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What if one device could help you navigate anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, while offering travel tips, storing your favorite tunes and photos, providing translation assistance, and more? That device is here, and it's not much bigger than a deck of cards. The Garmin nüvi 350 is set to revolutionize what we expect from a GPS navigation device, or from any device for that matter.

Which nüvi is Best for You?: Click here to see a quick, simple comparison of features for all Garmin nuvi GPS navigators

The nüvi 350 is a portable GPS navigator, traveler's reference, and digital entertainment system, all in one. View product demo (requires Flash).

A simple touchscreen interface and voice guidance allow you to keep your eyes on the road. View larger.

Listen to an audio book or an MP3 while you're on the road. View larger.

Design
With a total weight of 5.1 ounces and slim measurements of 3.87 x 2.91 x 0.87 inches (WxHxD), the nüvi 350 is just right for the pocket or purse. A bright, 64,000-color display dominates the front of the device and a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels means that there's plenty of room for displaying map data and other elements of the device's interface. An SD memory card slot is provided for expansion software, such as a points of interest database, media files and electronic guides (see below). The flip-up antenna includes an MCX-type connector for connecting the unit to an external GPS antenna. Meanwhile, a powerful built-in speaker resides on the back of device. A built-in lithium ion battery will give you for to eight hours of battery life, depending on use. ln addition to an AC charger, the unit also ships with a 12-volt power adapter for vehicle charging, as well as a windshield suction cup mount.

Fortunately, Garmin has made it easy to interface with the nüvi 350's 700 megabytes of onboard memory, thanks to 'plug-and-play' USB mass storage support. Just plug the device into your computer's USB port and you've got instantaneous access to all the audio books, music, photos, supplemental maps and other data on the nüvi 350's internal and SD card memory.



Navigation
The nüvi 350 is first and foremost a personal GPS device. Wherever you go -- in your car or on foot-- the device offers extremely accurate position data, thanks to a high-sensitivity integrated GPS receiver by SiRF and WAAS-enabled, 12-satellite reception. Combined with detailed maps of the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico the nüvi 350 provides automatic routing, turn-by-turn voice directions, and touchscreen control-- making it easy to find your way anywhere. Plus, the unique 'text-to-speech' feature calls out turns by street name, and you can choose from either 2D or 3D mapping perspectives when you're viewing your route on the display. Additionally, the nüvi 350 is compatible with Garmin's GTM 10 FM TMC traffic receiver*, which allows users to avoid traffic tie-ups by simply pushing a button that will calculate a new route.



As mentioned, the nüvi 350 comes packed with mapping data for North America, but you can can also load up your custom points of interest. Set up proximity alerts for school zones, safety cameras, and more using Garmin's free P0l (points of interest) loader program (available from garmin.com).




lmportant note about map updates: Due to our high volume of sales, almost every Garmin portable GPS navigator sold by will come with the most recent map version. lf you ever do need a map update, you can purchase one from Amazon.com at our Garmin Store.

The device automatically calculates the fastest route and provides voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions along the way.

Tools for the Journey
Navigation is just part of the journey, and the nüvi 350 is one of the first devices to recognize that. The built-in 'Travel Kit' offers an MP3 player, an audio book player from Audible.com, a jpeg-format picture viewer, a world travel clock with time zones, a currency converter, a measurement converter, and a calculator.



ln addition to the included travel tools, additional software add-ons are available, such as the Garmin Language Guide, with data provided by 0xford University Press. This software suite contains a multilingual word bank, phrase bank, and five bilingual dictionaries. The multilingual word bank and phrase bank supports nine languages and dialects, including American English, British English, French, German, ltalian, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, European Spanish, and Latin American Spanish. Now you can look up and translate more than 17,000 words or 20,000 phrases per language -- right in the palm of your hand. Through the unit's text-to-speech interface, users can get a spoken pronunciation of each entry in the word bank, along with gender and part of speech information.



Another useful add-on software package, the Garmin Travel Guide, is loaded with information provided by Marco Polo. These guides put in-depth travel information such as reviews and recommendations for restaurants, tourist attractions, and more at your fingertips. The software allows you to navigate to an address or search points of interest-- places like hotels, restaurants, shopping, and tourist attractions. The nüvi 350 automatically calculates the fastest route and provides voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions along the way. The unit also audibly announces the name of upcoming streets-- letting you keep your eyes on the road while navigating through busy traffic and tricky roadways. And if you stray off course, the nüvi 350 automatically calculates the quickest way to get back on track.

*Traffic services available only in select cities where RDS-TMC coverage exists. Requires the GTM 10 FM TMC traffic receiver and subscription fee to enable traffic capability.

What's in the Box
nüvi 350, Preloaded City Navigator NT for North America and Puerto Rico, Vehicle suction cup mount, AC charger, Vehicle power cable, Dashboard disc, USB cable, Carrying case, Quick reference guide



Which nüvi is Best for You?
For a slightly higher pricepoint, Garmin's nüvi 600 and 700 series devices have richer feature sets including: MP3 players, JPEG photo viewers, the ability to receive traffic and weather information, bluetooth for hands-free calling, FM transmitters that deliver audio through your cars own stereo system, and multi-destination routing that will tell you the best way to make a trip that involves several destinations.

