Garmin NUVI 550 Best Price, Reviews, Compare
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Garmin NUVI 550 Best Price, Reviews, Compare.
Product: Garmin NUVI 550 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on Garmin NUVI 550
So, finally I got my nuvi. It was a tough choice: many GPS carriers are available, and each has many models that near in immense variety of flavors. I've narrowed it down to Nuvi 550 for the following reasons:
1. Text to speech to me is really annoying. I want my GPS to exclaim me when and where to gain a turn, and not grief about spending extra time looking off the road to confirm street signs.
2. I wanted my GPS to befriend me out more than impartial driving directions. I hike, I camp, I depart all over, and not honest North America. I wanted the versatility of being able to navigate and pin point my region on the highway, in the mountains, offroad, and not objective be able to locate nearest gas plot. Before Nuvi 500/550 I would have had to occupy 2 GPS units: one for the car, one hand-held (e.g. Colorado series) .
3. I needed it to be durable, and fine. 8 hour battery life + waterproof function to me are the two features I'm very very blissful with. To date, my microscopic nuvi took 2 falls (one on the rocks, and another one flying off down some stairs -- don't ask), and I'm ecstatic to portray gadget is functioning flawlessly. I'm not advocating it's indestructible, but it does have durable construction indeed.
4. Satellite communication is proper for the product. Leafs, heavy cloud hide, even indoors, I score radiant reception. It does have its quarks rarely, but overall, it pin-points me within 10' radius. Gotta admire it. With the latest firmware update situation has been even more right, so it's worth doing it asap. The update also adds a variety of language options and scooter mode, which is really trim.
Here's something to be aware of... This model unlike 500 does not arrive with topo maps or marine maps. It felt like a glowing trade because it gave me Canada, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and all of US maps (includes Alaska and Hawaii) vs. 48 lower states+topo in the other model only. But here's a accumulate. No mapSource software. There are so many free topo maps (and for that matter many others -- e.g. Israel maps, which garmin does not market) available, but there's no procedure to load them. Because of the proprietary interface, mapSource is the easiest plot to consume advantage of all these resources. There is third party software available, but it's not the easiest thing to consume. Another annoyance is that unit does not arrive with any case. There are not hard to accumulate, but unexcited.
So, besides lacking the software, this is a gigantic unit worth every penny. I found LCD note to have superior visibility in a daylight, volume was immense - I could hear it unbiased pleasing with stereo on, and overall point to was incandescent and simple. It's itsy-bitsy and light, so it's easy to carry it around, and suction cup for the windshield is grand, no need to secure any extras. I also like the fact that it has swappable batteries. On long trips with no access to electricity, honest bring a few extras, and you won't earn stuck. Really no learning curve to using it, and performance is astounding. Spacious investment, no regrets here.
It took me a while to understand the different between the Nuvi 500 and the 550. Scrutinize no further. Only the faulty way is different. The 500 comes with the lower 48 states with topographical information while the 550 includes all of North America (Canada and Mexico) and no topographical information. The units are identical otherwise.
First, the estimable stuff. This GPS is fleet becoming an invaluable tool for long drives. I have been able to enter a street address as well as many restaurants, hospitals, and businesses then objective click on "go." On one drag, it correctly navigated reversing direction on a double-cloverleaf turn. A salubrious yell guides you and alerts you of upcoming turns. Miss the turn and the unit will patiently wait for you to realize your error. Then, after a while it will impartial recalculate your route automatically. It is also possible to tweak the routes by manually entering points to divert the automatic routing or pressing "detour" on the flit if you salvage yourself stuck at a railroad crossing. Custom routes can be saved. Waypoints can be sorted by category and recent categories can be added. Photographs can be added, although I haven't done considerable with this feature. Clicking on the top bar will reveal the route turn by turn. I found the routing quite lustrous and remarkable catch this unit over my last human co-pilot (but I hope that she never reads this review) . This particular unit has a rechargeable battery and the unit can be mounted on an optional bean bag mount to objective throw it on the jog instead of messing with cables. This makes it perfect for rental cars as well. It has four modes for driving, walking, boating, or bicycling.
