Ordered the nuvi 300 on wed 12th september and recieved it on the 13th. Iv only tried it to go local for test purposes but it seems fine. I would recommend this service and product any time.
I bought one of these as we were moving to a new city and needed to do a little house hunting. Obviously, you can't leave a satnav on display in your car, so the size, portability and leather pouch is ideal. The sound is fine, and has a standard headphone jack to plug into your car stereo if you need to listen to mp3s and/or directions. Slot for sd card if you want to expand it's storage space.
(it stops the music to talk to you). The display auto-adjusts for day and night driving and it works out of the car too. The mapping is clear in both 3d and 2d, and you can zoom in and out easily using the touch screen. There's also a security pin lock you can set up. The trip computer is handy, 'reset max' function resets you maximum speed should your friendly constable pull you over for a word ;) full postcode searching, and recalculation of routes when you take a wrong turn is also very useful.
Pros
- Near perfect in form and function - sat nav has come of age!
- Very good piece of kit, but not foolproof
- Garmen is the best.
- Great little gadget !
- Stuck between TT1 or the Garmin no contest - ITS THE GARMIN ALL THE WAY
- Was worried about choosing the right one but i'm really impressed!
Cons
- Garmin Up The Creek
Negative Review of Garmin Nuvi 300 GPS Navigation System With UK Mapping (discontinued by manufacturer)
Features of Garmin Nuvi 300 GPS Navigation System With UK Mapping (discontinued by manufacturer)
- Portable GPS navigator, traveler's reference and digital entertainment system
- Provides automatic routing and turn-by-turn voice directions
- Contains useful travel tools to keep any journey fun
- Optional Garmin Language Guide.
- Navigate to an address or search points of interest (POIs)
The Nüvi is a portable GPS navigator, traveler's reference, and digital entertainment system, all in one. Combined with detailed maps, the Nüvi provides automatic routing, turn-by-turn voice directions, and finger-touchscreen control making it easy to find your way anywhere. The Nüvi also offers a travel kit of useful travel tools to help keep any journey fun: MP3 player, audio book player from Audible.com, JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, and calculator. In addition, optional software packages such as the Language Guide and Travel Guide can be added for language and content support.
Wow. Well, where do i start. I will keep this short as ive never felt the need to do this before but i was sooo impressed with this device (and so is my husband who bought this for me) i had to share this. It is simple to use, dynamic, will correct a course automatically if you decide to go a different route, instructions are clear. Again 'simple to use, your granny could get it to work'. My husband is a courier and he though he knew most routes in and out of london, until now. He was using this for a trip to a place he kinda knows but the nuvi took him a different route, he was tempted to not take that route and follow his instincts but gave it a go. It only found him a dual carriageway past all the traffic he didn't know about. He has since used this for other more remote drops and cant praise this enough. Reason i am impressed, its easy and quick to use, i can get lost at the drop of a hat or i go the longest route as its the only one i know, using this for a recent shopping trip took at least an hour off my journey as i found a parking space outside the shop i wanted to visit and it took me home from there, im just so please and can honestly say, it has changed my driving life, i wont worry about travelling to any unknown place ever again. .
Great Sat Nav. I have avoided buying a sat. Nav. As i thought it was a bit of a luxury gadget and that a map is better anyway - well i changed my mind! i needed to drive from nottingham to north wales and decided that it was a tricky route. This unit is useable right out of the box - very easy to use. I am now a convert! it enables you to concentrate on driving and watching what is happening on the road - the directions are very clear, you are given loads of warning about the next junction and then talked through again once you are at the junction. A very human voice too, not dititzed at all. I 100% recommend this unit, it is worth the money just because of the safety issue of being able to concentrate on the task of driving. Plus - it saves arguing with your navigator!.
Stress Gone. Being of an age when directions no longer stay in my head for any length of time i thought i would treat myself to the garmin nuvi 300. This was one of the best purchases i have ever made. Easy to set up,if i can do it anyone can,i did not even look at the instructions. The garmin maps and verbal directions are a breeze to follow. It has also stopped the wife and i arguing who's fault it was we were going in the wrong direction. If you are looking for a sat nav system dont hesitate, this is a great system. .
