No thanks MapQuest, I'm covered.

“Arriving at home, on right.”
Oh, how I love to hear my Nüvi tell me that… but not only will it take me home, it will take me to where I’m going and back, with a quick stop at Walgreens, and maybe a Starbucks along the way. Living in South Florida, the roads can be complex. I’ve always found it annoying to have to get directions on MapQuest first before going somewhere new… but I don’t have to do that anymore – THANKS TO NÜVI!

DESIGN
Only one word comes to mind as you pull your Nüvi 350 out of its box for the first time, and that word is, “COOOOOL!” (Yes, with the extra O’s) It’s extremely small and portable and it is comfortable to use in your hand. It comes with the car dock, and is very easy to attach and detach. There is a small tab that you push on the bottom and it pops right off. It also comes with a car power adapter and what’s great is that the power can hook directly into the Nüvi, or it can hook into the dock. That way, whenever you put your Nüvi into the dock, it is automatically connected to power. Looking at the front of the device, all you see is the touch screen (which works GREAT by the way). No buttons whatsoever. On the back, there is the speaker and the pop-up antenna. On the top, there is the power button and on the right, there is the USB/power connection, a SD memory card slot, and a headphones jack. There is nothing on the bottom or left side.

USER INTERFACE
One of the greatest parts of the Nüvi is how easy it is to use. Anybody can use this thing! When you turn it on, you see a image with the Nüvi logo as it takes about 20 seconds to load the maps. Then, it brings you to its main screen. You have three main options. They are: ‘Where to?’, ‘View Map’, and ‘Travel Kit’. You also have smaller, ‘Settings’ and ‘Adjust’ options along the right side. Selecting ‘Where to?’ brings up way to tell it where you want to go. Selecting ‘View Map’ allows you to see a map of where you are (or moving to) at that time. Selecting ‘Travel Kit’ brings you to a menu where you can select any of the Nüvi’s additional features. I will talk more about these options in the following 3 sections. Also on the home screen, along the top, you see a battery meter and the current time. The on-screen buttons are large, for easy touch selecting. I find it very easy to input information on, even when it displays a full keyboard.

WHERE TO?
The ‘Where To?’ option is the option that you will most likely use the most since its probably why you will buy this product. This button allows you to tell the Nüvi where you want it to take you. There isn’t just one way. There are actually 19 different ways to select a place where you want to go. The first option is ‘Address’. You type in an address… and it takes you there… but it also will guess the address as you type it… kind of a cool feature. Another form of input is ‘Spell Name’. Honestly, when I bought this thing, I didn’t think I’d ever use it. I didn’t think that it would know the places where I want to go. Well, It does. It knows anything from Cooper City High School to Jamba Juice to Macy’s. Another form of input is ‘My Locations’. You can save any location into my Locations… but what’s nice about My Locations, is that when you select it, it asks you if you’d like to go home, look at your favorites, see your recent selections, or see your current location. If you select favorites, then it shows a list of your stored places. Also in the ‘Where to?’ menu are other options such as: food, lodging, fuel, intersections, attractions, shopping, parking, entertainment, recreation, community, cities, browse map, hospitals, transit, auto services, and coordinates. So now matter how little you know about the place you are going, chances are you will be able to find it using one of those options. When it searches, it displays what you are closest to first, followed by what is farther away. Once you select something, you can press GO and it will begin to navigate you there. You can select from a variety of voices. They have several different dialects of English (such as American, Australian, or British), plus other languages as well (such as Cesky, Dansk, Deutsch, Ellinika, Español, Français, Hrvatski, Italiano, Magyar, Nederlands, -deep breath-, Norsk, Polski, Português, Slovenscina, Suomi, and Svenska). If you aren’t already on a road when you press GO, it starts off by telling you to “Please drive to highlighted route.” Once you are on the road, it speaks every further instruction. It also provides warnings, such as, “In one mile, turn right on Hiatus road.” It displays an angled map, so you can see where you are, and what is up ahead, but it isn’t a view from straight above, which makes it look nice and easy to understand. Along the top of the screen, there is a green bar that always shows what you need to do next. If you don’t hear what the Nüvi has just instructed you to do, (probably because you got excited when your favorite song came on the radio) you can take a quick glance at the green bar to see what you missed. Here’s the best part… If you touch the green bar with you finger, it displays all of the upcoming directions. It’s great to look at before you leave, so you know what to expect. In the bottom left corner of the screen, you will see your estimated arrival time. It is somewhat accurate, but obviously it doesn’t know when lights are red and how much traffic there is. In the bottom right corner of the screen, you will see when you have to make your next turn. For example it might show, “Turn in 2 mi.” As you get closer, it changes to feet. For example, “Turn in 200 feet.” Your final instruction will always be which side of the street your destination is on. The cool thing is, that it will read the name of your destination to you… even if you have typed it in yourself! For example it might say, “Arriving at Jamba Juice on right.” It is pretty good with pronouncing… but I do know that it does like to pronounce Jamba as Jam-ba. Anytime during the trip, if you tap the bottom left corner of the screen, a dashboard will display instead of the map. You can see the direction that you are going, your current speed, the distance to your destination, your overall average speed, your moving average speed, your max speed, and total time traveling, your total moving time, and your total stopped time. You can reset those at any time. If you tap the lower right side of the screen, it will speak the last direction. (I actually just discovered the feature right now, while typing this review, and I’ve had my Nüvi for 3 months now.) If you tap anywhere on the map, it displays an aerial view from above, and it shows a cursor. You can now move the map however you want just by touching the screen (it’s very cool). It still displays your route, and you can actually use the cursor to select any road, and it shows you the name.

