Garmin nuvi 350 Review

The Garmin Nuvi 350 is really a 3-in-1 device: a GPS navigator (of course), a personal assistant for travel, and an entertainment centre. All of these functions are packed into an ultraportable 3.8 x 2.0 x 0.8-inch body just a bit smaller than a deck of playing cards. It’s small enough to stuff into a purse or your pocket, for use anytime or anywhere you need it.

All the information available on the unit is displayed to you on a sleek 320x240 resolution, 3.5-inch colour screen. The LCD display is readable in daytime and, by night mode, at night. The special anti-glare makes viewing in bright sunlight possible; the night mode reduces brightness with a more subdued colour scheme.

The Nuvi 350 can be disorienting to the new user because of the absence of function buttons. Only the power switch is visible on the upper part of the thin bezel. The fingerprint-resistant touch screen responds to all your commands with its very user-friendly menu. The display thus looks wonderfully uncluttered. Still, I would have preferred having a visible volume control button; the unit requires you to go to the Settings (wrench icon) page to make volume adjustments.

GPS Reception

The Nuvi 350 utilises SiRF StarIII GPS receiver, which has the super-sensitive, latest generation chipsets. This ensures that Nuvi 350 gives you a very quick time-to-first-fix (TTFF). Because it is so sensitive, the unit can maintain stable reception of satellite signals even when you motor through dense overhead environments (e.g. thick foliage or tall buildings) or through extremely challenging conditions (e.g. canyons).

Just a quick note: when buying a GPS, make sure the device incorporates the SiRF chipset. This assures you of very reliable performance in most driving situations. It does not make sense to buy the old devices (even from the same GPS maker) using outdated chipsets because you’ll simply be spending money for mediocre GPS performance.

Travel and Entertainment

The Travel Kit refers to several modules that includes the optional (for about $75) Language Guide, a world clock, audio player (MP3 and audible book files), JPEG picture viewer, converter utilities (for currency and measurements), and a calculator.

The Language guide is a versatile polyglot, able to translate 9 languages/dialects: English (American and British), French, Italian, German, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), and Spanish (European and Latin American). The translator is conveniently organised into subjects from the traveller’s perspective, e.g. Hotels, Food and Drink, or Transportation, etc.

The touch screen will display the "from" and "to" versions of phrases/words you want translated, and give you more specific sub-categories, such as white and rosé when you inquire about red wine. Touch the speaker icon if you want to get the spoken version of the phrase/word. Neat, I tell you.

There are about 6 million Points of Interest (POI) pre-loaded into the Garmin Nuvi 350 Travel Guide. POI databases (your GPS version of the Yellow Pages) will guide you to gas stations, restaurants and other business outlets you may need to visit.

The audio player can play back MP3 files from the Nuvi 350’s 1GB internal memory or from a SD card. You will not find playlist support though (ugh!) but at least you can play through all the songs or select by artist, album or genre. The audio book player (in audible.com format) is also quite useful. You simply attach Nuvi 350 to your computer’s USB port, drop the MP3, JPG, or audible.com files you want into their corresponding folders, and the unit plays it all for you.

When displaying your pictures (either from a SD card or the Nuvi 350 internal memory), the Picture Viewer allows you to look at pictures individually (with zoom in) or as a slide show. The other utilities are fairly self-explanatory. I find the measurement converter very helpful in countries using the more common metric system.

Routing Engine

Removing all the frills, the most important function of the GPS is navigating you from point A to point B, and for that you want the best maps. Most people believe that for a turn-by-turn system to be truly effective, it must have a top-notch routing engine and very accurate maps.

The routing engine uses complex calculations on a variety of attributes to decide the best route for you. This is the heart - the most difficult aspect - of your GPS unit. This can be affected by the maps used. NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas are the largest providers of maps, and they have different levels of accuracy/completeness for different geographic regions. Map accuracy aside, the GPS manufacturer’s method of compiling map data affects the routing engine calculations in a more significant way.

The Nuvi 350 has been very satisfactory in its routing calculations for me. I suppose Garmin has used the more expensive map database which contains all available attributes (e.g. is a particular road closed on weekends?). Sometimes I get the feeling the best way to go from A to B is via the Nuvi 350.

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