Garmin GPS 10 Car GPS Receiver

A friend of mine had a Garmin Street Pilot 2610 in his car and I had found it to be amazing in its features and definitely very useful for someone that travels a lot like I do. I got lost in Ottawa a few weeks thereafter and could not get to a business meeting in time due to inaccurate trip info printed out from Microsoft Streets & Trips -- my mind was thus made up and I decided to get myself a GPS.

Since I own a Dell Axim X30 with Bluetooth, I was looking for something that would be portable and that could communicate with it -- a way to leverage my PDA investment so to speak. Since my friend had told me that Garmin was a specialist in that field, I looked up their website and found the Garmin 10 Deluxe.

There were few reviews on the net regarding the Garmin 10, so when I read the info on it, I was a bit skeptical that it would have all the bells and whistles that I had seen on the Street Pilot 2610. I had also found a review that criticized all the unlock codes required for getting maps on the PDA. Boy was I wrong to doubt the product!

Out of the box, the 10 is ready to go. Since one of the reviews had mentioned that installing might be difficult, I did what most people rarely do: I read the installation instructions! These were small and simple to follow, one for each package that needs to be installed and unlock. It took me about half an hour to get everything done step-by-step but it worked beautifully!

Once installed in my car, I even found a spot for my PDA right in front of my speedometer -- since the 10 has speed display, the speedometer is no longer required and this makes for easy viewing. The 10 communicated with my PDA effortlessly and the map refresh rate is amazing (it is fun to see your car move along the roadmap).

The verbal instructions are clear and in time although the sound coming off my PDA is a little bit low -- this is a problem with the PDA however and an earphone is good to use if you want a clearer sound.

I should point out that driving with a GPS with verbal commands needs a little bit of practice as your attention is needed to listen to the instructions. Having a phone conversation while using it can be dangerous. (If you prefer, you can use only the automatic visual zoom of an intersection on your PDA instead of the verbal info but I found that both were needed.)

If you missed a turn, the 10 alarms and recalculates the necessary route automatically. This is a great feature as sometimes, the information as to where to turn and what you see in front of you may not be easy to understand. You then often take a turn 100 feet before or after the actual turn you needed to take so this feature recalculates quickly to compensate for your mistake -- you just keep driving and it will get you there.

Other nice features are "find nearest xxx" which I used to get me to the nearest Starbucks to get my fix.

One last thing: I need to point out that you will need a car adapter for your PDA as Bluetooth on my PDA sucked the batteries dry in less than 30 minutes.