Product Info
- Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 2.2 x 7.4 cm ; 145 g
- Boxed-product Weight: 798 g
- Item model number: Nuvi 300
- ASIN: B000CI2OGI
Conclusion of Garmin Nuvi 300 GPS Navigation System With UK Mapping
The display auto-adjusts for day and night driving and it works out of the car too. The trip computer is handy, 'reset max' function resets you maximum speed should your friendly constable pull you over for a word ;) full postcode searching, and recalculation of routes when you take a wrong turn is also very useful. The only minor quibble i have is with the route finding software sometimes picks less than optimal routes, down tiny single carriageway roads even when set to 'fastest' route. This happens on longer routes, so feel free to double check on a map before you set off, choose your route yourself and let it catch up with what you're doing. This is a great advantage now that criminals seem to be picking on sat nav owners who leave their units or mounting hardware on display.
Finding enough satellites to get up and running from switch on - many of my friends tell me their units can take several minutes - the nuvi is 'locked on' in less than half a minute. Battery life on internal batteries is around 3-4 hours and the quality of both the maps and the voice is good - although no doubt a bigger unit would probably have a more 'mellow voice' (but of course wouldn't be pocketable). The unit also accepts speed camera databases that can be downloaded from the internet - they work really well. It is simple to use, dynamic, will correct a course automatically if you decide to go a different route, instructions are clear. He was using this for a trip to a place he kinda knows but the nuvi took him a different route, he was tempted to not take that route and follow his instincts but gave it a go.
Reason i am impressed, its easy and quick to use, i can get lost at the drop of a hat or i go the longest route as its the only one i know, using this for a recent shopping trip took at least an hour off my journey as i found a parking space outside the shop i wanted to visit and it took me home from there, im just so please and can honestly say, it has changed my driving life, i wont worry about travelling to any unknown place ever again. This unit is useable right out of the box - very easy to use. Plus - it saves arguing with your navigator. Being of an age when directions no longer stay in my head for any length of time i thought i would treat myself to the garmin nuvi 300. Easy to set up,if i can do it anyone can,i did not even look at the instructions. The garmin maps and verbal directions are a breeze to follow.
Ok, so i'm a satnav newbie - what do i know?well, i know enough to work out that i only want to pay for the the features i need and that i should read as many reviews on the net about my shortlisted potential buys. So now you know what led me to the garmin 300 - how did it turn out for me?well, the unit was actually bought by my daughter who was moving from the island to liverpool and wanted the in-car reassurance of knowing where she was going. We trialled the unit for a week and got used to how it works. I even deliberately went off route a few times but calmly and quickly got given new directions to my destination, even if it did sound a little tetchy about recalculating. Like everything new, it takes a little getting used to but the effort is minimal.
On the big trip up to liverpool the unit quickly picked up it's satellites as we emerged from the ferry and took us the 349 odd miles without a hitch. Upon first inspection the unit felt good in hand with a nice leather wallet, a good sized colour screen with easy to use touch screen buttons. The mapping is really easy to follow with clear voice commands and almost instant re-calculation should you go off route. *there's no volume control on the side of the unit, you have to mess about a little to adjust it. *it does have an option to enter what vehicle you are in/on, but this appears to be completely ignored by the rest of the system as i have already had to squeeze and scrape thru the tightest village road and a single track road it sent me down.
*the flip-up satellite receiver at the back has started to feel a little bit loosehaving said all that it has made my working day a lot easier, but you have exercise caution in unfamiliar areas and not to take too literally all the instructions it gives you - use with common sense, it isn't foolproof. This sat nav is a little beauty, i got to the place i wanted without a hitch, just before i pulled up outside the door, the lovely lady let me know in good time, that i had arrived at my destination. Really takes the stress out of trying to find a place, buy it. With aerial down the system will plot a route and then simulate the drive to destination at applicable road speeds, can be tedious if long trip. I read all the reviews and found this to be rated very highly above the tom tom i was going to buy.
