I am a late adopter of Satellite Navigation Systems (Sat Nav for short) – The advantage of being late is you get a mature product for a good price (and hopefully with most of the bugs ironed out).

I chose the Garmin Nuvi because it seemed to come out top in both owner and professional reviews. Before we review the Garmin Nuvi – Why Should You Buy a Sat Nav? Here are a few reasons for starters:

10 Reasons to Buy Sat Nav

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1. Sat Navs don’t shout or throw the map at you.
2. Sat Navs stay calm when everything is going wrong. If you miss the turning the sat nav announces cooly, ‘recalculating’ and provides a new route within seconds. Just try and find a human navigator that can compete with that!
3. If you are alone you can pretend your Sat Nav is a helpful friend or even your partner (However, the female voice on mine could be a bit more seductive and conversational).
4. You can use them in any vehicle including a hire car and mine works all across Europe. Click this link to find out about using a Garmin Nuvi in a hire car in Spain.
5. You can turn off the voice and navigate from the map display only or put the display away and just use the voice.
6. Saves a fortune in paper maps etc.
7. Saves on fines and tickets if you stick to the announced speed limits and take notice of speed camera information.
8. Great for walking around towns (more on Pedestrian Mode later).
9. Locates local ammenities such as sports facilities, gas stations, hospitals and stores.
   

10. It also has an offroad mode - This is useful for trail walking, biking (has a bike mode too) or driving offroad.

So What About the Garmin Nuvi 255WT?

The European version has maps for the whole of the EU pre-loaded. The W stands for Widescreen (4.3 inch) and the T is for Traffic Information.

Traffic input is provided via an FM aerial which plugs into the power lead. It doesn't appear to need any setting up, works out of the box and is free in the UK (no subscription required).

The best price I could find for the 255WT (Dec 08) was at my local Amazon site (amazon.co.uk). Amazon also threw in a free leather case.

What Do You Get?

The 255WT comes with suction mount, dash-mounted disc, in-car power supply, FM antenna and a quick start manual. The manual is pretty basic but you can download a more comprehensive guide from the Garmin Website.

There is a lithium internal battery with around 4 hours normal operation which you can also charge via the USB port on your computer so you don’t necessarily need a mains charger.

The USB port also enables you to upload and download data to and from your sat nav. Although the USB lead is not included, the Nuvi uses a lead common to most cameras and other USB devices so I already had 2 of them. You can download new stuff (mostly free) from Garmin or other 3rd party providers via the internet.

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There was no charge in the battery when I took it out of the the box so connected it to a USB port of my PC to for an hour or so to charge it up. It then takes a while to initially locate the satellites. I took mine outside to be sure it would find them.

Once you've done that then the machine is ready to use. If you select 'map' from the startup screen (the right hand icon in the screenshot to the left) it will show a map of where you are currently located.

There are a variety of ways to input your destination. The easiest is to type in a Post Code or Zip Code. it then prompts you for a house number. You can also select from a wide range of programmed in ammenities such as hospitals, gas stations or shops. You then press 'GO' and it switches to the map with the route marked in magenta.

A novel feature that has been added more recently by Garmin is Photo Navigation. You can download any photos from Google Maps via the Garmin website to your Nuvi device. There are literally hundreds in a typical town in the UK.

The download includes location data. When you select 'Where To' on the Garmin you go to Favorites and you can select any of these photos and display it. If you want to go there then just click 'Go' and the route is ready for you to follow.

I'm using a simple blue arrow for my vehicle icon here but you can download a wide range of different vehicles, feet, airplanes etc. from the Garmin website.

In the screenshot there is a beachball and a red car with a Christmas tree on the roof ready for selection. These are part of a free Garmin 'holidays' package.  

Incidentally, there is also a Garmin screenshot mode enabling you to dump screenshots from the Nuvi onto your PC.  Why would you want this feature? - well it helps if, like me, you want to write about the Nuvi!  You could also add screenshots to your holiday photos, for example. 

The Nuvi 255WT has lots of other features I haven't got time to cover. However, one feature worth mentioning is Pedestrian Mode. Although optimised for car use, the Nuvi can also be used in cycle or pedestrian mode and with a four hour battery life this is highly practical.

My wife and I tried it on New Year's Day, taking a walk around the ancient cathedral city of Chichester. We used the Nuvi to give us a route by car from home to the leisure centre in Chichester where we parked.

We then walked throught the Cathedral and headed north to walk along the top of part of the old Roman city wall. Although we didn't program a route the Nuvi kept us informed of exactly where we were.

I was surprised to see the wall was actually included in the map and the Nuvi informed me 'Walking along North Wall'. We wandered randomly through the small streets with no concern about being lost. When we'd finished I selected a route to the leisure centre and it took us directly back through a network of tiny roads straight to the car.

Other nice touches when walking are it gives distances to the next turning in yards (3 feet) rather than 0.1 miles when in car mode. Incidentally, if there are no roads where you're walking then you can switch to Off Road Mode. It then gives you the most direct route (a straight line).

Verdict and Summary

As a newcomer to Sat Nav, I was really impressed. If I'd know how good they were I would have bought one earlier.

Anyone who's arrived in strange countries at night, alone and had to navigate an unfamiliar hire car on the wrong side of the road in pitch darkness through mountains will know what I mean.

There are many features and enhancements to the Nuvi range I've not had time to mention here. Check out the Amazon link (right) for more information.