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The Garmin Nuvi 260W offers the same great Navteq maps on the Garmin interface, on a bigger 4.3" touchscreen wide screen LCD.
What can I say? Garmin's GUI is great, and very easy to navigate. It is basically the same menu system as the Garmin StreetPilot C330. You can read that review for the menu. I will just review the other features and additions of this GPS unit. Take my word for it, it is great.
First of all - although for the most part the functionality and the basic layout of the menu are the same there are some improvements. First being a huge 4.3" widescreen LCD, it offers better resolution. The screen is brighter, more vibrant and sharper. It's very nice to look at. This unit is very sleek and slim, which is great, because you can just take the unit with you very easily. You can literally just stick it in your pocket. You don't have to hide in your car.
One thing I don't like about the GPS unit is that you actually have to plug your power cord into the back of the unit, which is kind of bad placement. You can't really see the hole, so you have to turn the unit around to plug it in. One thing I loved about the StreetPilot C330 is that the power cable plugs directly into the mount. You can then just remove GPS unit, and keep the mount up. When you get back in the car, just place the GPS in, and you are good to go. I mean, with the Nuvi 260W you can leave the mount up, but you'll have to plug in the power cable every time you put your GPS back up. That being said, the unit can hold a charge for up to 5 hours, so it has great battery life, and you don't always have to plug it in.
The Garmin Nuvi 260W has text to speech, meaning it will actually say "turn right in 300 meteres on Elm Street". It's very useful if you want to know exactly what to street to turn on without looking at the screen. Sure it butchers some names, but that's fine and expected. You can even change the voices to a bunch of different accents. You can evn download extra voices from Garmin's servers. One thing that Tom Tom units has are celebrity voices. But, that's not that big of a deal.
Garmin's maps are very easy to see. And what's even better is that they offer the 2009 map update for free. Just open up the software on your computer, connect your GPS and download the updates. In this model, the maps look great. It must be the vibrant screen.
Although the antenna is stronger than before, it still does not compare to the antenna in a similar priced Tom Tom. It can't get signal in the house or indoors, and takes a while longer to acquire a satellite signal.
The unit overall is great, except for that one design / mount flaw. But like always, Garmin GPS devices are great. The only other problem is the price, at close to $300. Bigger Garmin units with the same software can be purchased for $100 less. I've seen the StreetPilot C530 for $150 recently at Future Shop. However, I do recommend this product because of its great screen, great Garmin interface, free updated maps for 2009, and slim design, so you can take it with you wherever.
Pros
- Great 4.3" LCD wide screen
- Very slim design so you can take it anywhere and you don't have to hide it in your car
- Same awesome Garmin menus and interface
- Free update for 2009 Navteq maps
- Great battery life (5 hours)
- Text to speech
Cons
- The power cable plugs into the unit instead of the mount
- Antenna doesn't work in doors - while a similarly priced Tom Tom can
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