conkris

I definitely want TTS....I'm torn between the 260 or the 350. The 350 is only $30 more on line, delivered ($255 vs $285) plus I get the USB cable, AC cable, a case. I also like the idea of the car connection to the mount, making removing it from the car easier, plus the MP3 player, and traffic (which I don't really care about). I am not bothered by the flip up antenna on the 350.
It seems to be a no brainer. I'm leaning toward the 350, however I am not able to actually "play/touch/see" either one, locally. So, is there a difference between the screen quality, ie color, clarity, etc, and how about the sound? To me, screen crispness, colors, etc, and sound are the most important attributes for car navigation. Oddly, reviews are mixed....some say the 260 has better screen and sound quality, others say the 350 does. I realize this is subjective, but I value user opinions more than so called "reviewers".

Thanks

dav

Time for me to show my ignorance.

I thought TTS is "traffic". What is it to you?

Also, if you care about sound, you will be disappointed no matter what unit you get. They all have poor tinny sound. Quite adequate for speech, not very useful for music.

Keith

TTS = Text To Speech I think.

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dav

Thank you, Keith.

I can only plead brainfade. I really shoulda known that.

TMS is traffic messaging service. I was at least close, wasn't I?

rapriebe

One thing I had read somewhere while I was researching before buying, many of the older model GPS units did not have the anti-glare screen.... not sure if that applies to the 3xx series or not. The 260 works well for me, but I have no need of any of the extras that came with the other units. I'm happy with my 260.... it works well as a GPS getting me from here to there and finding some POI's along the way, and that's all I ask it to do.

Max

The Nuvi 350 has the antiglare, it's actually the same screen on the two units I believe (as in - identical). It was just a premium feature a few years ago when the 350 was topshelf (and only) Nuvi. Now those features have made their way downward

My vote...350. It's a nicer unit, just not as cutting edge design/etc. Mind you I haven't used the 260 at all, and if it were a 260W you'd have me at hello. But a regular 260 straight up or a 350 nuvi...I say 350

rapriebe

One thing I learned earlier today in a post on another site is the all GPSr's are not equal when it comes to available memory for custom POI's, etc. One unit that was being discussed (C330) only had 2mb set aside for this. My 260 has a LOT more, but I don't know how much exactly. Are all the Nüvi's equal in this? I have more than 230,000 POI files... almost 10mb in the unit memory. Just curious if that additional storage is standard throughout the series.

Max

It is not, but the C3xxx series is a few years old...the newer ones all seem to have an ample amount of onboard memory for those sorts of things. My Zumo has a few hundred meg IIRC, and my 2720 has less, but I haven't run out of places on it. then again - I don't have 230,000

Max

By the way if you are not stuck to the traffic, or text to speech...

Costco - $199.99 After $50 Off Garmin Nuvi 200W 4.3" Touch Screen Widescreen Display

199$ will get you a Nuvi 200w

rapriebe

Yeah.. I know I got sort of carried away. 5mb worth of them are single a file I got at POI Factory called "Populated Places", and I'm thinking of taking it off, as a file that size takes the unit quite a long time to search (15-30 seconds or even a bit more more). It's an interesting list as it lets you put in housing subdivisions to get you easily into a fairly small neighborhood. Also lists towns without the need for an address. I just haven't decided about the usefulness of it for me yet.

Max

I am definitely lost on what you mean by this (well I get what you mean, but what is the value in such a thing?)

Not being a wiseguy, I am just missing something here - and it could be a cup of coffee, so I will come back later and edit this post maybe

Max

Oh, so it's like a magellan now?

rapriebe

Just as an example, say you are just exploring, and you want to find a place to stay, but aren't particular aside from it being close to a certain neighborhood. Proximity to a friend you will be visiting, or a local sight you want to see. You know the town or subdivision name, select that and once you get to there, you look for nearby hotels, eateries, etc.

Example: A friend tells me of a fabulous new golf course in the Highlands ranch subdivision of the Denver Metro area. No address, no other info. I don't want to accidentally stay in Broomfield, as that is about 50 miles away, on the wrong side of town. So I just search for "Populated places" near Denver (or maybe I know that it's on the south side so I pick near Littleton) select "Highlands Ranch" from the POI list, and set my route to take me there. Once I get there I can find a nearby hotel, and find the actual address, location of this course.