	Screen Size inches (w x h)	lncluded Maps			Text-to-Speech (Directions in Real Street Names)	Traffic	Bluetooth	Media	FM Transmitter (audio through car stereo system)	Multi- Point Routing	Battery life (hours)
		Cont. U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico	AK and Canada	Europe
nüvi 200	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 200w	3.81 x 2.25							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 250	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 250w	3.81 x 2.25							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 260	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 260w	3.81 x 2.25							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 270	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 350	2.8 x 2.1					FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 8
nüvi 360	2.8 x 2.1					FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 8
nüvi 370	2.8 x 2.1					FM (receiver included)		Photos, MP3s			up to 8
nüvi 650	3.81 x 2.25					FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 660	3.81 x 2.25					FM (receiver included)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 670	3.81 x 2.25					FM (receiver included)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 680	3.81 x 2.25					MSN (receiver included; 1-year free); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 750	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 760	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 770	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 780	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (receiver inc.; 3 months free) receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 850	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 4
nüvi 880	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (receiver inc.; 3 months free); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 4
nüvi 5000	4.5 x 2.7					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)					external battery only

Piece Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Testimonials

Average Buyer Rating:

Buyer's feedback: - * A must have for travel ...
Every summer we drive between 2500 to 4500 miles on our vacations. This is the first year I had a GPS to help navigate. Honestly, I don't know how we took these trips in the past. This GPS made it so easy to locate our destinations it almost seemed like cheating. Even my kids got into the thing always wanting to find our next restaurant or gas station. I took the time to locate all our stops before we left and saved them into "My Favorites." When we left a destination we deleted it and selected the next. I still took maps, addresses, and phone numbers for a back up but never even looked at them. I also downloaded MP3's to listen to and photos from past vacations to look at. It is small enough to put in your pocket so we even took it hiking in case we got off the trail we could back track to find our car or to have a little music for our picnic lunch. I will never take another vacation without a portable GPS. There are better units out there but for basic navigation, music, and photos at $199 (Amazon) this can't be beat.

p.s. Twice it took us to locations where nothing was there, just a vacant lot where Pizza Hut was supposed to be. I don't know if it burned down or closed recently but from time to time you will have an errant search. Not a real big deal unless your driving many miles to get there. We had no trouble finding another place to eat within minutes. Also in big cities (downtown Philadelphia for example) it had a hard time tracking satellites for a bit. Only other problem I noticed was that sometimes you turn it on and it acquires satellites within seconds, other times it takes two or three minutes.

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Buyer's feedback: - TomTom XL-S is a better one
I bought the Tomtom XL-S from Walmart and unfortunately I returned it to get this one from Amazon.

Here are some rough comparisons I got with the two products.

* Garmin 350 has a lot LESS POS even after I installed a > 2G map upgrade for year 2009 from Garmin. The pre-loaded POS library is way better. The Garmin POS library doesn't have some busy resteraunts next to my home and much fewer places overall.

* Garming's map is out-of-date even after the year 2009 map upgrade. I hit a deadend and a non-existing McDonalds in the first couple of days when I started to use Garmin.

* It takes much LONGER time for my Garmin 360 to acquire satellite signal. Some times it took over 4 minutes. Tomtom usually took less than 1.5 minutes.

* Tomtom does the type ahead thing on most of the dropdown lists to populate the search result while you are typing any letters and Garmin does NONE.

* Garmin does better on re-calculating the route on the fly. It takes longer on Tomtom.

* Both GPSs sucks by using the alphabetic keyboard rather than the standard one.



Overall the text-to-speech and the timing of the voice prompt is good on Garmin.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Great product! ...
My parents urged me to get this product because I always took their Garmin... and they bought me the 350 because of the great price and because i did not need all the bells and whistles that the higher models have.

Good things: The unit is very compact, and since i live on a college campus and don't need the gps every day, it's easy to slip it in my purse when not in use. The spoken street names is also great- because it reduces the time that i'm actually staring at the unit.


There is not very many negative aspects of this product, since i was used to using a higher model- i miss certain things (like being able to switch the keypad to a qwerty version, and the larger screen) but the product is overall a GREAT buy and i'm thrilled that i chose the nuvi.

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Buyer's feedback: - The perfect system
The Garmin nüvi 350 is just the perfect navigation system. It does everything I needed of it when I needed it. It has never even led me astray. I bought it for a road trip that took us into San Francisco for a week and it worked like a charm. The screen is the perfect size and the actual system is so incrediby small that it really is not obtrusive at all. I highly recommend this product to anyone interested in buying a navigation system.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Good Product ...
So far it has lived up to expectations. Text to speech was one of the main features we wanted and it works great! One thing that does concern me is that when in map mode it doesn't call the cross street until you are past it even at 25 mph.