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Garmin Nuvi 255 Satellite Navigation System with Full EU Mapping | 
| Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: £119.99
Buy New: £93.40
as of 19/3/2010 02:33 CDT details
You Save: £26.59 (22%)
New (10) from £93.40
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 255
Media: Electronics
Batteries: 1
Batteries Included: No
System Memory: 1024
Memory Type: 72-Pin EDO SIMM Memory
Display Size: 3.5
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 6.5 x 3.3
MPN: 010-00717-21
Model: 010-00717-21
UPC: 753759077419
EAN: 0753759077419
ASIN: B00151USEQ
Release Date: May 16, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | With its 3.5" touch screen and huge collectionof detailed maps, the Garmin nüvi 255 sat nav for Europe is the ideal travel companion. The nüvi 255 has a rich and vast points-of-interest database tohelp turn any journey into an adventure with loads of things to see and doalong the way. This GPS even features a photo navigation function - just go tothe Garmin website for access to millions of photos of locations available onGoogle Panoramio. This Garmin sat nav has an ecoRoute mode to help you | | • | save fuel, and thebuilt-in speed-camera database will help you keep an eye on your speed. The Garmin nüvi 255 is an easy-to-use sat nav for Europe that will help take some of the stress out ofdriving. NüMaps guarantee: your device will be updated for free if a more recent mapis available within the 60 days following the date you first use your GPS (1stGPS fix). Connection to the Garmin website required. | | • | GARMIN nüvi 255 - Sat Nav for Europe |
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great in UK, but just OK in Spain October 20, 2008
Sarah (Cornwall, UK)
130 out of 131 found this review helpful
I bought a Garmin Nuvi 255 after hours, days and weeks of reading reviews and comparing features! I wanted it for our first trip to Spain, where we would be hiring a car. There seemed to be many places it did not recognise and, at times, it was very frustrating when it kept leading us round the same route, telling us to go down a one way street the wrong way, when we were trying to get it to direct us to a car park. Another time, it lead us off the beaten track, down a dusty lane way out in the sticks, telling us to turn down another lane that didn't exist and may have never existed(!) and we eventually had to stop and turn around and go back on ourselves. That said, it was also very helpful on many occassions and did take a lot of stress out of the driving. It is also helpful for telling you when a speed camera is about and what speed you are supposed to be driving at. Sometimes it can be a bit confusing as to what actual turning you should take, when there are two near each other, and it is not clear until you have driven past it! Overall, I would recommend the 255, for the money, it is very good, but I would get a better, newer model if money wasn't an issue.
Worthwhile despite some irritations September 23, 2008
Stuart Cormie (Dorset, England)
322 out of 326 found this review helpful
This is my first Satnav, bought primarily for a Continental road trip earlier this year to get us to specific locations in unfamiliar towns - eg, pre-booked hotels en route in France and Spain, and then our accommodation at our final destination on the Costa Blanca. The Garmin met my expectations in this respect, so I'm happy to recommend it for this kind of use. It does have some irritating foibles, though ... but first the good bits:
PROS:
* The mapping seems to be comprehensive and accurate. Our villa in the middle of a maze of obscure roads and cul-de-sacs on a far-flung hillside was located as easily as the hotel we'd booked for an overnight stop in the middle of the Barcelona sprawl.
* The audio cues are timely and meaningful. The visual cues - once I'd learnt to read them properly - work well too.
* The graphical display updates at an acceptable rate, and there's fast route recalculation if a turn is missed or a deliberate detour made.
* The unit is small enough (just) to be carried in a pocket (there are options for navigation on foot or by bike) but its screen is still big enough for in-car use.
* The car window mount is impressively engineered. It clings solidly to the window and holds the unit rigidly in place even with vigorous tapping on the unit's screen.
* The 'Points of Interest' feature is genuinely handy. Arriving late on in the day and tired at a town in south-west France, it quickly found us an Italian restaurant (the only kind our weary group could collectively agree to eat at!) a 5-minute drive from the hotel.
CONS:
* The average speeds the unit uses for non-motorway roads are too high. It persistently under-estimates journey times involving urban travel by between 20 and 25%. This can mean it will attempt to route you via urban areas when common sense dictates otherwise, and if you need to be somewhere by a specific time, you can't rely on the unit's calculated ETA. [See the later comment I added about this.]
* If you have no house number for your destination (as many hotels don't), you can only specify the street instead. Picking out a location on-screen is possible as an alternative, but the precision is limited.
* The maps are described as '2008' edition, but they actually date from August 2007! Naughty.... At least one new motorway section in Spain we travelled on wasn't in the mapping.
* There's no USB cable in the box (nor a case for that matter), and this is just irritating. Guidance about hooking up to a PC in the product documentation and at the Garmin website is poor but was eventually achieved.
For me, the 255's positives outweight its negatives in practice, and having developed work-rounds for the negatives, I'm happy to continue using this product.
 Very good July 1, 2009
Artsreadings (Edinburgh, UK)
41 out of 41 found this review helpful
Used it in various circumstances during getaway week-ends.
This product is excellent to plan the route with a final point of arrival and intermediate points of interest. Planning with postcodes is possible.
