Home, Jeeves

Sometimes I am capable of the most breathtaking hypocrisy, which stuns even me with its magnitude. I scoffed and scoffed at the ubiquity of Garmins, mocked them as overpriced toys for people too lazy to use Mapquest, and figured that with this, as with so many technological things, I’d be at the very tail of the consumer curve, marginally ahead of the Amish. And then... I actually tried the Garmin. And instantly decided that I MUST HAVE ONE. And not just a cheapo reconditioned model, but a big, fancy, giant-screen one! I might be a little embarrassed, if I weren’t so thrilled with it.

Oh, sure, I had my reasons. Seattle is a big place with crazy streets, and almost two years after moving here, I still have only the vaguest grasp on its geography, and was tired of getting lost or being forced to take super-long detours using the few major streets and highways I know. Plus, I frequently have out-of-town guests who wish to be shown the sights, and I need to look like I know where I’m going, especially when the itinerary changes in mid-trip (as it often does with guests), or the ever-popular, “What’s the best pizza/sushi/Thai place near here?” question at mealtime. The Garmin, I figured, would help me fake it and look like the suave, well-informed big-city gal I aspire to be. And it would be safer than propping up a sheaf of Mapquest printouts on my dash and trying to read them with one eyeball while steering and watching the road. See, it’s not about indulging my gadget whims… it’s about safety.

After comparing the various models and their prices, I decided to go with the Nuvi 650. The Nuvi is designed for both automotive and street use – it’s easily detachable and fairly compact, so you can put it in your bag and carry it around as you walk (making it good for on-foot travel, too). It also has text-to-speech, meaning that it pronounces the names of the streets as you go, rather than just saying, “Turn left.” For me, this was an essential feature, allowing me to listen to directions and keep my eyes on the road if need be. It’s currently about mid-range in the Nuvi line – not the cheapest unit, but far from the most expensive and fancy model – but the price was what I was willing to pay, and actually cheaper than I’d anticipated at $249.

When you open the box, you’ll see your thoughtfully pre-charged Nuvi 650, a suction cup mount, a cigarette-lighter charger cable, a USB cable, and a mini-instruction manual (the full version is online and can be downloaded as a PDF). This is all you really need to get started, as they’ve made it extremely user-friendly and intuitive. The unit measures 4.9 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches and weighs 6.2 ounces, so it’s pretty light and compact. The large 4.3” backlit widescreen is bright and colorful in daytime or at night, and is easy to see at a glance while you’re driving. Anyone who’s at all familiar with consumer electronics gadgets won’t be intimidated or confused by the friendly, colorful, step-by-step directions. It’s so easy, even old people can use it!

When you turn on your Garmin, it will show you a terms of service agreement that you must accept before it will allow you to proceed. It has a smart built-in safety feature that doesn’t allow you to operate it while the car is in motion, so you’ll have to set your route before you start driving, or pull over to make any changes to your route. It takes a few seconds (usually about 30 seconds) to locate you using the satellites, so you’ll have to wait for it to find you and draw its map, although this is pretty fast. You can either manually enter your destination using a touchscreen keyboard (not QWERTY, alas), choose it from the saved Favorites list, or browse by category (food, shopping, attractions, etc.). For example, to find the nearest Target store, I chose “Shopping,” then “General Merchandise,” then typed in “Target” and it popped up a list of results by distance.

Once you choose your destination, the display will show you a map and your first directions. The default is a 3-D display showing a little car, which is you; you can alternate to a flat 2-D map and even customize your little car icon. You can zoom in or out on the map, and it shows the approximate time of arrival and the distance to your next action. Your route shows up as a thick purple line, and the map scrolls along with you as you go. Your next instruction shows up across the top in a green header, and the Garmin will also voice-prompt you. There are several different voices to choose from – male and female, with several accents – and I currently have the American female voice selected, which I find pleasantly neutral. You can choose how many times it warns you of, say, an upcoming turn before the actual turn, but I don’t mind multiple warnings, especially in an unfamiliar city. If you miss a turn or otherwise deviate from the route, the Garmin says “Recalculating” and then presents you with a modified route, without judgment or yelling (unlike a human navigator). Once you reach your destination, which is depicted as a black-and-white checkered flag, the Garmin tells you you’ve arrived and then prepares to turn itself off automatically unless you opt to keep it on. It also automatically turns itself off when your car turns off, if you’ve got it hooked up to the battery via the cigarette lighter.

When using my friend’s 260, I found the voice prompts to be loud and clearly audible over the music I was playing. However, my 650 is much quieter, even on 100% volume, and I can’t really hear its voice prompts if I have the windows down and/or music blasting. This works okay for me, as I just glance over periodically to read the directions, and if I were in the car with guests I wouldn’t have the music playing loudly – but I do wish the volume went higher. Evidently you can buy an accessory (like iTrip) that connects to your car stereo and transmits the voice prompts over your stereo system while music is playing, but I don’t have a cassette deck to make this happen (and would be annoyed at having to pay more money for an extra accessory just to be able to hear it, which should be a basic function).

The 650 has some extra gizmos and gadgets which are kind of neat, though I don’t anticipate that I’ll be using them much. There’s a currency converter, a foreign-language translator (my Garmin is peculiarly fond of uttering “able seaman”), an MP3 player, a JPG viewer, and an audiobook player, which requires an Audible.com membership. You can opt to purchase other extras like the FM traffic receiver, which allows the GPS unit to get traffic and accident update reports and reroute you accordingly, or extra maps of geographic areas (the 650 comes loaded with the North America map, but if I were to take this to Europe I’d have to buy the Europe map). The 650 does NOT include a carrying case, which I find chintzy and annoying in the extreme – though considering the lameness of Garmin’s official leather case, it wouldn’t have been much of a benefit anyway. It also does not have Bluetooth, if that matters to you (it doesn’t to me).

I paid $249 for my Nuvi 650 online, which was a significant discount from the list price of $749. I feel that it was a good value for the price, and I think I’ll get a lot of use out of it while learning to navigate around my own city as well as being an invaluable travel aid, both on foot and in the car. No, it’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement on my own efforts to find my way around.