Keep your journeys short (Garmin nuvi 250W)

Member Name: davomrmac

Product:	Garmin nuvi 250W
Date:	03/10/08 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, nice screen, good for short journeys

Disadvantages: Wrong routing, difficult to correct typing errors

I love my TomTom, but when I saw one of these on Amazon for under £100 I just whipped out my credit card. My TomTom was an older version with standard 4:3 screen, so this promised to be a good update.

At the time I was doing some part time courier work, so the purchase, although unplanned, could be very helpful. When it arrived I was very pleased. The widescreen format is very nice, the screen is also very bright and clear. The on-screen display also looked very easy to follow. After popping onto the Garmin website, I had even put a little car on the display that had a Christmas tree on the roof (very appropriate because it was that time of year).

Planning a route is simple. Tap Navigate to and enter a postcode, followed by a street, then a number for the house or building and you are presented with a confirmation of your destination. Tapping go sets you on your way. Entering this information is my first annoyance. If you make a mistake and touch the back button, you are taken all the way back and have to start all over again. It will not just delete one letter of you typing error. This is very annoying.

Anyway, over the next four weeks I used it for all these local courier journeys. I did around 200 deliveries and it only let me down once. It did not know where a new estate had been built. So not a device error, just the maps being out of date. I asked someone and they gave me the name of a nearby road to get me to my delivery. Overall, for local journeys a pretty good result.

Then I used it on a 150 mile trip. I was returning from this journey and I cannot remember exactly, but it routed me down this side road. A left and a right and I thought there was something wrong. Then I came up to this barrier and it was one of the access roads where emergency vehicles, like police cars, joined the motorway. What was I to do, I could not reverse as it was too tight a space, so I nervously had to get onto the hard shoulder then onto the motorway. Very dangerous.

I still use the Nuvi from time to time, but for longer journeys I use my old TomTom and I am saving the pennies for a new 930T.

Summary: TomTom is better, for sure