Garmin i5 is a great value

I received the Garmin Streetpilot i5 as a Christmas present from my mother-in-law. I think she was tired of me borrowing her GPS device, a top of the line Magellan, every time we went on a car trip. The i5 is ready to go right out of the box- just toss in a couple AAs and power it on. The instruction manual is not included, but believe me, you do not need it to start using this unit right away. A "getting started" tutorial is included, and you can download the manual from Garmin's website. I found the manual and downloaded it with no problem. It is 35 pages long, but I printed four pages per piece of paper and it is still very readable. The i5 comes with a cigarette lighter adapter, a dashboard mounting disc, suction cup mount, a USB cable, and a CD with USB drivers.

The first time you turn the i5 on it takes it a while to figure out where it is. The manual says it may take up to 40 minutes; however, mine got it in less than 10. After that, when you turn it on it will find its location in less than a minute, unless you have driven hundreds of miles with the unit turned off, in which case, according to the instructions, it might take longer (I didn't test this.) This start-up time is comparable to the much more expensive Magellan unit.

The i5 is very small, about the size of a baseball. When I asked for a GPS for Christmas I specifically asked for the smallest one I could find. My mother-in-law's GPS, which I had frequently borrowed, was very large, bulky, and heavy. Mounting it to anything was difficult and it fell off its mount a number of times, which is pretty nerve-wracking for something that costs over $1000. Plus we would have to take it inside a restaurant or hotel with us which was a pain. I love the size of the i5- it mounts to the windshield with a suction cup (the included suction cup is very powerful; it also can be suctioned to the dashboard- apparently in Minnesota and California it is illegal to suction things to your windshield.) Obviously the trade-off for having a very small unit is a very small screen. But the i5's screen is incredibly clear and easy to read. The layout of the screen is well thought-out and the unit presents relevant information in various modes in a very clear way despite the limited size. Unlike more expensive models, it is not a touch screen but that is not a problem for me as the touch screens on other GPS units I have used have been difficult to get to work right.

The lack of a touch screen means that all information has to be input with the scroll wheel. Obviously this is a pretty tedious way to enter information into anything, but Garmin has made it, in my opinion, as easy as it can possibly be. As you enter letters choices pop up on the screen that contain those letters and you can leave the letter-entry screen and select what you want usually after entering only a few letters. The interface with this unit is really good, especially since you communicate with it using only one scroll wheel (pushing the scroll wheel selects whatever you have selected) and one other button.

GPS accuracy is pretty good, and every bit as good as the Magellan unit I have used which cost much more. The i5 is WAAS enabled to improve accuracy further. According to Garmin, WAAS (Wide area augmentation system) is a system of satellites and ground stations that provide GPS correction signals that enable the i5 to have better than 3 meter accuracy 95% of the time. Even in places where two streets were close together the i5 was very clear about which one I should turn on.

The i5 has many user-selectable options, which are reached by a well-laid-out menu system. Following are the menu options:

Volume and Brightness

Map: you can change the map view between 3-D and 2-D, and in 2-D mode you can choose between "track up" view (you are always depicted driving toward the top of the screen) or "north up" (north is always at the top.) I prefer the 3-D view; the "north up" 2-D view seemed disorienting to me, probably because I'm not used to it. You can also select the amount of detail on the map in this menu.

System: here you can select:
Battery type, (alkaline or rechargeable) apparently so that the battery gauge will be correct;
Color Mode, where you can select daytime, nighttime, or automatic. Automatic works great, the unit constantly monitors ambient light and adjusts the brightness, then when it gets dark enough it switches the screen from white background to black. It's always easily viewable;
GPS Mode, You can select "regular GPS," "GPS off," or "WAAS enabled." Why anyone would ever choose regular GPS is beyond me, since WAAS is supposed to be so much more accurate. "GPS off" is great if you want to play with the i5 indoors, as it will not try to find satellites, and you can simulate routes or look through the points of interest.
Safe Mode, turn it on or off. In safe mode it won't let you do certain things while the car is moving, although you can easily override this.

Units statute or metric

Navigation Here you can choose to turn the "attention tone" on or off, this is just a tone that sounds to get your attention before it starts talking to you. In this menu you can also choose to avoid highways, toll roads, carpool lanes, or unpaved roads. You can also specify what type of vehicle you are driving (car, motorcycle, commercial, emergency). You can also specify if you want the i5 to choose routes that are the shortest distance or the shortest time.