Amazon sent it on time, and it was so easy to use. The gps also has an estimated time of arrival display, a visual of miles left before last instructions and repeats it well before action needs to be taken. Used my nuvi 300 for the first time in anger yesterday and it worked like a charm. Instructions are clear but can take a little bit of getting used to - for example, coming off a ring road, the instruction was 'keep left' quickly followed by 'keep right'. So i narrowed down the search for sat navs to 2the nuvi 300 (uk version) and the tom tom one ukreasoni need 7 digit full postcode searchwhy did i choose the garminwell most people do not use a sat nav all the time so the rest of the time its a bookend ordoorstopwhen you buy a garmin the first thing you notice is its size - its truly a compact portableitem - one that will fit in the top pocket and with an earphone you could wander about thestreets and even set you carpark to home to find your way back to itit is a superb mp3 player and has an sdcard slot - perfect - and really good on screeninfo about your music - think an ipod sat nav and you wont go far wrongit is an lcd picture frame viewer too - they are 70 bucks aloneit has audio books a full translation dictionary in many languages tooa suction mount and case is thrown in for free - i just bought the ac charger for it fromgarmin rather than an independent manufacturerthe software - what softwareyou plug it into your pc it is recognised immediately as an ext hard drive - how simple isthat - the tom tom software by comparison is terrible by all accounts resulting incrashing the whole item - wonderful - notthe garmin has plenty of memory but you can chuck in a huge sd card any time you like :)how tt1 are market leader with that lump i have no idea - good advertising i suspectpeople say yeah well the lump means it has a better speaker - i have no problems hearingthe commands on the garmin - but the clever thing about garmin is thisyou use this as your mp3 player in the car connect it to your ipod slot on your car radioand the unit automatically lowers the mp3 track when a command is given then raises thevolume again - simple as that you can use it with your radio then the speakers issue ispointless as you can use the car speakers :plastly when you pop it into your pocket and use it as an mp3 player when out and about - itstill lowers the volume to guide you around towns or cities you are unfamiliar withstuck between a doorstop or a multi function pocket sized wonder its clear the garmin islight years ahead of its competition for the price millions of hikers cant be wrong as thats where they made their name with gps.
I poured over several different review sites before opting for the garmin nuvi 300 and to be honest sometimes too many reviews only make you doubt your own ability to make decisions. I was swaying between the garmin and the tom tom one and finally opted for the garmin as although there were fewer reviews, they were all really positive. This is a great little unit: really compact, really easy to use. There aren't many instructions but then again you don't need many, if you spend about 5 mins finding your pwn way around the nuvi you soon work it out (and you don't have to be a geek either)just a couple of things to bear in mind (explains the 4 rather than 5 stars):- it doesn't come with a home charger, just a car charger but you can get the home version cheaply enough. - the first time i charged it in the home, it froze but thanks to one of the other reviews on here i easy resolved the problem (located the reset button on the back under the flap) and the unit reset with all my saved favourite locations still on there.
The only problems i have felt with are related to maps and voice directions (telling you to take 3rd exit when you should take 2nd and the map itself shows 2nd). At times it would prefer to take you through village roads when main highways are available. Also it does not offer feature of avoiding a particular road so if the road is blocked because of road works etc, you can not calculate an alternate route. It might take more time to get the fix though recent update claims to have addressed that. I bought this unit mainly because of its portability as i did not want to leave unit in my car.
Updating software is quite easy though its preferable to download updates and then install rather than using the webupdater which led to technical problem with my unit on recent update. Very handy size, easy to fit to any vehicle and very good on the move with clear instructions and automatic zooming in on approach to junctions etc. I fed the codes into the gps and successfully followed the verbal instructions through circuitous routes and very busy traffic. To get that whilst navigating, you have to go to the 'trip computer' screen, which means taking your focus off the road. It's easy to use and usually works well, but you can't change the voice and that bossy synthetic woman telling me what to do begins to grate after a while.
Sat Nav Is Go. Bought this after using a system in usa. It's good but could be better by offering more way points. The voice can be changed from uk female to usa female. I find the usa one easier to understand. Updated software from garmin site and camera info. Downloaded additional car symbols. Clear display auto dimming at sunset and bright at sunrise. Came with a soft carry case. The speedo display confirms that my cars (2) speedos under read by 2 mph at all speeds above 35very good at recalculating if you go wrong, deliberately done so and it,s 3 to 4 secs before it's back on track. Built in shop directory etc works well too. With aerial down the system will plot a route and then simulate the drive to destination at applicable road speeds, can be tedious if long trip. Has sd slot will show jpegs, play mp3, play audio books and tour guide, has built in currancy converter, metric to imperial converter and many more features. I'd recommend this unit. .
Garmen Is the Best.. I bought this satnav a few weeks ago and used it to get to the middle of wales, travelling from the south coast. This sat nav is a little beauty, i got to the place i wanted without a hitch, just before i pulled up outside the door, the lovely lady let me know in good time, that i had arrived at my destination. The speed camera function is brilliant, and could save you allot of money. I cannot fault this product, i have used it since and for a laugh tried to catch it out, not a chance, it will keep you on course and get you to your destination. Really takes the stress out of trying to find a place, buy it. John, south coast. .
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