Garmin Nuvi 255

I purchased the Garmin Nuvi 255 for my granddaughter who lives in Denver. She loves it - easy to operate and understand. She uses it daily not only for street directions, but eating and shopping locations. The Garmin Nuvi has made her transition to Denver and learning a new city easy. We researched the product at local stores (i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City), and each sales clerk highly recommended the Garmin Nuvi 255- good choice!

After much research I decided on the Nuvi 255 due mostly to the fact that it is the least expensive model with TTS (Text to speech) in other words it speaks street names so that you can keep your eyes on the raod ahead. This unit also has the ability to get traffic updates via a separate cable (GTM-10 or GTM-12 Traffic Receiver) that can be purchased through Amazon.com. I have not purchased this extra item, so I cannot comment on how this works. I can tell you that you need to check the various traffic providers ie. MSN, Clear Channel, etc. to make sure that they have adequate coverage in your area. There is also a monthly fee for traffic updates. The GTM-10 comes with a 15 month subscription to Clear Channel. I have had the unit now for about 1 month and it has not led me astray. I would recommend this unit to anyone who wants an affordable but reliable GPS unit.

This GPS is really nice. I was able to purchase it on Black Friday for $151.00. The Points of Interest database is really extensive. The receiver is less sensitive than my TomTom 3rd edition, as it will not pick up a signal when I am in the house. I bought this unit because it has the text to speech feature, which is nice. This GPS has all of the features that I consider important. It is about the size of a deck of cards and fits nicely in my shirt pocket. The 4 hour battery life is also great. The lack of a querty keyboard is my biggest complaint about this unit. In this day and age you would assume that would be a given. I considered getting a Garmin a year ago but at that time Garmins were selling for around $300.00. Nice to see that I can get a feature rich Garmin for $150.

After some extensive research and comparison shopping I decided to get the Garmin nuvi 255. My key factors in purchasing was that it was a name brand, it has good reviews, its the latest model with the most recent interface and processor, it has text to speech and it was under $200. I was not interested in blue tooth (I already have a hands free set) or the FM transmitter (I don't think this technology has been perfected yet) or the mp3 player. I actually planned on purchasing the Garmin 350 until I read that the 255 was the new model that replaces the discontinued 350. This is the first GPS I have owned and have had it for about 2 weeks now so I wanted to share some initial impressions. Its a very nice unit with a bright screen and a nice compact size. I was worried that the 3.5 inch screen would be too small but it does the job. A 4.3 inch screen would definitely have been more attractive but that was a nice to have and not a necessity for me. I have read some complaints abo... Read more

New to GPS here, so maybe the problems we're having are intrinsic to all such units. We've used Garmin 255 for about a month now - testing it out in areas we are familiar with. We've been misdirected numerous times. For example, it doesn't seem to do overpasses and cloverleafs well. We've been told to "get in left lane" for an exit on the Capital Beltway around DC, when the exit was only from the right lane. We've been directed to "make a u turn" in the middle of a major DC-area bridge. And, we've been told our destination address was on the right when it was clearly on the left side of the road. Still deciding whether to trust Garmin on travels in areas where we are not familiar with the route. We do like the clarity of the screen and voice commands though, but will continue to use our own maps as backup.