Garmin Nüvi 255

...presumably pasted in from something Garmin have written states "For peace of mind on the go, nüvi 255 leads the way with voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions that speak street names to get you there on time and keep you informed." European versions do '''not''' speak street names. Anyway, back to the plot.

I finally got fed up with my Road Angel 6000 sat-nav.

It was becoming a source of great amusement for ...
...in the showcase - the Garmin Nüvi 255W. There is a daunting array of Garmin machines, many in the '200 series'. As far as I can tell, a 205 only has maps for the country of sale, whilst a 255 like mine has own country plus the rest of Europe, and the W stands for Widescreen, it being a 4.3" screen of 16:9 proportions.

Inside the box, there's not a lot to report. The sat-nav itself, the car charger, the mounting arm and a self ... more

Note: The blurb supplied on this site and presumably pasted in from something Garmin have written states "For peace of mind on the go, nüvi 255 leads the way with voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions that speak street names to get you there on time and keep you informed." European versions do not speak street names. Anyway, back to the plot.

I finally got fed up with my Road Angel 6000 sat-nav.

It was becoming a source of great amusement for all my smug Tomtom-owning friends, and it was indeed becoming hard to defend it, especially when it tells you to leave the A303 at Andover for no apparent reason when it's both the shortest and quickest route to Crewkerne in Somerset for me. It also tells you to leave the Lightwater exit of the M3 just to rejoin the motorway after going round the roundabout and down the ramp again - I can only assume that because of a left-hand curve to the motorway, going up the ramp and down it again is a yard less!

It's either that or the day that their map database was set in stone there were long term road-works in these two areas.

It seemed strange to me that it was eminently crass at guiding me over bits where I knew better, but had never failed to deposit me at a distant unfamiliar postcode with no trouble, sometimes as accurate at identifying the 'gatepost' of my destination.- very useful when locating country pubs using the code published in the Good Beer Guide! I suppose nothing can improvise quite like the human brain, and expecting the optimum routing when the choices are quite starkly 'shortest' or quickest' is expecting a lot.

Road Angel's ability to work away from a power source had long since eluded it, so using it on bikes 'n' hikes was now out of the question too since the rechargeable battery had lost its ability to hold a charge for long enough.

ENTER THE 'NÜVI' KID ON THE BLOCK

A change of car seemed like as good a time as any to change the sat-nav.

Anyway, for our next holiday, we're flying to Madrid and hiring a car to drive to the Mediterranean coast so a sat-nav that covered Western Europe, not just the British Isles would be useful to find our way from Barajas Airport (Madrid) to Orgiva in Andalucia via an overnight stop halfway.

Then damn me if a Halfords sale doesn't materialise, combined with an incentive site that gives me 3% off Halfords goods when I use my registered credit card, and the card itself currently giving me 2% cash-back. If only I'd known that VAT was to come down too!

There it was in the showcase - the Garmin Nüvi 255W. There is a daunting array of Garmin machines, many in the '200 series'. As far as I can tell, a 205 only has maps for the country of sale, whilst a 255 like mine has own country plus the rest of Europe, and the W stands for Widescreen, it being a 4.3" screen of 16:9 proportions.

Inside the box, there's not a lot to report. The sat-nav itself, the car charger, the mounting arm and a self adhesive base for a non-windscreen installation (some countries make it illegal to block part of your windscreen).

Instructions are surprisingly scant, and you don't even get the USB lead for connection to a PC, which is something you'll need to do to register it for speed camera updates and access to the latest maps. Fortunately, I was bequeathed one by the Road Angel and a host of cell-phones, now pushing up daisies. There's no need for any kind of CD-ROM since accessing the web-site gave you all the software add-ons, Java modules, what have you, that you need to 'talk' to the Garmin. It's almost as if they are assuming, that this isn't your first dabble with GPS/sat-nav.

In fact, the most relevant instruction was to contact http://my.garmin.com.

It was from here that I registered the Garmin, got the latest 2009 version of European maps (a process that took a good two hours by the time it was installed in the sat-nav) and updated the speed cameras on a one-month free trial basis. A year's subscription cost £30 compared to Road Angel's £4/month. Later on, I'll tell you how to shave yet more off that saving. You can also download a much more substantial manual here.

The device itself is made of a pleasant-to-handle hard charcoal grey plastic, and is quite slim although nonetheless rigid with a reassuring monolithic feel to it (i.e. it doesn't creak if you try to twist it!). It has one single on-off switch, and the rear panel is interrupted only by a mini-USB port. It has no provision for an external antenna so those with metallic-coated windscreens (largely French cars, like Citroen or Peugeot) had better look elsewhere, since they block out the very radio waves we're trying to let in!

