Garmin StreetPilot c320 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator by Garmin
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Digital camera reviews of Garmin StreetPilot c320 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator
Digital camera Review: A great machine for the geographically challenged, at a decent price.
Summary: 4 Stars
Pro's:
*Quick, accurate real-time directions.
*Accurate, constantly updated Estimated Arrival Time (Very handy!)
*Clear, multi-lingual voice commands and graphics.
*Quick re-calculations when driver diverges from course.
*If you buy a 1GB SD card (separately), you can load all of North America, still for less total cost than the next model up (c330), which comes with North America pre-loaded. Fly to the other side of the country, hop in a rental car, and start navigating like a native! (I'm not sure, but it seems you could buy and load CD maps for Europe or other places, too.)
*Lots of "Points of Interest," so you can always find a nearby restaurant, parking lot, gas station, motel, etc. (Great for long road trips in unfamiliar territory.)
Cons:
*Not Mac-compatible; you need (or need to borrow, as we did) a PC, with a DVD drive, in order to load the maps onto the SD card, and it took several hours to load all of North America. (We took our friends out to dinner while we highjacked their computer. It was just finishing up when we returned.) All the more reason to get a 1GB card. You don't want to have to do this every time you travel to a new region.
*This model doesn't have the capability to take into account real-time traffic conditions.
*Some touch-screen menus (e.g. finding a specific type of cuisine nearby) take some time and concentration to navigate through, so you should either pull over or have your co-pilot do the button-pushing.
Ever since I was a kid, I've fantasized about a map that would show where I was at any given moment. (This was long before Harry Potter's "Marauder's Map.") I've never been very good with directions, and I've spent a good portion of my driving life wandering aimlessly and making poor directional choices. The advent of Mapquest was a great leap forward, but once I'd made a wrong turn, the printed-out turn-by-turn directions were rendered useless. Enter the Garmin Street Pilot! Now, I still miss turns, but that's generally my fault for paying attention to the radio, instead of the machine's clearly spoken instructions--e.g. "[Bing!] In 200 feet, exit right.....[Bing!] Exit right," or the map's clearly drawn, constantly updated 3D map. The difference is that this little miracle patiently, and quickly, recalculates a new route based on my current bearings. This is also the case if I intentionally take a different route than "she" tells me. For a while, she'll encourage me to "Make a U-turn when possible," until she calculates a quicker way to go in the current direction. (You can always turn the volume down with the manual volume knob if you don't want to be badgered any more.)
I've been thrilled with the Garmin StreetPilot c320. It's easy to use, and does everything I want it to. The only thing keeping it from 5 stars is its incompatability with Mac.
Digital camera Review: A great value an extra bonus for some users.
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't praise this more than what has already been posted by others. But I can offer another reason why you may want to choose the c320 over the pre-loaded c330.
The Garmin MapSource City Navigator CD-ROM that comes with the c320 is licensed to allow map installation on one extra Garmin map-compatible product. After I purchased the c320 I got the Garmin eTrex Venture Cx for geocaching/hiking/etc. It comes with a very limited base map. However, it can be loaded with additional map detail (topo or street). To my delight, I was able to unlock and load the above mentioned maps to my Venture Cx.
THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE WITH THE c330 or other Garmin products with pre-loaded maps. You would have to buy the CD separately (an extra $107 currently).
A nice bonus for some users!
Digital camera Review: A wonderful unit for its price
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this gadget 3 days ago, because I was tired of getting lost and hence frustrated. Often times I need to pay too much attention to find my way while driving. After getting c320, I only need to concentrate on driving. c320 reminds me which way to go and where to return. I don't need to worry about getting lost againDigital camera Review: All You Need
Summary: 5 Stars
My son was constantly calling from various locations asking me how to get from here to there. This solved the problem of him getting lost and calling me and me worrying about him wandering around, lost. As a parent it has given me peace of mind.Digital camera Review: All the good stuff but.....
Summary: 3 Stars
I won't go over all the specs and positives, because others have gone through all of that and there is no need for repeating. The Garmin is everything great that other reviews are mentioning, but I'm just going to review the battery issue I have continued to have on this Garmin.... After having the GARMIN c320 for about 9 months or so, i had the problem of the battery not working on it's own (the unit would only work when sitting on the car charger mount. Even though at times it would say something like "charging the battery" in it's off setting, it was NOT charging the battery (since when taken off the mount it would not work at all). I procrastinated for about 3 months, because I didn't take the unit out of my car much so it wasn't such a big issue, but almost on the last day of warranty, I called and just had it replaced. Customer service for Garmin is great. There's no convincing or "did you plug the unit in" sort of questions.. they just took your word for what was happening and replaced the unit. I had the second unit for about 4 months or so before the same battery situation happened again. This time I was out of the 1 yr original warranty and the 90d warranty of the replacement... but customer service were more than willing to switch it out again.. (great customer service, very flexible).
With this 3rd unit, it didn't take more than a couple months for it to have the battery issue again. I've been too cheap to buy another unit, and there isn't really a reason, since this one does work when it's connected to the car charger mount.
The main inconveniences of this battery not working is that it seems to lose it's satelites since it's a dead unit when the car isn't on. It seemed before that with the battery working, the unit connects immediately to the satellites and maps your way very quickly. When I turn my car on now.. the unit will be show the time when I had turned the car off and will take anywhere from 3 minutes to 15 minutes to connect to satellites. There have been times that i've had to turn it off and on (usually around the 10 minute mark) to see if maybe it was "frozen" or something.....
BTW, I'm sure the locating satellites delay issues is a problem with the unit, since I'm in a very urban city (Los Angeles) and it did not have these problems prior to the battery issue.
Oh, one other issue, in downtown Los Angeles, it gets very confused...(maybe due to streets with freeway overpasses; though this happens when i'm not near the freeway too)....so even when it has mapped a nice set of directions and I'm following them, out of nowhere it'll recalculate and ask me to make some turns when the location is straight ahead...
Also, there are several locations where it will tell me to take an inconvenient onramp to a freeway where there is a perfectly good one, one block ahead on my right (make sense?).
I've still had the unit for 3 years or so... so I'm not entirely unhappy with it,...