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Garmin StreetPilot III (Voice) SatNav


sholao
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This is a portable SatNav device produced by Garmin Corp.

Details of this product can be found at:

http://www.garmin.com/products/spIII/index.html

I bought this product because I wanted a unit that I could transfer between my 2 cars, as I had not opted for the Lexus SatNav (due to cost).

This is the 1st GPS device I've used in a car, so do not have a baseline to compare it with.

What I like about the product:

The fact that it is portable and can be transfered between cars.

It has voice prompts.

It has auto-routing and auto re-routing, so it automatically calculates routes to a destination and would re-route you if you miss a turn. Criteria for calculating routes include shortest driving distance or shortest driving time.

It has a colour display.

One feature I particularlly like is the night mode operation. Because it knows the sunset time for your location, it goes into this mode after sunset, and as you approach junctions it shows on screen the name of the street or road ahead, as well as the house numbers on the road you are driving so locating places at night is easy.

Another good feature is that it can operate on batteries, so if it is guiding you to a location, and you have to pop into the petrol station for gas, you can switch off the ignition, and you get a prompt asking if you want it to stay on Battery power. If you say yes, then it saves the time required to acquire satellites when you get back in the car.

My impressions:

Once you have loaded the street level maps onto the memory card from the CD (the whole of the UK WILL NOT fit unto the 32MB card supplied, so if you require street level mapping for the UK a 128MB card is required, or you can add and remove regions if you only visit places on an Ad Hoc basis.) you are ready to start using the unit. Power to the unit is supplied by a cigar adaptor which also contains an inbuilt speaker for the voice prompts. Once satellites are aquired, the unit is ready.

To route to a location you press the find key, and choose either an address or you can use stored Waypoints (there are other options available like services, places of interest, etc). If you have a street level map for the area you are looking for, you can enter street names and post codes. Once the street is found, you choose the 'route to' option, and the unit calculates a route (takes btwn 45-90secs) and starts the voice prompts.

All key inputs are via the rocker pad.

If you miss a turn the unit alerts you (off route) and re-calculates from your current location (in town you might need to pull up if the road is short and another turn is coming up, this is not required on long roads where it can keep a fix on you).

I find the unit easy to use and reasonably quick, the voice prompts are load enough.

At the moment I don't have any bad things to say about the unit.

For those that are clever out there, it might be possible to route the audio into your car's Stereo as there is a jack at the back of the unit for the audio out.

Cost of unit (Sept 2002) about £800.

I would definately recommend this unit if you are looking for a cheap SatNav with turn by turn voice prompts. The bonus being you can transfer it from car to car!

Features the unit could do with.

Choose male or female voice for prompting.

Facility for re-charging Nicad batteries (the unit would go through new batteries in 2 hrs if not power by cigar adaptor).

Separate speaker box, as the cigar adaptor is quite big.

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Great review, gives me a little more info to go on!

The night mode sounds good, this was my one big complaint with the standard lexus solution was that you had to select night mode manually, kinda irritating, plus at night the last thing you really need is an illuminated screen staring you in the face. You tend to get some looks from drivers around you.

Can you fit the whole of the UK onto the 128MB card ? (comes std. with the deluxe one I think). Or regional only ?

Where did you find it for 800, the lowest I can find is 1k from expansys.com/dabs.com ? Or is that the 32MB model ?

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The 128MB card will hold the whole of the UK.

I bought my unit (32MB) from Maplins for £800.

£1000 seems to be the best price I could find for deluxe (128MB) version.

http://www.gpsw.co.uk/acatalog/P_GARSPIIIDX.htm

While the night mode is on, the LCD screen is still illuminated, so the screen is visible. As always, the brightness can be adjusted.

Q: Does the Garmin fit nicely on the dash in that tray like thing?

A: Using the supplied Bean Bag mount, yes it does, and is stable enough for normal driving.

Q: Whats it like with the sun beaming in through the windscreen ?

A: I have not had any problems with the sun, and the screen is fully adjustable so you can change brightness, contrast and viewing angle.

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Another couple of Q's:

How long does it take to power up and locate satellites. Just wondering what the cold start is like, i.e. drive somewhere, get lost or sat in traffic and need a way round something and you don't have it on because your radar detectors plugged in (nuisance that there is only 1 power outlet in the IS200)

What is coverage like ? Any major outages. They usually happen at the most inconvenient time, like for me on Bodmin chasing down a road the size of a footpath miles from nowhere.

Excellent that you can get the whole of the UK on the 128MB card as I was concenred that I'd be constantly uploading data to it.

Thanks for all the info so far! and also the offer to demonstrate it. I'll see how I get on with a product demo from GPS Warehouse (although there store opening times look a little problematic).

Thanks!

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