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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Reliable and Excellent GPS for beginners"
Pros: Super-fast detour recalculation; Accurate and latest map; Lowest price Nuvi;
Cons: No Canada map; No Street-To-Text;
Summary: I was torn between Tom Tom One (3rd Edition) and the Garmin Nuvi 200. My friend has an old Tom Tom One. I found that the calculation is a little bit slow, both during the start and detour calculation, but their low price is really attractive (USD149 in Nov 2007). I want to buy a basic Garmin Nuvi model after reading many Internet reviews, but the high price tag stopped me from taking any action. When I found that BestBuy is offering Garmin Nuvi 200 at US$169.99 (reg. 299 in other chain stores) during the Thanksgiving 2007, I bought it without much hesitation since it is even cheaper than the Garmin StreetPilot.
This is a gift for my wife so that she can drive by herself to shopping malls in other township (a very good investment for any husband). What she need is an accurate GPS with fast calculation (you don?t want to hear any complaint from your wife) and easy to use menu (women can spend hours to shop but cannot spend two minutes to read the user manual). The Garmin Nuvi 200 fully meets these requirements.
We bought it this morning and use it today. The menu is intuitive and we entered the destination without any problem. The unit received the satellite signal and calculated the route within 10 seconds. We used it to guide the way to two shopping malls and one restaurant before going back home. The selected routes are good. We tried several time to detour from the original route and the recalculation is very fast (talking about a few seconds). On highway, it prompts the voice signal about 1 mile before the turning point, and it gives the second prompts at about 100 feet. On city streets, it prompts the voice signal about 300 to 200 feet, and gives the second signal at about 20 to 50 feet. The positioning is very accurate and the prompt is giving at good intervals.
Pros:
1. Extremely fast recalculation. It recalculates the new route within a few seconds when we drove away from the normal route.
2. Better and newer Map than Tom Tom One.
3. Simple to use menu.
4. Fast respond on the menu, there are no delay on selection and map. But the POI search is rather slow.
5. Many POIs to select. Especially the selection of restaurant by cuisine.
6. Lowest price in Garmin Nuvi series
Cons:
1. No Canada map built in. (Nuvi 260 which contains Canada)
2. No Zip code selection. (Little bit inconvenient)
3. Slow POI search. (especially when you want to search locations beyond the 5 miles radius)
4. No Street-To-Text function. (Nuvi higher end models have it at higher price tag)
5. No fancy features like the MP3 player or Bluetooth. (who needs these added features for a basic GPS)
Compare with Tom Tom One (3rd Ed):
1. Nuvi 200 has better map and faster calculation. Tom Tom One (3rd) compensate this weakness with the user group uploaded correction on map, this is a very good feature using the users group power. Yet I prefer the out-of-the-box ready to use one and try to avoid the trouble to do the loading of correction.
2. Tom Tom One has more flexible way to plan the alternative route (e.g. road block aheads). Nuvi 200 cannot beat Tom Tom One here.
3. Tom Tom One has more flexible way to selection destination (e.g. by zip code; by crosss road; by road name). Nuvi 200 is restricted to boring State-City-Street.
4. Tom Tom One includes both USA and Canada. Nuvi 200 has USA 50 only, buying additional map SD Card is rather expensive for this beginner model.
Initially, the great user interface of Tom Tome One on destination and POI selection looks very attractive. But after weight in the lack of selection of restaurant by cuisine and the slow detour recalculation in Tom Tome One, I still feel that Garmin Nuvi 200 is a better choice for me.
Bottom Line:
Both me and my wife like Garmin Nuvi 200's fast and accurate detour recalculation. The simple menu is very easy to use without looking at the menu. Best value for the money especially when the price is lowered in this holiday season to US$ 169.99.
Garmin Nuvi 200:
