Garmin nuvi 205WT

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Well I chose Garmin as the manufacturer because in my view their maps are better, and their technology reliable.
I pondered a Garmin Edge 705 which is specifically designed for cyclists, and comes with cadence measurement and heart rate monitor.
Sadly it also comes with a massive price tag - around the £320 mark.
So I moved downscale a bit to some of the upper ends of the Garmin family intended for cars. Some have an ...
...suggestion ! - hence the Garmin Nuvi 205WT.


2 Nuvi out of the box.?

There is a craze today for things to be operational straight out of the box. I personally consider this to be both demeaning to the purchaser, and a denial of some of the real thrills of buying new gadhets.
The real satisfaction to be found with buying a gadget is in being able to ignore the instructions for as long as possible, seeing ... more

Intro.
Did you hear about the Syrian lorry driver heading towards Gibralter - who managed to log his destination on his SatNav to Gibralter Point near Skegness??
The first few such stories hitting the media in the early days of this technology were quite funny. Now they dither between the unbelievable and the stupid ! How can a Merc driver pilot her sports coupe along a track marked for 4x4's, drive it into a ford without even having a look first at its depth, and end up writing the car off in the river ? ... and then blame the SatNav??
SatNavs were not created to drive the car or take over from all driving skills and common sense - they are a help in finding your position and direction of travel.
So you will all have a laugh when I tell you I BOUGHT MINE FOR MY BICYCLE.!

Well I chose Garmin as the manufacturer because in my view their maps are better, and their technology reliable.
I pondered a Garmin Edge 705 which is specifically designed for cyclists, and comes with cadence measurement and heart rate monitor.
Sadly it also comes with a massive price tag - around the £320 mark.
So I moved downscale a bit to some of the upper ends of the Garmin family intended for cars. Some have an inbuilt option to give directions for those on foot or those on bicycles.
When I actually went shopping, the assistants decided to change my mind for me, asked what I really needed and sent me down to a much cheaper machine - the Nuvi 205.
When my wallet came out, there was a last minute suggestion that the widescreen version might be better - it was probably something to do with having to get my specs out to read the details.... and it was a good suggestion ! - hence the Garmin Nuvi 205WT.

There is a craze today for things to be operational straight out of the box. I personally consider this to be both demeaning to the purchaser, and a denial of some of the real thrills of buying new gadhets.
The real satisfaction to be found with buying a gadget is in being able to ignore the instructions for as long as possible, seeing how much of the gadget you can get to work even before the battery has been charged, and eventually amazing all your family and friends - and yourself - that you have got it working within the first fortnight of ownership.!
The Nuvi works straight out of the box - more or less.
There was life in the battery, and once switched on, the machine was ready to guide me automatically through the setup process.
Only one difficulty here and that was due to my purchase intention. If I was going to use it in the car, I would have been out in the car when starting it up.
Instead I was in the study ready to link it to the laptop and get the cyclist setting ready.
The study is not all that good a venue for locating satellites. The quick start manual suggests going outdoors to an open area away from tall buildings and trees.! .. as that would have entailed a two mile walk I persevered indoors with poor satellite reception, but got working eventually.
There are many functions and settings on the Nuvi which take a while to master, but for someone wanting a quick and easy start, this is perfect.
There is an early point in the setup where you are offered the opportunity to update software by connecting to the internet via computer.
I reckon it is best to avoid this in the very first setting up process, and come back to it when everything else is up and running.

So what happens when you are ready to set off with your Nuvi ?
Well you will have set the mode of transport to car or bicycle or walking. Easy to do on one of the screen options.
You type in your chosen destination, and will have had a choice of possible destinations given you so that you can decide on Gibralter or Gibralter Point, Capri or Carpi, Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire or Stamford Bridge in Chelsea etc.!
Don't blame the machine if you chose the wrong option.!!
You can have a look at the whole route before you begin, if you wish - not a bad option so you discover early on that you are being given the quickest route to Birmingham Alabama, instead of Birmingham UK.!
Both the map and the inbuilt voice will set you off on your journey, and things work pretty much like the rest of today's systems.
The widescreen is a nice bright view, and is perfect for an old geyser on a bicycle.!
It tracks where you have been travelling, and gives a readout of present and average speeds, distance covered and present location. You can easily discover both the distance to your destination and a rough guide to how long the rest of the journey is going to take you.
As is common today, it is straightforward to define the type of route you want to use in terms of the absolute shortest, the fastest, the most economical and off-road.
You can factor in or out, options like Motorways, toll roads, ferries and unpaved roads.
You can opt for a voice speaking to you in British English, Cantonese, German, Spanish, Japanese, Italian or any of the major world languages.
In short, this is a machine useful for anyone travelling in this part of the world.

The point of a gadget is that it holds two functions in perfect tension.
Firstly it must do the intended job well, and this one does.
Secondly, the gadget should offer a number of options which are not at all vital, but amuse the little mind of the owner.
So how cool is this? - you go online to Garmin, download their "garage", and instead of your map having a boring old arrow or cursor to show where you are, you can choose something different ! - a car, a truck or a bicycle even!!
Or what about the option to download your own pictures? So vital if you have to spend ages in a traffic jam, heh? And if you really want to impress, you assign a photo of a particular location to its coordinates, and when you want directions to, say The London Eye, you just tap the photo of the London Eye you already assigned? - wow.!!
There is a world clock, so if you did follow signs for Birmingham Alabama, instead of the Midlands, you could at least have the correct time as you cross the State highway system!!
A calculator may not inspire the young, but for those of us who still remember the launch of the first handheld calculators in 1969, the awe still remains.
And what about the function which allows instant conversion of units - of currency, area, distance, speed, temperature, volume or weight?
So when the Irish Garda pull you over for speeding, you will be able to calculate what 110kph should have been on your mph dial, and you can convert the on-the-spot fine from Euros to Pounds in a matter of seconds.!
Sadly, the machine does not have the ability to take pictures, to microwave snacks, or extricate cars from flowing rivers, but as gadgets go, it's pretty good.

The screen is not as sensitive as I would like in an ideal world - though I recognise the difficulty of getting the balance right.
My machine did not come with an electric plug charger, just a car-lighter one. As my bike did not come with a lighter or a 12v plug, its battery life limits me to about 4 hours max on the move.
No spare batteries are available for replacing or adding to the supplied one. It is a factory fitting job, and I gather it is quite expensive at that.
There was no USB cable with mine, and while they are easy to obtain, I think it would be even easier for Garmin to supply one themselves in the box.
City Navigator Europe maps are supplied and can be updated online. For obvious reasons they do not cover roads which were only constructed last month!
There was no supplied case or pouch with mine. Again, to me it was a bit of penny-pinching that seems pointless.

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