So, even if you have passed food or gas by 10 miles behind you, it will keep telling you about those because perhaps the next closest are 12 miles ahead of you and you have to wait a couple miles to even see them.- it does not do well calculating your arrival time driving on side streets. Go figure!- When you do points of interest on the highway, it shows you what is closest distance. On several occasions I have taken my own route and when it recalculates arrival time, my new way is faster. It gets me where I need to go, but a few drawbacks & pet peeves:- Often on the 'fastest route' setting, it sends you way out of the way. Fortunately all these annoyances can be dealt with pretty easily, resulting in a device that is useful even around areas you know, and essential when traveling to new places. Finally, the time to acquire satellite connection can be frustrating, especially if you have moved the GPS a long ways from where it was last turned off (such as via a plane flight), and there is no display showing how close you are to connecting. Your favorites list appears to be organized historically, not alphabetically, with no option to change it. it says you will arrive at 4:16PM, but not that it will take you 15 minutes, and there is no display of current time on the main screen) and is very inaccurate in traffic. The arrival time estimate cannot be changed to show you travel time (i.e. It is easiest if you can search for your destinations online ahead of time and get a specific address then you are generally good to go. Looking up specific points of interest is very hit and miss not only are many destinations simply not in the database, searching by spelled name is very, very slow, and very, very picky (you have to get the spelling and any abbreviations just right). When you are driving through the route, the device will often include unnecessary 'keep left on' or 'bear right to stay on' road such-and-such which distract you (this occurs frequently on limited access highways). You cannot delete individual waypoints from your trip without stopping the trip and starting the select destination process over. Navigating the map by touch and drag is often awkward. If you don' t like the choices, you can try to force it with waypoints, but that process can be slow. It is difficult to see the entire route at once to see if the navigation choice is good (you can scroll through the list of directions, but that is not the same as seeing it on a map you can try and zoom out and pan to see the whole route, but that is slow and awkward). Often the device' s choices seem very arbitrary, and if you try again on a different day you might get a different result. The navigation algorithm is decent, but not as good as Google maps. The cons are several, but they are generally minor annoyances. You can save and name favorite locations, and you can look up locations not only by address, but by point of interest type, such as hospitals, restaurants, entertainment, etc.
You can detour around a specific road, and you can set general preferences to avoid U-turns, tolls, highways, etc. You can add waypoints to force your path to pass by a specific location (either because you have a stop to make, or because you just want to go that way).
There are many options for selecting your destination, and the auto-finish feature often helps you avoid typing in really long names when it can narrow down your choices to just a few. Directions are usually clear and well-timed as you drive, and the text-to-voice is often accurate, and always good enough to understand what they mean. Zooming in and out is very easy with +/- touch buttons available at all times. Maps are pretty detailed and generally as accurate as Google Maps or other online options. Three different map views can be selected: pseudo-3D, overhead with north up, and overhead following the car' s orientation (I always use north-up). The display is cleanly laid out, and provides the map, your current speed and estimated arrival time at destination, as well as the distance to your next turn, the name of the road you are turning on, and the direction.
Satellite lock, once achieved, is pretty solid, and rarely dropped while outdoors (being indoors or in a parking garage is another matter) The display is bright and sufficiently resolved, and the widescreen is worth the extra money. It has several minor flaws and annoyances, but they only slightly detract from the usefulness of the 255W.
That said, overall it is a very solid, well-thought-out device that is really helpful on the road, particularly when I am driving alone in an unfamiliar area. The Garmin 255W is my first and only GPS unit so I have only my imagination to compare it with.
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