After a long and hazardous adventure that had us camping out at the UPS Customer Center until about 9:30 p.m., I finally got my paws on my own Garmin c340.
The wait was worth it. Right out of the box, the StreetPilot c340 worked like a charm. In seconds, the unit was on our dashboard (thanks to the supplied mounting disc) and computing our route back home. It navigated Jackson’s surface streets and Interstates with ease.
The real test came this weekend, though, as we took the StreetPilot on its first road trip. Along the way to and from Atlanta, we made a few discoveries:
– The StreetPilot knows Atlanta better than we do. Clyde and I lived in Atlanta for two wonderful years, and, during that time, learned our way around pretty well. Still, the StreetPilot found surface-road connections between locations that we had never explored. The result? We got to destinations faster and spent less time on Atlanta’s choked freeways and Interstates.
– The StreetPilot is a little groggy when it first wakes up. Acquiring satellites can take a few minutes, especially if the unit has been powered down. (The process takes longer if the StreetPilot wakes up in an area with thick overhead tree branches or tall skyscrapers, either of which can obscure the unit’s “view” of the GPS satellites.) When groggy, StreetPilot can occasionally give some pretty bizarre directions, overlooking simple routes and recommending long, strange routes that require lots of doubling back and u-turns.
If you know a little about where you’re going, though, you can fix this by ignoring the groggy unit’s directions and taking a better route. This forces the StreetPilot to recalculate the route, and usually produces a better recommendation within seconds.
– The supplied maps are a bit dated. The StreetPilot was released in 2005, and some of the internal maps — especially in areas like Atlanta, where constant construction is the rule — can be a bit dated. But no worries! Garmin regularly issues updated maps at the company website. Downloading the latest maps and installing them via USB connection can greatly improve the unit’s accuracy.
Our out-of-the-box StreetPilot didn’t know about Atlanta’s new IKEA store or the community that has mushroomed up around it. Still, once we found IKEA, the StreetPilot quickly mapped connections between our apparent “off-road driving” and streets the unit did know about … and got us back to the house where we were staying in record time.
I’ve rarely been this excited (or evangelistic) about a purchase. Take it from me — if you have a compromised sense of direction, feel intimidated in unfamiliar cities, frequently visit unfamiliar locations, or hate wasting time with wrong turns, the Garmin StreetPilot will seem like a godsend.
Mark,Please stop writing about cool stuff! 🙂 First, it was the Senseo and now the Garmin! You knew when I saw yours this past weekend that I’d have to have one.
And it came yesterday! It is very cool. Just like you said, it works directly out of the box, is easy to understand and use, and so far it works perfectly.
I’ll never have to worry about getting lost again.
Phil