Garmin Nuvi 350 Review

If you want help getting where you're going, without having the obligatory hissy fits (directed at life, the universe and your gps), the Garmin Nuvi 350 is an excellent navigator to consider.

Why?
1) It's accurate
2) It's accurate
3) It's accurate

For long and short trips, it is accurate. It may occasionally take you a couple of doors off the address you were aiming for, but your Nuvi 350 will get you to your destination or at least within sight of it, AND on the right side of the road.

As you come up to a junction, your Nuvi 350 will warn you ahead of time, count you down as you approach, and tell you which way to turn.

Maybe it's not the fastest gps when working out a route, but less than 30 seconds is not shabby. Even for cross country trips, which it calculates all in one go.

And when you go off route - miss a turn, mistakenly decide you know a better way (or is that just me?), the Nuvi 350 recalculates a new route in a couple of seconds.

Okay it may not take advantage of locally known short cuts, but the routes are intelligent. You're not sent off on bizarre site-seeing trips. And you get there in reasonable time.

Oh! Did I mention it's accurate?

I don't know about you but I am extremely dis-interested in having to carry out hi-level study before I can use a tool that's meant to make life easier.

The Garmin Nuvi 350 is unbelievably easy to use. You open it up, answer a trifling number of set-up questions and you're ready to start.

Making Nuvi 350 work feels very natural. It all makes sense. When you start it up, three options appear on the screen:

- Where to?
- View Map
- Travel Kit

Quite straightforward, not so?

Lightly touch 'Where to?' to enter your destination - a shop, restaurant, an address, somewhere to stay, a tourist attraction, a parking garage, a gas station, and more. So as well as getting from A to B, you can also explore new areas and quickly discover lots of places you might want or need to visit. Even the local hospital.

When you touch 'View Map' ... hello! There you are. You're the little pyramid. The tabs are clearly labelled. Touching ' + ' zooms you in, ' - ' zooms you out. I find it very easy to understand.

The Travel Kit is Nuvi 350's very cool entertainment and lifestyle hub. You get an MP3 player, an Audible book player (why not 'read' while you drive!), a photo viewer, language translators, travel guides. Aaaaaaannnd .... access to the World Clock, converters, calculators, and more. (I promise you'll LOVE playing here.)

All you do is touch your choice. You can change things as you drive, you can easily lift your Nuvi out of it's holder, take it with you and make adjustments wherever you are.

If you do get stuck, simply refer to the manual. If it's not already on your Nuvi 350, you can download it from the Garmin website.

(Image: www.freeimages.co.uk)

Handbags?!

Yes - you could easily lose your Nuvi 350 in there.

It's small.

A bit larger than a credit card, face on, and about as thick as two perspex CD boxes.

So you can easily pop it into your pocket, purse, bum pack, back pack. Anywhere a small wallet would go - EXCEPT YOUR BACK POCKET ( ... that's a story for another day!). And be off. Quick and easy as that.

For the big-handbagged brigade, that should of course read, '... slide into small compartment'.

In spite of being so small, the screen is a good size - most of the face is screen. So it's not hard to choose what you want by touch.

Perhaps the hardest thing to do on the move is spell out letters. But I hope you rarely have to do that WHILE driving.

If it were a problem, you could use the rubber tipped end of a pencil, or the back of a pen.

Still amazes me - you hold all that power in your hand. Literally.

Come closer. You know that Garmin 350 ? Well, it talks to you (Ssh!) It does. Really...

Okay, that's a terrible joke, I'm just playing with you.

Seriously, it's so precious that the Garmin 350 prompts you in a clear voice. It tells you how far it is to a turning, and tells you to turn in good time.

I find it hard to gauge what 2 metres or 5 metres are, just looking at the road. But a quick glance at the screen and all is revealed. Also, as your turning, or change in lane, etc. approaches, you are alerted with a ticker sound.

Turns your drive into an easy cruise.

You know something else? You can choose the language that Garmin 350 directs you in, AND local accent! Isn't that remarkable?

'Get ya motor runnin'...' --> Garmin Nuvi 350 .