Rather than stick it to the windscreen by suction, which in my new car is quite a stretch away, I used the glossy plastic disc with very strong 'once-only' adhesive on one side. This you position on the top of your dash, making sure that the sat-nav can still 'see' the sky. This is much neater system, leaving less of a clue that there's probably a sat-nav in the glove compartment when it's demounted, and no sticky ring marks to clean off the glass either. In fact, my TomTom-owning friend reckoned it was such a good idea that she wanted to know if anyone made them for all sat-navs.

OPERATION

Charging can be done through most mini-USB cables, either directly from a PC, the 12v lead supplied or a typical phone charger using USB, e.g. the Motorola offering. The life-span of the charge depends partly on how bright you set the display, but that's about the only power saving you can make short of switching it off when not wanted (i.e. when you know where you are!). Unlike the Road Angel, there's no means of pausing it as you travel the bits you know - just on or off.

After a relatively quick boot-up, halted only by the optional PIN number process* you come to the main screen from where you choose "Where to?" or "View Map". You can also set volume levels here and play with settings such as your route preferences, like 'quickest' or 'shortest'. If you travel to the Isle of Wight, don't forget to set a preference in favour of ferries otherwise you'll only get to the sea front at Southsea to sit with a wistful sigh looking over to Ryde!

(*Advisable as a security measure if you have 'Home' set up as a special entry rather than just one your address book entries)

On the subject of those preferences, you can opt for 'No U-Turns' in a Thatcherite fit of self-determination. This forces any route recalculations to be less annoying - no more "At the next opportunity, give up and go home and think seriously about whether you want my help!"

There are some useful added features on this machine such as the 'Where Am I?" key, which immediately presents you with a screen of your known location, including the precise longitude and latitude needed by the AA if you break down quite literally in the middle of nowhere; it even tells you your altitude (at this point, it's fortunate it can't forecast your attitude too)! Likewise, you can check the area out for petrol stations, police stations, ATMs, chemists and the like, depending on the nature of your predicament.

Setting a new journey is simple - choose between a partial address, starting with town name, or just input an entire postcode and door number. I'm told that this works in many of the European countries also listed where postcodes apply. All you then have to do is agree the location, and if adding it to favourites, maybe give it a sensible name.

The "GO!" button doesn't really need explaining - this starts the process of route calculation. The map reappears with your car (yes, you can choose your 'player' like in Monopoly), orientated in its last known position, with a current speed display and estimated time of arrival. I've always found the latter really useful, especially when phoning ahead. Of course, it reworks the figures every time your speed drops below the known speed limits for the remaining roads on the route. It would seem to suggest that it assumes that everyone drives over the speed limit. (Not an unreasonable assumption it would seem). I did note that on a recent trip to Crewkerne from west London, despite travelling at exactly 70 mph using cruise control and the speed shown by the sat-nav, not the speedometer, my 'ETA' was slipping. Incidentally, the speed display is VERY accurate - don't assume you can 'add a few' for good measure - you can't.

Even when not plotting a route, you can still have the whole map displayed, unlike my last machine which obscured it half with icons. This is still valuable for one of those 'Where Am I?' searches for petrol stations etc. Likewise, you still get speed camera warnings that way.

Navigational instructions are clearly spoken either by Hilary Clinton or Joan Bakewell 'sound-alikes', and given well in advance. It would appear, if my experience of two such machines now is anything to go by that a curve in the road cannot be discerned from a turn. You frequently get told to turn right even if the road continues round what is merely a right-hand bend, although it only does so when there's a side road. Maybe this is their way of making sure it's still up to date if the junction priorities change.

Likewise, it's best to look at the on-screen map at roundabouts. It seems a bit equivocal over what constitutes an exit and what is, for example only a site entrance. It's not uncommon to be told "At the roundabout, take the third exit", only find that it's really only the second, but an entrance to a drive-in McDonalds got in the way.

At least this one doesn't view changes of carriageway say from dual to single and back again as 'changes of motorway', like the Road Angel did.

By downloading your own jpeg files, or by visiting an approved site, it's possible to navigate by pictures, for example seizing a photo of your house and telling it to find its way there. In the case of the proprietary photos, these have built-in routing information and so don't need to be appended to an existing address.

If you wish, you can by an FM receiver which will feed through traffic warnings, mainly from those sensors you see facing you on motorway over-bridges. This uses up your cigar lighter socket and the means to charge the Nuvi 'on the hoof'.

COUNTRIES COVERED

There's full street-mapping for;

UK, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Andorra*, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg*, Liechtenstein, Austria Poland and western half of Czech Republic.

(* I assume as there were no blanks in the map!)

In addition, there's coverage of most urban areas in eastern Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

Major urban areas are covered in Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania.

Major roads alone are covered in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine.

Now I see why the update took well over an hour in total!

