Best Buy has a few models on sale. Anyone have any experience with these? I'd prefer one with bluetooth capability (for my wife).

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Garmin+-...&skuId=9252854

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Garmin+-...&skuId=9267287

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Garmin+-...&skuId=9333045

 

I have the 265WT, IMO the traffic on the garmins have been over 50% off and/or never in time. I think the traffic thing just plain sucks, only on obvious roads like 80 around emeryville have I seen it to be accurate, but I'm already assume traffic there being that I drive the road a lot.

Traffic thing is a waste of money IMO, but I still like the 265 =).

 

^ does the bluetooth setup work well? I don't know if we'll be relying on the traffic updates since i hear 'em on the KNBR every 1/2 hr.

 

I'd be curious to see what you end up with as I have been considering getting a Garmin for a while now.

 

I'm leaning torwards the 265WT...has all the features i want. However, for $60 less, the 255 seems like a good option as well.

 

I don't use the bluetooth at all, so I have no opinion about that.

 

I have a garmin GPS (not sure which one cuz my friend has it right now) and my brother has one and we both strongly dislike the GPS.. i don't like the way they made it.. when it announces the directions, it only says "turn left" or "turn right" but it doesn't specify "turn right onto, for example, brooks ave." I used the GPS when I went down to San Diego and man can I tell you, I literally wanted to throw the darn thing out the window! It told my friend to turn right onto a ONE WAY STREET that said NO RIGHT TURNS. If I didn't catch that, I think my friend would have turned right! It had me going around in circles because it would constantly say "Recalculating, recalculating, recalculating... etc." I've gotten lost soo many times because of the darn thing. Oftentimes, I don't even bother using it, and just using my phone to go on mapquest or google maps or something..

If I were you I would look into something else. Right now I'm looking at the Magellans, which I hear should be good because it actually announces the street names and it's much more accurate. Don't have your wifey going crazy, driving around in circles now. But of course this is only my opinion, my brothers opinion, and all my friends' opinions. You can give it a try if you like. It's good to try things out anyway.. You can always return it if you don't like it.

Well Good luck and I hope this helps..

 

I personally love my Garmin. I took a trip to Florida with my gf and although I had an iPhone, the GPS was way more useful. It was very useful finding food areas and addresses. The turning thing took a bit to get use to, but once I figured out what the GPS was doing, it worked like a charm every time. When the GPS annouces "turn left" or "turn right", it means ..most of the time, to turn at the next intersection or next possible left or right. I too was confused and thought wow this sucks because I kept missing my turns, but once I realized oh this is what they want, it worked great! The GPS was very useful. You can just get in the car and start driving. You don't have to go online, print it out, or set it on iPhone. The iPhone, although awesome, doesn't compare w/ the GPS especially when you're traveling and don't know the area well.

 

My mom has a Garmin GPS (forgot which model) but she prefers the Garmin due to the simplicity of use. My mom is NOT tech savy so the more simple the better, and is the reason that she got the basic garmin model over different brands.

I hear the traffic option sucks as well (like someone here stated). I wouldn't spend extra money on that...

 

Yeah, it's funny... As soon as it says "turn left", it means turn left NOW, as in, you're about to miss your turn if you don't turn now!

 

265WT does say street names.

 

I have a Garmin 760 i believe, something around that number and I absolutely love it. It does NOT have this issue you guys are talking about with telling you to turn left or right without a street name. It always says if i have to turn left/right, stay left/right with a street name, exit or turnoff. The bluetooth works well, not the best but definietely a nice feature to have on a long trip.

 

Why a Garmin? How about a TomTom? And for that matter, anyone use their mobile phones as a GPS device?

 

I have the 265WT and I love it. I had the Garmin C330 which was an older generation. I tried other brands and they didnt do it for me.
I am not sure why the 1200 is more expensive than the 265wt...it's smaller and doesn't have bluetooth from I can tell from the specs.
I haven;t really tried the bluetooth option since I just got the WRX and my previous car had integrated bluetooth, but I can find out later today.

For me, the Garmin are the most user friendly and feature packed GPS's. One of the feature that I use a lot is searching by spelling the name of a business which many other gps's don't have (which boggles my mind.)