0ur opinion:

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Portable and powerful, The Garmin® nüvi® 205 is your personal travel assistant for life on the go. This navigator leads the way with turn-by-turn directions and optional MSN® Direct services to get you there on time and keep you informed. lt's packed with millions of destinations and maps for the contiguous U.S., Canada, or regional sections of Europe.


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Buyer's feedback: - * Excellent low end model ...
Real competition for the higher end Garmin products. S Rogers doesn't understand how to operate it. It is NOT advertised as text-to-speech. You CAN delete individual "favorites." The arrival times are aggressive, particularly if you live in LA - because this model cannot account for traffic. It's accuracy is superb, and it deletes the awkward antenna that made the old models incapable of pocket use. New pedestrian mode is also great.

The map is 2009, which doesn't keep up with all new retail.

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Buyer's feedback: - Quite acceptable for a low-end item
I haven't used this item much as I just got it, but it has done everything and taken me wherever I told it to. Granted, I wouldn't always take the route designated, but you do have a choice of fastest or shortest and can make adjustments accordingly. We all have our shortcuts in areas that we travel often and they often won't show as options, but then, since you know them, why use a GPS?

I too wish you could delete just one item, and that it would tell you the street names, but for the amount of use I expect to put it through, which is probably minimal, it wasn't worth spending $$$ more for those bells and whistles.

I do like the Pedestrian capability, and will put that to a test tomorrow.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Worse than useless, a turd in every sense of the word. ...
The 205 is less than useless. Here are a few reasons why.

1. It should provide accurate DISTANCE measurements. It doesn't. Over the several months I have owned this turd, I have loaded several dozen locations. When I click to view them, it will give me a specific distance. When I click one to actually go there, it then shows a distance which has differed by up to 60 miles or more. So "Mammoth Lakes" for example, is either 251 miles away, or (when I click to go there) perhaps 317. Heck, what's a 66 mile difference anyway? Whether the initial distance is an unreasonable and unusable measure like "as the crow flies" and the second one is using actual paved road, a unit this far off is worthless.

2. It should give reasonably useful driving DIRECTIONS. It doesn't. I have followed the directions completely, just to see what it does, and several times it has had me make 4-5 turns instead of simply continuing down the street I'm on to get on a freeway onramp 500 feet down the road I was originally on. Again, this is just stupid, wastes time and slows travel. Today, driving to a location 45 miles away, it kept telling me to exit the freeway when I was still 25 miles away, and to go in a southerly direction, when my destination was to the north. There is no way taking surface streets would get me there faster or even close to the same time. The programming is crappy.

3. It should not suddenly TURN OFF. It does. Just today, it switched off 3 times in a row. A unit that will not stay on is of no use. It wasn't the battery, or a case of hitting a wrong button. It just shut off 3 times.

4. It should give reasonably accurate estimated ARRIVAL TIME. It doesn't. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect a decent effort. This makes no effort. As best I can figure, it calculates the straight line distance (never mind that roads aren't built "as the crow flies"), ignores stop signs and red lights that would slow you down, etc. It also ignores all obvious traffic conditions people living in cities have to deal with, like traffic jams. In the mind of this system, there are no other cars on the road. If you ask the travel distance at midnight, it will give you the same (wrongly) estimated time as if you ask it "how long" at the height of rush hour. It assumes you're always going maximum speed and then some. It assumes a speed about 10-15 miles over the speed limit. I was driving to one destination and despite going 75 mph (in a 65 mph zone) most of the way, the estimate kept falling farther and farther back. After driving 10 minutes, the display told me it would take 6 minutes longer to arrive. The estimated arrival time changed by almost 48 minutes by the time I got there, meaning my "estimated travel time" almost doubled. What use is that? None. Since I bought it, I have never arrived anywhere near the starting time. It will display a time as you start, and that time keeps extending 1-2 minutes at a time, so that the final arrival time is never even close to the original estimate. Whether this company is a) too incompetent to factor in traffic conditions, b) too cheap to do anything but have it calculate "straight line distance divided by 80 mph", or simply c) too ignorant to realize that traffic conditions exist in the first place, what they're doing is LESS than useless. A broken gauge you don't bother looking at. A consistently malfunctioning gauge appears as if "maybe this time it'll be correct", but it never is.

5. You should be able to selectively DELETE ONE DESTINATION. This one can't. You have two options: delete every single location you've programmed, or delete nothing at all. This is just stupid.

6. The view shouldn't suddenly change. Initially, there was an "over the top of the car" view, as if you were sitting right on top of the car, seeing the streets come up. Then, about 2 weeks ago, it suddenly starts showing the view as if you're several hundred feet directly above the car. It looks awkward and makes for more difficult navigation. There is nothing on any of the menus on how to reset or fix this. It's not a question of zooming in or out. The original view is now gone.

7. It was advertised as "text to speech", which should mean it says something like "proceed 1.5 miles, and turn left on Wilshire Blvd." Instead it just says "turn left, then stay right, then turn left." Without identifying street names, there is ample chance of confusion when there are multiple possible turns in a short distance. It has given confusing and unclear directions even when I know where I'm going. I knew where to change lanes and turn because I'd done it before, not thanks to anything this piece of crap said.

Summary: this is a total piece of crap. There is nothing it does that is accurate or remotely useful. It's all either flat out wrong, largely inaccurate, or consistently misleading. If I could give it a negative rating, I would. A properly functioning GPS can be very useful, saving you from having to pore through maps while you drive. This one is no good at all. I'll let the shills from this company try to make excuses, but I've had enough of this nonsense. (November 16, 2008)