Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS Review

Introduction

Most people have had a cell phone for years now. I know I have for the passed at least five years and I couldn’t imagine life without it. When I lost one I felt completely cut off from the rest of the world, kind of incomplete. After owning a Garmin Nuvi 360 for a while it is quite similar in I couldn’t imagine life without it. When it isn’t there to give me directions I feel lost.

The Garmin Nuvi has been at the top of the food chain as far as travel assistants go. As more competition shows up in the market the price drops on the Nuvi 360 and the competition still falls short. Until there are some major advancements the Nuvi will stay on top.

Review Broken down into following subsections:

• Basic Setup and Mounting
• Getting Started
• Accuracy of Maps & Satellite Signals
• General Navigational Assistance
• Tools, Utilities and Entertainment
• Conclusion

Basic Setup and Mounting:

Figure 1 – The Nuvi 360 is small and lightweight. It is extremely portable but still has a big enough screen to read while driving.	Figure 2 – The suction mount makes the unit easily readable while driving. It is easy to apply to the windshield and easy to clip and unclip the Nuvi to.

When you buy your Garmin Nuvi 360 the box l include:

• nüvi 360
• Preloaded City Navigator® NT for North America or Europe (full coverage)
• Vehicle suction cup mount
• AC charger
• Vehicle power cable
• Dashboard disc
• USB cable
• Carrying case
• Quick reference guide
• Owner’s manual on CD-ROM

When you take the Nuvi 360 out of the box you’ll need to plug it in and give it a few hours to charge. You can use this time to look over the quick reference guide and the owner’s manual CD-ROM but I’ll be honest with you, the quick reference guide doesn’t say much and I’d suggest only reading the owner’s manual if you run into any problems. The device is so user friendly that maybe 20 to 30 minutes spent playing around with it will teach you all you need to know about it.

When the device is done charging and you turn it on it will do a one time basic setup for your menus and functions to customize it to your time zone, area, and personal preferences. The turning on only takes about 5 seconds to boot up and with the integral antenna flipped up it will acquire all the satellites in a few moments depending on signal strength from your current location. The Nuvi 360 is very powerful. After this initial satellite lock every time you turn on your device the satellite lock will happen in under 10 seconds usually.

Software and maps included in the device are usually relatively recent to when it was purchased depending on how long it was sitting on the shelf at the place you bought it. Software upgrades are possible by downloading the software firmware from Garmin’s website. Make sure you’re always checking it out to have the most up-to-date software.

The suction mount included in the box(Figure 2) is easy to apply to the windshield. It has a clip to quickly attach and unattach the Nuvi 360. This is very handy if you are getting in and out of your car lots. It makes you less likely to leave it behind for thieves to steal which is getting more and more common. You can even remove the suction mount completely if you’re scared it might tip thieves off that you have one but I’m sure doing this too much might affect its suction abilities. Having the device on your windshield makes it easy to read while driving but if you would prefer to have it on your dash or live in California or Minnesota where windshield mounts I’d suggest buying the Garmin Portable Friction Mount from amazon.com

Getting Started:

Figure 3 – The very basic menus of the Nuvi 360 make it extremely user friendly and easy to navigate while driving.	Figure 4 – The many options for how to pick your destination make it easy for you to get there whether you have an actual address or are looking for something less specific like a place to stay.

By now your device is on and ready for you to explore. You should be seeing something like Figure 3. A very simple and user friendly menu system. If you are computer challenged don’t worry about it, look through the menus and you’ll be a whiz in no time.

The main menu contains 3 main options, “Where To?”, “View Map”, and “Travel Kit”. When you hit the “Where To?” option from the main menu you get a bunch of options for where you want to go(Figure 4). You can pick from a list of preprogrammed addresses, pick from your programmed in favorite locations, spell in the address name if it isn’t preprogrammed in, or pick from some Point of Interest, which are preprogrammed addresses sorted by category such as lodging, food, and fuel. These POI’s are in the 6 million range.

Figure 5 – Selecting lodging from the Where To? Menu will give you a list of lodging options arranged in distance from current location.	Figure 6 – Selecting one from the list will give you some information about it and the option to give directions there.

There are tons of customization options in the settings menu. You can chose between 2D or 3D maps, the type of vehicle you’re driving, avoiding unpaved roads, and lots more to give you a customized route that suits your needs. You can even chose if you are in day or night mode to make the screen easier to view.

Figure 7 – In day mode the screen is easily viewed even against the glare of the sun. Everything is color-coded to make reading the maps easier on the go.	Figure 8 – In night mode(which the Nuvi 360 will automatically turn on at a certain time) the screen changes color to make navigating in the dark easier on you.