NIFTY BITS

I particularly like the way it uses date and time information to decide whether to use a 'night screen' or not, thereby preventing you from being half blinded by the day time settings after dark. My old machine had to be switched manually. The camera warnings are just discrete little bongs, with a depiction of the speed limit in road-sign format. This 'bongs' again and goes red if you are over-speed.

When programming an address in other than by postcode, it lists alternatives to what you have typed in as soon as it can make some sense of what's been typed. Hence if you start to spell out Blackberry Avenue having already settled on a town, and there's only one street with a name beginning with BLA, then it gets listed at that point and all you have to do is confirm it.

This screen doesn't need a stylus to press 'keys'.

It's new 'Hotfix' software does something very clever in lieu of waiting for a sizeable number of satellites to be acquired before it shows you your last known position. I'm not sure how it would fare though if you arrived home by car, transported the thing 20 miles whilst switched off, and then expected it to perform the same trick. I suspect it would take a 'back to square one' approach taking about 45 seconds to get its fix.

ANNOYANCES?

Well they say comparisons are odious, and in general this performs so much better than my previous sat-nav. However, and it's a big 'however', once you accept the 'safety' camera database, you get it all, including warnings of areas liable to being checked by mobile camera vans. Since this seemingly includes everywhere near me, it's a trifle annoying to be constantly on a state of alert even when well below the speed limit thanks to the jam I'm sitting in. Yes, even driving below the speed limit prompts a quiet 'bong' from the thing. At least with the Road Angel, you could switch this variant off.

However………

……..OUTSIDE INDUSTRY TO THE RESCUE

One of the advantages of many GPS manufacturers adopting a standardised format for 'POIs', (i.e. Points of Interest) is that anyone is free to write their own database, and there's no reason why a Point of Interest shouldn't be a speed camera. So it was with some glee that I came across the site www.pocketgpsworld.com, where after signing up for £19.00 per annum (notably less than Garmin's £30 and Road Angel's £49), I was able to take an updated database of POIs that included cameras. All I had to do was download a little utility from the Garmin official site, which enabled me to load them up to the sat-nav, into the POI subdirectory. The only other operation was to switch off the Garmin camera database in the set up menu to avoid double reporting. I can even change my POI database briefly whilst in Spain, and revert it to a UK one once returned. What attracted me to this web site in particular was a clear statement that they get rid of mobile camera settings after 12 months, unless sighted since, which overcomes my major beef with this machine.

Thanks to this independent utility, I have been able to 'cherry-pick' from a list of other POIs, so much so that I now have a full list of where all the branches of Boots are in the UK, as well as a huge list of ATM locations - I can see this is going to be really useful, possibly as much when out for a stroll in a strange town as it is in the car.

CONCLUSION

This is a well-featured mid-range piece of kit with few major vices when it comes to guidance. It has some interesting new features, and can pick up satellites very quickly, working with the bare minimum, but getting more accurate and instantaneous when more are 'acquired'.

My early reactions to the lack of instructions or connectivity now seem ill-founded as it's pretty easy to get working and can be charged from just about anything with the mini-USB socket on it.

You shouldn't however put any sat-nav to the test on roads that you know like the back of your hand - you'll only get upset. For example, my route to the M3 from Hounslow falls neither into its fastest nor its shortest route. Set to fastest, it will route me to my nearest M4 junction and thence onto the M25 to pick up the M3. Set to shortest, it routes me over just about every road radiating west from Hounslow (A4, Bath Road, Staines Road, Hanworth Road, each with its own 'five changes of lights' traffic queue.

With only 'shortest' or 'fastest' settings, they'll all fail the improvisation test for which the human brain is vastly superior, knowing as it does to pick up the A30 at its very beginning at a roundabout on the A4 east of Heathrow, travel along the southern fence of Heathrow Airport, intercepting the M25 just two miles from the M3 - job done.

STOP PRESS - February 2009. The software now includes (or you can update it yourself) the ability to choose the most economical route, fuel wise. This may come somewhere nearer my 'nirvana' state compared to the crude 'fastest or shortest' setting. It takes a bit on setting up and the digging out of your car manual to find the urban and extra-urban fuel economy ratings is necessary to get the best results. Of course, it's all very well routing you to get 48 mpg, but if it takes you over ten miles when five at 24 mpg gets you there quicker, then there's no advantage. Time will tell if this is such a good idea.

Put simply, they're great for finding a distant postcode, not so great for validating what you already know.

BOYISH FASCINATION

I know this is the second one I've had but I still can't fail to be mesmerised by these pocket marvels.

Using a tiny signal from as few as three GPS satellites about 11,000 miles away (there are 24 in orbit, but you'd never get to 'see' more than half of them), they can triangulate your position on the Earth's crust to within a few feet (yes, even your altitude) and tell you how fast you're shifting your position and in what direction. The easy-peasy bit is in overlaying that on a map built into the sat-nav aspect of the machine.

Amazing. 

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