Next, the so-so stuff. This unit does not arrive with any software. There is plan updating software available which can be downloaded from the website, but there is no valid benefit for uploading and downloading waypoint information. It is possible to spend Garmin's MapSource with this unit if you have an old-fashioned copy, but the Nuvi 500/550 does not seem to be fully supported. After wrestling with it a bit, I was able to download points but not modify them. And, since the background diagram is pre-loaded, there is no background arrangement for MapSource. There are features which are missing, such as the ability to turn off poi's (Point of Interest) labels or the ability to modify the lat/lon of a point once it's created. It does not reach with an a/c adapter or usb cable, but they are both available from Garmin at an bad imprint. Thankfully, the USB cable is a standard mini-USB and you may already have the cable you need at home and not know it. Once you locate a cable for it, it appears as a disk drive on Mac or PC without additional drivers. I added a microSD card, which appears as a second drive, but haven't found a spend for it yet.
Finally, the monstrous stuff. 9 times out of 10 the street address translates to lat/lon coordinates within a few feet of your destination. But, once in a while, it's a bit off translating street addresses to lat/lon and there is no contrivance to modify this information (at least, not easily) . The user data file appears on the unit as New.gpx in xml format. However, this file appears to be only a copy of the steady one. Any edit or deletion of this file is simply undone when the unit reboots. And, since there is no software with the unit, you may have to unbiased resolve for arriving discontinuance to your destination instead of it bringing you proper up the driveway.
If you really want to dig into the guts of the system, the best scheme I found is to generate one waypoint and exercise the data in the Modern.gpx file as a template for your personal waypoints. I created several custom .gpx files in xml format with notepad. The lat/lon can be entered easily by using Google Earth, right-click on the current point (which may first be dragged to exactly where you want it) and paste the information into notepad. When you're done, you will have several gpx files (xml format) which will be incorporated into the unit's memory when you reboot. The unpleasant news is that the points must be deleted through the menu system (not a mammoth deal) and the decision to re-load your personal files is apparently positive by the file creation date. Duplicate points or database corruption is possible, but easily undone.
Using this diagram, I was able to lawful the lat/lon of a waypoint which was 4 houses away from the suitable address. I found a more correct status in Google Earth, deleted the point from memory, and re-loaded it through my custom gpx files. It's actually easier than it sounds since the only software you really need is notepad. I've added many current waypoints by copy/paste. To compose a custom category, simply name it in the appropriate notice. Routes, I imagine can be dealt with the same diagram but I fetch their format too difficult to fabricate or modify by hand.
There's many missing features which I've found on other hand-held units. There is no plot to assign and load personal files, other than doing it by hand. The satellite tracking and fix information has been replaced with the same type of "bars" you have seen on cell phones - easy to understand but less information. It has a touch camouflage, but it is not very accurate, tends to manufacture mistakes, dragging is sad and the resolution is very terrible... but, all of this is acceptable since most of the time you only need to press a few spots on the veil to originate navigation. The cleverness of the unit really outshines the shortcomings of the explain.
All in all, a incredible proceed companion. It's brilliant, useful, and will support you company on long trips. If you're a gps hacker, you'll accumulate it honest flexible enough form it do what you want, but it will earn you wonder why Garmin makes us go through so noteworthy misery to tweak or establish a waypoint to your pc.
For my motorcycles, I've had a Garmin Quest and later Quest 2 for years. I loved their little size, long-range battery and that they were water proof. But the time it took to recalculate and ability to lose satellite signal even in light tree veil became unbearable. So I began to look an upgraded unit.
It came down to the Zumo and Nuvi 550 units because they are water proof, a requirement for my bikes. The Zumo clearly has several features the Nuvi does not, but was lacking in one well-known region for me - battery life. The Zumo is rated at 4 hours, virtually requiring hard wiring. Since I spend GPS on all my bikes, I did not want to go through the hassle, and the Nuvi comes with an 8 hour battery.
All it is lacking for me is the interface to enter addresses. On the Zumo it is more glove capable. But other than that I could not be more glad. I expend the Mapsource software from my Quest 2 to conception routes on the PC and upload to the unit. It is hasty to recalculate and never loses a signal. I bought a RAM-MOUNT and it enables trouble-free and solid mounting to the bikes (impartial like they had done for the Quest 2) .
If you don't want to hard wire, this is a sizable GPS unit. Oh, and I bought a spare battery and hold it charged - now I have 16 hours - more than I'll ever need for one day.
5 stars well deserved from this elated owner.