Because Garmin Nuvi 350 has a battery.

Without a battery, say you break up your journey for lunch, you'd have to switch your GPS off. Once you returned, you'd have to get the GPS to find your position again, and recalculate your route.

Okay, thankfully, the Garmin 350 does not take long to do these tasks, but it's an extra faff you could be doing without. More importantly, the GPS may not recalculate exactly the same route. So you may loose a specific place you wanted to have a quick look at, en route. This would happen every time you got out of the car.

However, Garmin 350's battery means that you could plan your journey in the comfort of your house or hotel. Then take it to the car, while turned on. And drive off immediately.

Actually, the better plan would be to plug it into your cigarette lighter. So the car powers your Garmin 350 and you save it's battery.

Its light, powerful, long-lived battery lasts 4-5 hours, which gives you plenty time to have a leisurely meal, watch a film, clock up some retailing, climb something, whatever ...

No question, the Garmin Nuvi 350 is fast and accurate.

But it's not perfect.

Here's a quick look at some qualities you might find anything from "would have been nice", to "mildly irritating", to "unforgivable".

Problem 1: Loading Up Way points
You can enter your way points only while hooked up to your PC. You can't add them manually while you travel.

I have fleetingly wondered about having a laptop right there in the car, hooked up to the Nuvi.... but then, apart from the fact that we're now entering the "oh might as well throw in the kitchen sink" zone, I just haven't devoted any more grey cells to that particular train of thought.

But what do you think? How much of an inconvenience would this be to you? Please drop a comment below.

Problem 2: Music Quality
The MP3 player in the Garmin Nuvi 350 does not sound as good as say... an iPod.

Okay, to be honest, I really can't see this as a major problem. The MP3 player is a delightful cherry on top. While driving I listen to the car stereo or radio. If you're out and about, and want to be cocooned in beautiful, top-quality music..... (mmmmmm), you'd listen to your iPod. Wouldn't you?

What do you think?

Problem 3: Battery Life
Garmin Nuvi 350's batteries need recharging after about 5 hours of use.

Of course the last thing you want is for your GPS to quietly go to sleep on the job. But if you plug it into the cigarette lighter during the journey, you won't run down the batteries. So it's when you stop that the battery life becomes an issue.

If you're in a meeting that's going to run for over 5 hours, is it an option to simply plug your Nuvi (in your portable charger) into a wall socket at the venue?

Does 5 hours of away-from-the-car/recharger time cramp your style? Please share your thoughts below. And come back soon - I'll suggest some ways to liberate even more battery life from your Garmin Nuvi 350.

Problem 4: Address Book
Addresses are not listed in alphabetical order.
They are, however, listed by proximity.

So the first address listed will always be the one nearest to you, wherever you are (which is rather super-cool, me thinks).

What do you think, dear readers. Would this be a problem for you?

Garmin, Nuvi 350's manufacturer, suggests that the battery could last up to 8 hours. Not many people get that much time before needing to recharge.

But here are some tips that will mean longer life from your batteries. It's not hard to do, just takes thinking about.

In some ways, preserving the Nuvi 350's battery life, is a bit like cutting down electricity waste at home. You know - not leaving fridge doors open longer than is absolutely necessary, not having appliances on stand-by - that sort of thing.

In a nutshell, the trick is to have the fewest functions necessary at any point switched on. For instance:

• Say you're shopping, having lunch, in a meeting, playing. You're not actively using your Nuvi for guidance. You can turn off the backlight then. That will save a lot of battery power.



• You're visiting someone or working - again not actively getting guidance from the GPS. You can close the antenna.



• As much as possible keep your Nuvi out of direct sunlight. Okay if you live somewhere sunny, while the GPS is mounted in the car, there's not much you can do about that. It's more about where you have it when you take it about with you.



• As much as possible avoid having your Nuvi in excessive heat.



• And of course, always, always, always use car battery power while driving. Not the GPS's battery. How? Plug it into the cigarette lighter during the journey.

SO a few ways to get longer life from your Garmin 350.

Have you got any more tips?