me. I like the “detour” functionality, but a couple times when I was experimenting to see what it would do, it recommended the exact same route that I was already on. Maybe I’m not using it correctly.
• Although it’s “removed functionality” from the Quest, I don’t miss the fact that “Routing” has been removed at all. I never used that on the Quest, as to me it’s more important to get from “where I am” to “where I want to go” rather than follow a fixed route.

Negatives:

• I’m quite disappointed that there is no track history or altitude readings on the NUVI. This shouldn’t be that hard to add to the firmware, but I get no response from support other than “we don’t support that on the NUVI”. Given the HUGE screensize, there’s more than enough screen real estate to stack additional information on the left and right sides of the display (if desired).
• The NUVI coesn’t come with physical copy of the software on the unit. Garmin’s attitude is “the data’s on the unit, why would you need a copy on your PC?”. As a geek, I have backups of EVERYTHING. But apparently I can’t get backups of the software on the NUVI…. After all, a CD has to cost all of a few pennies to produce, and for a machine that costs what this does, to make that decision really reflects poorly on Garmin. I’m still fighting with Garmin over a copy of this software, and will update this “review” when we get to a final resolution. [ED NOTE]: Garmin finally did send me the CD for City Select with the warning that it is incompatible with the Quest, so I’ll have to figure out a way to install both City Select 6 and City Select 8 at over a Gigabyte of code each to support both devices. I think that’s a HORRIBLE design decision. Garmin’s got to know that many of us could have more than one unit and a single software installation should work for all of them.

General Comments:

• Waypoint Grouping: This isn’t an issue with the NUVI (actually MapQuest City Select), but with all GPS programs I’ve seen so far. I’d like to create my own “groupings” under Favorites, so I could put all my friends addresses in one folder, vacation spots and waypoints in another folder, work addresses in a third, etc. In other words, I’d like to be able to store my “Favorites” in a hierarchical set of folders. Given the GUI interface of the NUVI, I don’t think this should be too difficult to code.
• I equate the MP3 functionality in the NUVI to camera functionality on a cell phone. Additional technology that really isn’t needed, just to have a selling point. I have an iPod already. I’d rather see the code used to support MP3s used to add additional MAPPING functionality (like tracking, profiles, altitude, etc). I already have an MP3 Player…
• FM Transmitter. I like the idea of being able to have the NUVI transmit instructions via FM, but I would like to see it do this over a station I’m listening to. In other words, let me rock out to FM 98.3, but stomp on the signal locally when it’s time to turn. That way, I could have the NUVI override the tunes when it’s time to turn.

All in all, I’m happy with the unit, although I feel it is a step backwards in the ability to configure it. But that’s just me being a geek… Give me the ability to configure what is on the display (like the Quest), and put back tracklogs. Hopefully this can be done with a Firmware upgrade….

Categories: Hardware