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User Reviews about Garmin nüvi 275 275T 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic

Its good because it has Euro maps and that is what I need. Has enough feautures to keep you busy and everything pretty much flows together for easy use. -- GPS Garmin nuvi 275

The Garin 275T navigator comes with maps which are at least a year old. My drive to State College, Pa from DC was constantly misdirected by my new 275 Garin to local side roads from the freeway I-70 which would have added more hours to the drive. I-99 to State College has been open for at least one year but Garin doesn't have this route mapped. I plan to check for map updates but I don't know why I should have since Garin says GPS should work right out of the box.

Updating maps is not for the faint-of-heart or non-computer geek. I have finish updating my USA map after 6 hours of working on the computer to get it to work. The download manager doesn't work because IE-8 won't accept it: stating that it has malware attached. I used the IE-8 download. The program consumed about 10 Gigs of memory on my computer so I may delete it after a couple of months. -- The Garin 275T navigator comes with maps which are at least a year old.

I have been operating this using the unit for about 10 months now. Its been a companion on many trips.

This is what I like about the unit:
- The US maps are accurate, they have taken me to my destination 100% of the time. This is my number 1 requirement and the unit executes on it well.
- Its easy to use. Plug it in and go. The user interface is simple and seems to be well designed.
- Spoken directions are accurate and easy to follow.
- I like the format of the device, easy to carry.
- The utility to store coordinates is quite useful, as is, adding waypoints on a route.

What I don't like about the unit
- Blue tooth is a waste on this unit. People on the other end have a difficult time understanding what I say. Its easier to switch my Blackberry to speakerphone. The distance from the unit and it seems like the 275T does not suppress road noise readily makes for a less than stellar performance.
- The traffic management system is of limited use. There is no traffic management logic built into the unit, at least not that I could determine. In Chicago for example it kept trying to steer us back into traffic. At best it seems to calculate some sort of delay factor.
- In downtown Toronto it was lost in the buildings, which was expected, but it kept saying recalculating ..... this constant chatter wanted me to slit my wrists and bleed all over the unit.
- I took it to Europe for a single business trip. It didn't pick up satellites. I have since then read that people have had to leave it on for 40 min to pick up satellites. I didn't leave it on for that long and if this is true, thats foolish. Others have reported that their units picked up satellites immediately ....
- The non QWERTY keyboard makes me hunt and peck.

It meets my #1 need beautifully, it gets me around North America very well. However it does not do so well meeting my #2 need, acting as a bluetooth hands free device in my vehicle or my #3 need for travel in Europe. The plan is to take it back to Europe in a month and see if does pick up satellites. I was also hoping for better utility from the traffic function. -- Good unit with quirks

I purchased the nüvi 370 some years ago for over $700. I go to Europe a couple of times each year and usually spent hours being lost in cities. The nüvi 370, with maps of both the US and Europe became my constant companion and being lost became an infrequent occurrence. Unfortunately, it was stolen and the 275t is it's replacement.

The 275t does not have some of the features of the 370, but I never used those features anyway. The big thing with the 275t is the included traffic updates and detour features which were a monthly fee option with the 370. The 370 was a bit faster in operation, but the 275t loads much faster. Both models have TTS (Text to Speech), POI's (Points of Interest), which are my favorite features.

All-in-all, the 275t for less than $200 is a bargain. -- As advertised, it's worth the few extra dollars