glkingar
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Auto GPSs - What Works For You?
- Thread starter Haoleguy
- Start date
- Views: 5606
Just a followup on my Garmin 2555LMT following my purchase and 2 week trip to northern California. I had only 1.5 days to test and quickly understand how to use the Garmin before my trip. Trip had combination of areas(several counties), environments(rural & city), weather(rain, fog, sun), traffic(fwy, dirt roads,streets), and time of day(night & daylight) levels. The following are my thoughts on the 2555LMT
Pre-trip Activities - Changed the voice and volume from default voice to another female voice which increased the lifelike sound over the default synthesized voice. Playing with the volume level also made the instructions understandable during radio music or passenger conversations. I entered and saved about 15 locations that I would be, or might be, visiting. Some of these were not found in the Garmin preset place lists. However, the preloaded city parking areas were spot on for the parking garages in Sacramento. One thing to remember is to change city/town location before entering address or searching for place.
During Trip - Flew into Sacramento airport under dry weather with cloudy skies. This airport is outside on the city on the northwest side. First test was pretty easy in finding our hotel outside of Sacramento which it did nicely by not taking us through the city areas. First couple of days were simple navigation tests on roads we mostly knew and was done under good weather. One thing I noticed is that one has to get use to timing of the voice instructions and quickly glancing at the map screen for distance. The latter is relatively easy with the larger 5" diagonal screen. The getting use to part is if you are familiar with another GPS, like I was with an Acura system, you have to recalibrate your perception of when you make the driving move to the instruction. The next few days took me into unchartered territory(for me anyways) in Sonoma County near Santa Rosa, CA. All of this travel was during light to heavy rain in both daytime and night time. The GPS proved flawless and a saver for being in the correct lane and making the turns at the right time. After a couple of days we headed due east for the Sierra Foothills. We stayed in a very small town called Fiddletown. The weather was off and on raining during this time. Roads included some little known single lane dirt, now mud, roads in backcountry hills. Only once did it try to take us on private ranch land but that was an easy fix by changing course. This GPS does a great job at recalculating map direction once you change course. Satellite communication was always active when outside even when surrounded by hills and trees. Autoamtic day-night switchovers were great to have. Following the very rural foothills area we stayed several nights outside of Sacramento for a meeting inside Sacramento at the convention center. For 3 days we commuted in with fwy traffic on both foggy and sunny days. The traffic service on this unit worked well most of the time but was never spot on. It relayed traffic problems ahead when you were within 2 miles of the slowdown. It would be great if it could transmit potential problems ahead when you were further out from the slowdown. I never tried the alternate route choices. That's something I will probably try when in more familiar surroundings. The GPS was a dream when switching fwys when heading into Sacramento and transitioned to city streets and brought me to the parking garage I needed to use. While on the ground walking I wanted to locate a nearby restaurant for lunch and it showed me my choices and asked if I wanted to switch over to pedestrian use...nice change. During the trip I also punched in new locations to travel to. That was so easy and swift to do.
Post trip - I should mention their was no issue in seeing the screen on sunny days or with polarizing sunglasses. The Garmin voice takes a minimalist view on giving instructions when compared to my spouse's Acura MDX GPS so you need to pay attention. With her Acura you can have the GPS repeat instructions at anytime. I have not yet found that function on the Garmin...haven't really looked yet. Also I would say that if you are doing a windshield mount the 5" diagonal screen would probably be the smallest I would go with. Since California has a restriction against windshield mounts I went with the friction mount. This works good on my 98 F150 and worked extremely well on the 2011 Ford Escape I rented on this trip. The best thing was that my spouse was so relaxed on this trip because she did not have to navigate. Now I'm wondering why I hadn't taken this step to purchase a portable GPS before.......Cheers, Gary
Pre-trip Activities - Changed the voice and volume from default voice to another female voice which increased the lifelike sound over the default synthesized voice. Playing with the volume level also made the instructions understandable during radio music or passenger conversations. I entered and saved about 15 locations that I would be, or might be, visiting. Some of these were not found in the Garmin preset place lists. However, the preloaded city parking areas were spot on for the parking garages in Sacramento. One thing to remember is to change city/town location before entering address or searching for place.
During Trip - Flew into Sacramento airport under dry weather with cloudy skies. This airport is outside on the city on the northwest side. First test was pretty easy in finding our hotel outside of Sacramento which it did nicely by not taking us through the city areas. First couple of days were simple navigation tests on roads we mostly knew and was done under good weather. One thing I noticed is that one has to get use to timing of the voice instructions and quickly glancing at the map screen for distance. The latter is relatively easy with the larger 5" diagonal screen. The getting use to part is if you are familiar with another GPS, like I was with an Acura system, you have to recalibrate your perception of when you make the driving move to the instruction. The next few days took me into unchartered territory(for me anyways) in Sonoma County near Santa Rosa, CA. All of this travel was during light to heavy rain in both daytime and night time. The GPS proved flawless and a saver for being in the correct lane and making the turns at the right time. After a couple of days we headed due east for the Sierra Foothills. We stayed in a very small town called Fiddletown. The weather was off and on raining during this time. Roads included some little known single lane dirt, now mud, roads in backcountry hills. Only once did it try to take us on private ranch land but that was an easy fix by changing course. This GPS does a great job at recalculating map direction once you change course. Satellite communication was always active when outside even when surrounded by hills and trees. Autoamtic day-night switchovers were great to have. Following the very rural foothills area we stayed several nights outside of Sacramento for a meeting inside Sacramento at the convention center. For 3 days we commuted in with fwy traffic on both foggy and sunny days. The traffic service on this unit worked well most of the time but was never spot on. It relayed traffic problems ahead when you were within 2 miles of the slowdown. It would be great if it could transmit potential problems ahead when you were further out from the slowdown. I never tried the alternate route choices. That's something I will probably try when in more familiar surroundings. The GPS was a dream when switching fwys when heading into Sacramento and transitioned to city streets and brought me to the parking garage I needed to use. While on the ground walking I wanted to locate a nearby restaurant for lunch and it showed me my choices and asked if I wanted to switch over to pedestrian use...nice change. During the trip I also punched in new locations to travel to. That was so easy and swift to do.
Post trip - I should mention their was no issue in seeing the screen on sunny days or with polarizing sunglasses. The Garmin voice takes a minimalist view on giving instructions when compared to my spouse's Acura MDX GPS so you need to pay attention. With her Acura you can have the GPS repeat instructions at anytime. I have not yet found that function on the Garmin...haven't really looked yet. Also I would say that if you are doing a windshield mount the 5" diagonal screen would probably be the smallest I would go with. Since California has a restriction against windshield mounts I went with the friction mount. This works good on my 98 F150 and worked extremely well on the 2011 Ford Escape I rented on this trip. The best thing was that my spouse was so relaxed on this trip because she did not have to navigate. Now I'm wondering why I hadn't taken this step to purchase a portable GPS before.......Cheers, Gary
Diamondpilot
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Glad you like the Garmin. I loaned my 260 Nuvi to my sister for a trip and she was so impressed she went out and bought one. She found it easy to use and within a hour was plenty comfortable with it.
It did take me 2 months to get it back. I thought I was going to have to pry it from her cold dead hands.:laughing:
Chris
It did take me 2 months to get it back. I thought I was going to have to pry it from her cold dead hands.:laughing:
Chris
