Garmin Quest Portable GPS Unit -- Great!

What makes the Quest worth writing about is that it really works; it does what you expect it to do and more. And the great software and well designed hardware package is combined into a tool/gadget/instrument (take your pick) that is truly practical and easy to use.

I've dreamed of having a gadget like this since I saw my first James Bond films in the 1960's. Now, thanks to Garmin, I've finally got one: The Quest. My first experience with GPS was with the Magellen NeverLost which Hertz uses in some of their rental cars. That unit worked very well and it was only the $1,500 or so cost which kept me from immediately buying one. But after using the Quest for over a week, I found that I've got all the features of the more expensive unit but at a much lower cost (Suggested retail is: $643. I paid $520).

If you've never used a full-featured GPS unit while driving, you're in for a truly amazing experience. The Quest will not only provide very clear graphic maps showing where you are and where you are going but it will also give you loud-and-clear audio directions as you drive. Once you enter your desired destination (an address, intersection, city, or place like an airport, city hall, amusement park, etc), the Quest will quickly determine the route to get you there. With the Quest installed in a car and powered by the cigarette lighter outlet, the "turn-by-turn" audio feature is activated and you will have a visual picture of where you are as the Quest talks to you with clear directions: "Prepare for right turn in 300 feet." Then just when you arrive at the intersection, the Quest will say, "Turn left." Then it will tell you, "Next turn in three miles. Keep right." It is like having some competent person sitting next to you reading a map and giving you constant instructions. At any time you can push a button and the voice will give you an update announcement on the distance to the next turn. And while you drive, the name of the next intersecting street is automatically displayed.

But there's more . . .

Not only does the Quest give you great maps and verbal instructions, the memory is filled with what I call "Yellow Pages" data. Need to find the nearest gas station? Wonder where the nearest Starbucks is? The nearest hospital? Would you like to know what Thai or Mexican or Italian or whatever restaurants are around here? Interested in the local attractions like zoo's and amusement parks? How about shopping . . . want a list of the nearest grocery stores, department stores, computer stores? Yes, all of this data is quickly available in your little Quest. And not only is the store name shown but the address, too, -- and it will show how far away it is. But who cares about an address when the Quest will allow you to simply select the location you want it will show you how to get there!

The screen is very bright and visible -- even in sunlight. When operating on internal battery power, the screen will dim after a few seconds. You can restore it to full brightness with a button push.

Some great features of the Quest are:

I Wanna Go Home -- After you define your "Home" location, you can -- no matter where you are -- simply hold down the "Find" button for two seconds and the Quest will guide you back home.

Where Am I? -- If you hold down the "Okay" button, it will show where you are on a map and display the names of the streets at the nearest intersection.

Multiple Stop Router -- You can enter several address locations and Quest will compute a route to get to all of them in the shortest distance.

Because of the Quest's small size, you can easily take it with you. It does actually fit in a shirt pocket and the internal rechargeable battery is (they say) good for about 20 hours of use. I took the Quest with me while I did my every-other-day one hour walk and I was very entertained being able to constantly track the distance I had traveled, my location, my walking speed, and my elevation above sea level as I neared the San Francisco Bay (among much other data.)

Is it accurate? Yes. As you drive, you can readily check the display and I could see that each time I crossed an intersection or went under an overpass, the triangle marker on the screen was right where it should be on the map. The only inaccuracy I found was in some of the "Yellow Pages" data. Some of the businesses it listed in my area no longer existed. It seems as if some of that data is a year or so old.

Perhaps the only limitation of the Quest is the relatively small memory (115 megs) which will not be a problem for most people. The memory is only used to store the mapping and "Yellow Pages" data for the areas you are in. While the Quest comes with complete maps of the U.S.A. (on a CD), the memory will not allow you to download the entire country; you have to decide which areas you want to use. I was able to download almost the entire state of California and since I'm going to be traveling to the mid-West, I found that I could easily "trade" some far away areas of California for coverage of a large city area in another state. The "MapSource City Select" software easily installed on my laptop and by clicking on the desired areas of the country, you can select the maps you want downloaded to your unit (thru a USB cable).

The Quest comes with an AC charger and with a very clever and useful suction cup mount for automobile use. I was initially concerned that I would have a difficult time reading the small display while driving but I found I could stick the mount on the upper left of my windshield and have the display screen only a few inches from my face -- and inline with my view of the road. Unlike the Hertz NeverLost system, I didn't have to move my eyes down and away from the road ahead to see the screen. I like it much better this way. It's almost like a "heads-up" display. One small problem is that I have to find a way to route the power cable so it doesn't flap around the steering column. I was pleased that they did provide a very long cable to reach from the car's power outlet to wherever you're mounting the Quest.

The car mount does allow the unit to be easily snapped in and out. This makes it easy to take the Quest with you when you park (left in the mount, it sure is a highly visible and tempting target for thieves). I've also ordered another car mount so we can switch it between cars ($99 retail / I paid $60.)

Is the Quest a better choice than an installed car GPS system? I'm not really sure but here are some points: If you want a GPS unit you can use both while you walk and in a car, the Quest is great. And you can easily take the Quest with you when you travel or when you (or a family member) uses a different car. The installed GPS systems will likely have all the maps for the country (world?) already present (on a DVD) and the screen will be larger than the Quest's. While I'm not knowledgeable enough about all the car GPS systems, I have noted that most of the display screens are in the dash which require your eyes to leave the roadview. If you mount the Quest right, you won't have to do that.

In the future, the very near future, we'll all have GPS systems in our cars, our cell phones and our watches. You'll be telling your kids how tough life was before GPS. But as far as I'm concerned, thanks to the Quest, the future is here now.