VIEW MAP
View map is option number two on the main screen. When you select it, you see a current map of where you are. It is the same map that shows when you have selected the ‘Where to?’ option, the only difference is that you have no route, and it will not speak to you. In the right corner, it tells you the direction that you are going, and in the left corner it shows you the speed you are traveling. The green bar on the top of the screen shows you either what street you are on, or what street you are nearing. It’s great for when you really do know where you are going, but want to see which streets are where, without it speaking to you. You can still tap the bottom left corner of the screen to view the mini dashboard. Tapping the right side does nothing.

TRAVEL KIT
The third option on the home screen is ‘Travel Kit’. This is where you will find all the extra features of your Nüvi. It lists just about all features that are available, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can use them all. The features listed are: Language Guide, Travel Guide, SaversGuide, MP3 Player, Audible Book Player, Picture Viewer, World Clock, Currency Converter, Measurement Converter, and Calculator. You have to pay extra to get the Language Guide, the Travel Guide, and the SaversGuide. You can use a demo of the Language Guide and the Travel Guide, but if you select SaversGuide it just tells you that it isn’t available. The other features though, are all available. The MP3 player works well. It’s a cool thing to have, but it isn’t going to replace my iPod anytime soon. I like that I can play the music right out of the speakers, or connect standard headphones and listen privately… but the best is if you have an AUX input on your car. Then you can play your tunes through the car’s stereo. You CAN listen to music and have it navigate you somewhere at the same time. If it needs to tell you something, it will automatically pause your music, tell you, and then continue your music. It’s a great feature if you’ve got that AUX input. The picture viewer is a nice feature, but I’m not a big fan of it. You can view pictures stored on the Nüvi’s memory, or view pictures from a SD memory card. My first impression of this was, “Wow! Cool! I can use it as a portable viewer for my digital camera pictures!” Well sure… I can do that, but the screen isn’t much bigger than my digital camera screen is, and it takes FOREVER to load the 5 megapixel pictures, whereas my digital camera can load them in half of a second. It’s not really worth it for me… maybe you can find some use for it. The World Clock, Currency Converter, Measurement Converter and Calculator are all pretty much self-explanatory. They all work as they should. Its great for traveling out of the country, but its not like this unit will work in Europe anyway. You’d have to buy Europe maps for that first.

ACCURACY
If you are considering purchasing a GPS device, I’m sure that accuracy is a must. The Nüvi is extremely accurate. It knows things that MapQuest doesn’t. MapQuest constantly directs me to go to a road that does not go through. It’s a dead end. The Nüvi knows that. I have found another road near my house that is a dead end, and Nüvi thinks it goes through, but it isn’t too big of a deal. It has never taken me to the wrong place, and it has never thought that I was somewhere where I wasn’t. It is so accurate that I am able to tell, even in a neighborhood where houses are close together, which hours I am going to, without looking for house numbers.

OVERALL…
I feel that Garmin did a great job with the Nüvi 350. It’s easy to use, and it works. That’s a big thumbs up in my book. My biggest problem is how expensive it is! But you get what you pay for. Just tell it where you want to go, Nüvi takes care of the rest. Thanks for reading my review! Good luck shopping!