Time Daylight savings on/off, and enter your time zone (I would think that the i5, being a GPS unit, should be able to tell what time zone it is in...)

Language You can change the text and voice language. There are lots of choices. I have tried American English, British English, French, and Spanish, and they all sound clear.

Once you have put in the address you want to get to, the i5 calculates the route and then talks you through the turns. It does not say street names like some of the more expensive models, but the street name is displayed on the screen. Along with the map the screen displays the estimated time you will arrive at your destination, as well as the distance until your next turn. You can review all the upcoming turns and it will tell you how much time (driving the speed limit) until you reach that turn. As you approach the turn it warns you at .2 miles and again at 200 to 300 feet that your turn is coming. If there is another turn immediately following the next turn it will warn you of that in advance too, which is nice if you will need to get in a certain lane quickly. If you turn off of the planned route it will calculate a new route immediately, and won't try to get you to return to the old route. Also, if you run into traffic or construction there is a "detour" feature that will get you off the current road as quickly as possible and re-route you.

If you just turn the i5 on and go, without putting in a destination, it will show you a map of where you are, and the screen will also display your speed and compass heading. Additionally, as you approach cross streets the i5 will tell you the name of the street that is coming up next.

The i5 has an extensive database of "points of interest," such as restaurants, hotels, gas stations, ATMs, stores, parks, etc... One nice feature is that it can list them based on which are closest to you. This is especially helpful with gas stations or ATMs if you are out of town. The restaurants are sorted by type (American, Italian, BBQ, Chinese, etc...) and the i5 includes the phone numbers of all the points of interest so if you are on the road and you find a restaurant you can call for reservations. It would also be a good idea to call and make sure the place still exists, as I ran across a couple of restaurants near my house that have been out of business for some time.

There are a few improvements that could be made. First of all, in a main street around the corner from my house, there is a 20 foot gap in the road on the map, and the i5 thinks that the road does not go through. This is an absurd glitch, because it is a pretty busy street and the gap is right in the midst of a densely populated area where a gap makes no sense. This gap in the map messes up the directions to my house, requiring detours around the gap depending on what direction you're coming from. It always gets you to my house, but not always in the best way. It is impossible to know how many of these gaps exist in the maps, but one gap 500 yards from my house does not instill a lot of confidence. However, when I went to Garmin's website, and they have a form you can fill out to report errors. I noticed that on the form they ask for a cite of a source that has the correct map. So I checked it on Mapquest, and they have the exact same gap in the same place. Next I tried Rand McNally, and they also have the exact same gap! So I guess I can't hold it against Garmin too much. Hopefully they will fix the glitch even though all the other documentation shows a gap; you can tell by looking at it that there should not be a gap there. (Also note that my dad's GPS-enabled Verizon cell phone shows that there is a gap there too.)

As I said, I have used a very expensive Magellan GPS a number of times, and of course I compared the i5 to that. The i5 holds up remarkably well, considering it costs about 5 times less than the Magellan. There are some things that the Magellan does that the i5 does not. For instance, the Magellan has a "where am I?" feature that will tell you your latitude, longitude, mile marker, altitude, and county you are in. This is pretty extraneous stuff (although the mile marker could come in handy if you had to call 911, I suppose) but my wife and I always enjoyed looking at it, and I will miss not having it. Also, the Magellan let you look at each satellite that was being tracked with all the data being downloaded from each one. Once again, it has nothing to do with getting you from A to B but I liked it. Also, the Magellan, with its larger screen, can display more information than the i5. But other than these few issues, the i5 is every bit as good as the Magellan, and, if money were no object, I would still buy the i5 simply because of its size.

Garmin claims 6 hours run time on two AA batteries, and this seems to be pretty accurate. I use 2500ma rechargeable batteries as recommended. Battery life will be affected by how much the i5 is talking to you. You can also power the i5 with the included cigarette lighter adapter, but why bother with the tangle of cords?

To sum up, the i5 packs a great deal into a very small package at a very low price. Its accuracy is on par with much more expensive units, and the few features it lacks are not essential and would not be missed by anyone who had not already used a more expensive model.