Vocal indications at crossings and direction changes are very accurate and timely. The details on screen are very easily readable.
There are avoidance options according to the kind of trip you're embarking on: offroad, motorways, tolls.
At any point, it is possible to deviate from the original route to find a petrol station, for instance, out of the list of the nearest spots available in the area. This is extremely convenient, for instance to avoid the extortionate prices of fuel on motorways.
It does indeed underestimate consistently the time a route will take because it assumes the car always run at the speed limit whereas this is rather not the case in real. In any case, the estimated time of arrival is updated at all time according to the speed of the car, which is monitored by the gps, and appears on screen.
The box comes without a USB cable, just with the car cable. Look up the cables you already have at home as the satnav uses a usb cable with the other end similar with the format used by the videa output of digital cameras, so might be no need to buy this cable on top.
Great bit of kit, but no street names! June 9, 2008
SimonD (Norfolk UK)
94 out of 96 found this review helpful
My first sat nav and I spent hours trying to decide which to get and eventually decided on the 255. Reviews have not been good regards the traffic system regardless of manufacturer so I didn't go for that but I was keen to get street names called. The UK version of this unit does NOT give street names on it's turn by turn directions although the US version does. A call to Garmin confirmed this although they did say I could return the unit. The only problem is to get what I want from a Garmin means spending upwards of £220 and thats just to much. The rest of the unit is just brilliant, it locks on fast, will reroute in a second or two and has thousands of points of interest, which you can add to. You can mark your own locations on the map and I am delighted overall. My conclusion is it's a great unit, it's fast and very easy to use, but if you want street names called go elsewhere as you will be a tad miffed as I was. BTW I will keep the unit as I believe it is better than comparable TomTom with superior mapping just feel let down after all the anticipation.
Garmin Nuvi 255 - Great Value for Money and Simple to Use November 9, 2009
T. Mills (Wiltshire, UK)
50 out of 51 found this review helpful
After my TomTom was accidentally destroyed I spent some time reviewing all the available options to replace it. It soon became apparent, from the multitude of reviews available on the Internet, that a Garmin would be a better choice apparently because the maps are more accurate and the prices better. The plethora of models was daunting and it took some time to be able to understand the differences between them all but limiting my budget and adding a few requirements, such as including a European map, soon narrowed my choices. I eventually chose the Garmin Nuvi 255 which seemed to meet all my specifications.
I chose a non-widescreen model as I couldn't see the advantage of being able to see more of what is either side of the road I am on - a tall thin one might have been better to see more of what is coming! The smaller one also fits more easily in my pocket. I am not disapointed by this choice; the screen is large enough and easily visible / readable in the car. I think that if I had bought a model with lane-assist a widescreen would be useful but for the functionality in the 255 it is not necessary.
The Garmin has a different Graphical User Interface than the TomTom with less menu options which at first seemed a down-side but with time has not proved to be so; in fact it has proved to be intuitive and very easy to use indeed (I haven't needed to refer to the manual at all but then I am a man at it's agianst my pride to do so. . .). The driving interface has less information visible than the TomTom which again seemed a down-side but it actually shows you what you really need and one touch of the screen brings up a very comprehenisve and well designed screen with all your trip details and historical information. Storing favourites etc is very easy and entering destinations is simple with full postcode search etc. It automatically changes to night colours in the evening which have less glare but are still clear. Warnings of speed cameras coming up - both fixed and of historical mobile sites - are clear and timely and appear to be accurate.
The GPS performance of the Garmin 255 is excellent and much faster than my TomTom although that was a relatively old model so it is unfair to compare them. After its first (one time only) calibration - which can take a few minutes - it picks up a satellite signal within seconds of being turned on. Route calculation is fast and recalculation, when I don't do what it tells me, is very quick. The software seems responsive and gives plenty of warning of directions. The female voice is clear, although rather boring, and there is plenty of volume if required. Battery life seems fine although so far I have not used it more than 3 hours without recharging it. It seems to recharge quite quickly (in about 30 minutes?) but I haven't timed this.
I have used the Garmin as a hand-held device (it has an option for this) to navigate the streets of London on foot. The interface is slightly different but still clear. I felt a bit stupid walking along holding this thing in my hand and it did get a bit confused if I stopped or walked slowly but otherwise it worked fine.
I have also found that it is much easier and cheaper (than the TomTom) to get spare mounts (and other accesories) for the Garmin from sites such as eBay so I am now able to have one mount in each car and one on my motorcycle making moving between vehicles simple. The mini USB connection at the back (it doubles as the charging socket) is standard - similar to most camera leads - so it is easy to find a cable to attach it to your computer for internet upgrades, new maps etc. The Garmin website is fine and easy to navigate. So far I have not be bombarded with offers from Garmin which I was with TomTom.
The only down-side I can see is the cost of new maps which is a little more than the TomTom and the choice of different voices to download which the TomTom had many.
Overall a simple, easy to use, accurate GPS which works very well. It has all the features you need for travel in the UK and Europe and for the price is highly recommended. I won't be going back to TomTom and if I can ever convince my wife she needs a GPS it'll be another Garmin.
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