Garmin Nuvi 250 (silver)

Pros: Compact, well made, well designed - a Garmin

Cons: No SiRF receiver, no WAAS - A lower performance Garmin

Summary: To be honest, the Nuvi 250 works OK.
And if this is your firs Garmin, you will probably be very happy with it.
It is compact; it has all the good features of a Garmin: clear screen, intuitive operation, good routing engine and it is very well built.
The Nuvi 250 is actually very similar to the Street Pilot C530 that was stolen from my car last August.
And by the way stolen: always remove the GPS from the windshield BFORE you arrive to your designated parking spot.
Mine was hidden in the car, but somebody saw when I removed it and where I put it. So they broke the window and went directly for the GPS.
But let’s go back to the Nuvi.
As I said it works fine. But after owning the C530, you can see a BIG difference.
The 250 has no SiRf chipset for receiver and no WAAS capability (SiRF=the highest receiving sensitivity available on the market; WAAS=a system enhancing the positioning resolution from 10 to 2 meters).
So the 250 is slower to react when you miss your turn, it may “think” you are on the service road when you really are on the highway and much worst, there are locations where the C530 had no problem to lock on satellites at 3-4 green lines and where the nuvi 250 will NEVER lock whatever you do. And this, in my opinion is BAD.
It means Garmin cut the price but they also cut badly on performance and went back to the pre-SiRf era of low performance GPS receivers (like the Street Pilot C330).
I believe Garmin can do whatever they want, but what I do not like is the fact that they are deceiving us by not stating this reality. On the 250 they state: high sensitivity receiver (?!). It is like saying: This car has a very big engine. Wow, very convincing!
I think we should be the ones deciding how much we want to spend and for what level of performance. They should state that the 250 is an entry level GPS with an acceptable chipset that is less performing than the SiRf, and as such the lower price. This is a simple and fair statement.
Personally, I bought the nuvi 350 for comparison and I found that for 100$ more, it is by far a better GPS, even if I don’t like too much the flip antenna feature; so I am returning the nuvi 250.
I hope this helps.