Maybe not the best example, but someone must have had a use for it, or they wouldn't have taken the time to compile such a large data base.

Max

Nope, that makes sense and sounds pretty cool actually, there are times when I could use something like that..being an out of towner and all.

Thanks for the tip

conkris

rapriebe

Do all Nuvi's have "autozoom"? I was using my son's Magellan 3100 and noticed prior to a turn (don't remember how far) the screen splits. One side is a zoomed in picture of the turn, the other side is the road name, est time and distance to the turn. It then returns to the previous map view, before the actual turn. Not sure this would be good in complicated intersections because it only shows the turn arrow and the road you need to turn on to. The only reference I find for Nuvi is relative to a 7xx model. It appears the amount of zoom is automatic and relative to vehicle speed.

BTW, the 3100 is OK...no TTS and not very accurate in my opinion. We live in the country....when arriving at the home address, it indicates "You have arrived" quite a distance (150-200ft) before the house...I checked it on city addresses also, same thing. Also, the screen refresh is slow....it shows the vehicle at an intersection, when in reality you're well past it. Maybe it's not refreshing fast enough. Also lot's of "make a legal U turn" instructions.

Thanks

rapriebe

It doesn't do what you describe the Magellan as doing, but my 260 always shows the upcoming turn in plenty of time (I use 3D view), and along with the TTS warnings, I haven't had any problems.

If you do want to see the next turn, you just tap the "Turn in" indicator in the lower right corner of the screen and it shows the next turn in text and map split screen, as well as the voice tells you what it is. Then it automatically switches back to map view. You can scroll through all of the turns on your route by tapping the down arrow in this mode, but if you go beyond just the next turn, you have to manually hit the "back" button to return to the map.

conkris

Ok, so the 260 does not do what the Magellan does. That's fine. Other than "cute", to me, not being able to see other intersecting roads (at a complicated intersection) is not good. Apparently the 260 does not have the "autozoom" as referenced here in a discussion regarding a Nuvi 350

I usually use the 3-D (perspective) view and notice that auto-zoom works to magnify the map at the point of direction change. This seems to happen automatically (very convenient). I also notice that the Nuvi differentiates between expressways, major and minor roads, by colour.

I don't know that you can set display characteristics, except that I can set the overall scale. If by mistake I zoom back too far, the minor roads disappear. So I manually zoom it to where I can see even the minor roads and let auto-zoom do the rest.

Jerry

or here

I've noticed 3.80 seems to fix the one gripe I had with autozoom -- that it would zoom in too much at freeway intersections so that I couldn't see the end of the ramp, forcing me to rely on voice prompts or manually zoom out to know what was happening next. It must be speed sensitive because it seems to zoom in just as much at street intersections, but I don't have specifics of what scale it zoomed to in each case.

Autozoom definitely works differently in 3.80 than 3.60.

Again, it appears to be speed driven. As you approach turn, apparently the screen zooms in for a period of time, then back to the map view. Sounds interesting, but may not be in reality....

When I started this thread, I was looking for opinions to help me decide between the 260 and the 350. I am leaning toward the 260....but this may shed some light on my decision. My head hurts.

rapriebe

As far as I know the only possible difference of significance is that the 350 can play .mp3 and is traffic compatible. It does not have the TTS that I specifically wanted, which is why I got the 260. I don't need traffic updates, and I don't need music from my GPSr.... I have a perfectly good cd changer in my car, so the 350 didn't have anything extra that I wanted, and it didn't have the one thing I did want. I'm quite satisfied with my 260.

conkris

I also want the TTS (btw, the 350 has it)....and I see what you mean about viewing the turns

The "Next Turn" page is available by tapping on the lower-right icon from the map view ("Turn In"), and displays a detailed view of the next turn. This split-screen shows a 2-dimensional drawing of the turn on the left side of the screen, and a text description of the turn on the right side. Also displayed are the distance and time to the turn.
Tapping the up/down arrows in the lower-right portion of the screen cycles through the remaining turns, one at a time. Voice prompts are also announced as each turn is viewed.

that will do what I want. Essentially it's very similar to the Megellan...just needs to be done manually. That's probably better. I also see some people are complaining about the "autozoom" on the 350. Apparently some don't like it and whereas older firmware versions offered the option of turning it off, newer versions don't. Nuff said.


And again, thanks for you help.

Max

edit: you can't turn off the next turn popup according to the manual, but I don't remember doing this or not on my 350.

I can on my 2720, they call it 'next turn popup' and you can enable it or disable it. Actually on the older gps's you could set how far you wanted it to notify you too

conkris

It never ceases to amaze me how common this is with any software, GPS, word processing, accounting, web browser, etc. I think it goes something like this. "OK team, our software is very versatile. The user has complete control, and can select options dependent on his preferences. We need to come out with a new improved version. What should we do? I know, let's take that versatility away. We can jam what we think he wants down his throat. We'll make it better....even if the user doesn't like it. After all we know what he wants"

rapriebe

They go by statistical wants, not universality. The majority wants x, y and z, but v and w don't seem to get used much so we will drop them and offer an easier to use model. It doesn't matter that 5% want and use v and w... they are just a small part of the profit line. By limiting the complexity, they make it readily usable for a larger demographic, and that translates into more sales.

It's the same way with computers, even with cars. You used to be able to get just what you wanted on a car, now to get a certain feature you have to buy a whole option package, even if you don't really want most of it. I know lots of guys who hate the dumbing down of PC operating systems, but most average users wouldn't even own one yet if they still had to use DOS commands to run one.

It's all about who controls the retail market, and that is usually the average user. My guess is that at least 75% or GPS owners will never even add in a custom POI, much less anything else. That's just life in the free enterprise system.

Clearly the best overall solution would be to still include those lost features, but make them a locked feature requiring the user who wants them to purchase an additional unlock code. The average user would never even know they were there, but the advanced user would still have them available. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the way that was chosen.

conkris

Agreed, but in this case, the feature from what I understand was available and in fact user controlled as to on or off and further when "on" (as Max eluded) the distance at which it triggered could be set, why change it? The user could decide. If you don't want it....turn it off. If you do, turn it on, and if so, as a advanced feature, set the distance to your liking. Seems to me it would now be appealing to all. It didn't cost anything development wise....it was already developed. And yea, even charge a fee for the advanced features. I understand and agree with the car analogy, but thats hard parts or numerous combinations of parts....labor intensive to pick and install the various possibilities the consumer could want. Offering "packages" makes sense from a manufacturing standpoint. The bottom line is...I'm obviously wrong, cus this practice seems very common with software.

Back on the subject...the 260 will satisfy my needs just fine

conkris

rapriebe

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rapriebe

Back at you

MrHorace

So I recently got my 260W, after exchanging for a TomTom720 that got me lost one too many times, and took it on a test drive. I input a search for Borders, and the thing took forever to return the 3-4 that were in a 20 mile radius of me.
Is this normal response from the 260 lines?

rapriebe

Depends on what you are looking for and how you do the search. I just did it on my 260 and it came up with the first 4 nearest me in about 2 seconds. It still kept searching, but I just touch the one I want and it stops. So I don t know why it was slower for you. If you tell me the city you are searching in, I'll run a test on mine and see what happens.

I see you're a fellow Coloradan. I'm in Littleton, so my search was from right here in my house, and the nearest Borders is .9 miles in Southwest Plaza.

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MrHorace

Hi Rick,
I'm in eastern Centennial over near SE Aurora. I also got many duplicates and was curious is you got duplicates as well.
Thanks,
David

rapriebe

I just did the search for Borders near Aurora. The first page came up in under 5 seconds. And you are right, for some reason the store on Parker Rd. is listed twice, as is the one over here in SW Plaza. In fact, scrolling through the list, there are a bunch of dupes. I just checked it on MapSource. The store in SW Plaza is listed under 2 different POI icons. One of the icons is for shopping, the other one is mostly for the Food Court, but Borders is listed under the 2nd one too, because they have the coffee shop there.

I have seen duplications before, but not often. There is usually a good reason for duplication, and this one is understandable. Then too, maybe they were a few short of the 6,000,000, so they had to fudge it a little bit.

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Rick

dav

I just tried it on my nuvi 750. 1st store was almost immediate. I let it keep searching, and as the radius grew the elapsed time increased.

It seemed to stop at a 250 mile radius. Does anyone know if that is when it stops, or if that was coincidental?