Accuracy of Maps / Satellite:

With the amount of stuff this unit can do for you it’s easy to forget what it’s main process is. The most important function of this unit is to get you from where you are to where you want to go quickly and accurately. This means accurate maps and a strong satellite chipset is essential. The Nuvi 360 uses NAVTEQ maps(similar to Google Maps if you want to check them out) which is the most complete and accurate map resource on the planet. It uses the WAAS Enabled GPS receiver by SiRF which probably doesn’t mean much to you but believe me, it’s ultra sensitive and highly accurate. The most powerful on the market today.

I have never seen the signal fail or get lost yet no matter what. Traveling through tunnels and thunderstorms can’t even stop this powerful little gadget. It is always accurate at pinpointing your exact location to within about 20 feet I find. Keeping your maps up-to-date by downloading updates will also help with accuracy.

Figure 9 – The satellites lock on really quick and it’s almost impossible to lose the signal. Most other units get lost driving under a bridge.	Figure 10 – It takes a little time initially for the satellites to pinpoint your location. The powerful SiRFIII chipset will be incredibly accurate every time.

General Navigational Assistance:

The Garmin Nuvi 360 gives you your directions to navigate yourself to where you want to go in a bunch of different ways. It allows you to mix and match your favorite views so it is best suited to how you want to handle the directions it provides.

Figure 11 – The 3D navigation map is very informative. Your route is highlighted by a different color with your next turn being shown with an arrow and directions written along the top.	Figure 12 – From the navigational screen pressing on the arrival information in the bottom left corner will bring up a whole bunch of information about your current trip. Pressing the bottom right corner will bring up more detailed information about your next turn.

The navigational map screen contains lots of important information. Along the top it tells you your current street and the street you need to turn to. Under this there are “-“ and “+” icons that will zoom in and out on your current location. Zooming in will bring up more detail while zooming out will show more. The actual map is color-coded with a car icon showing your current position and a different color road showing your route. Your next turn is indicated by an arrow and your destination by a checkered flag. The map is available in both 2D bird’s eye view and 3D following your car modes to match your preference. Along the bottom of the screen is some more important information. The bottom left has your estimated arrival time which is quite accurate if you stay on route and the bottom right displays how far to your next turn.

If you tap either of these bottom two icons you get a whole lot more information about them. The arrival icon will bring up a detailed summary of your trip’s stats including how long of your trip has been moving time and how long has been stopped time along with things like average speed. The next turn icon will bring up more a very detailed next turn screen. If you are having troubles seeing it on the screen it will isolate it, zoom it in, and tell you approximately how far away and how long it will take to get there.

All of this information makes it quite easy to navigate your route by looking at the screen but who wants to go to all that effort while driving? You can use all this information above as just a back-up plan if you’re confused and rely on Garmin’s text-to-speech capabilities to tell you where to go. Instead of just telling you a direction and distance the unit will actually speak the street name of where you want to turn. So instead of just looking for a left turn in 200 feet you can look for the left turn onto Main street. The voice on the Nuvi 360 is excellent, very natural and precise. You can even change the voice up. It comes preloaded with a few options with different accents. It is the best quality I have seen on the GPS market.

There is a lot more information on the various ways the Nuvi360 gives you to find your way. These I’ve listed are just the basics. I haven’t even mentioned things such as its quick recalculation of the route if you miss a wrong turn or don’t agree with a direction.

Third Party Tools / Menus:

Figure 13 – The travel kit is packed with extra features that are very useful. The SaversGuide will actually save you a bundle on your trips.	Figure 14 – Trips are much more enjoyable with entertainment features such as the MP3 player and picture slideshow.

Bluetooth Hands-Free Technology – Most people find the Bluetooth technology extremely useful. It allows people to link the unit to their phone and use it to make and accept calls. You can access your phone book, search the POI database, dial numbers, and even use voice dialing if your phone is capable of that too. Incoming calls come up on the screen and you can accept or ignore them with one touch. The built-in speaker isn’t the greatest but buying a FM transmitter will have it played through your car audio at a much greater quality.

MP3 Player – The MP3 player is great as an alternative to playing CD’s. Again, the built-in speaker works fine, but it doesn’t compare to your car speakers so the FM transmitter should be considered if you want to take full advantage of this feature. You can either load up a memory card with songs and play them from there or the device has internal memory that they can be saved to.

Figure 15 – Probably the most useful feature of the Nuvi360 is the Bluetooth capabilities. Any Bluetooth capable phone can be linked to the unit and the unit can be used to make and accept calls.	Figure 16 – The MP3 player is another useful feature. Songs can be transferred via USB or loaded with a memory card and the device doubles as an iPod.

Picture Viewer – I take lots of pictures while I’m traveling so it’s nice to be able to take the SD memory card from my digital camera and pop it into the Garmin Nuvi 360 to preview them all. The slideshow is nice for showing them off to my family and friends while we’re in the car.

Language Guide – Another feature I didn’t initially think I would use much, the kids love this as well for ‘cheating’ on Spanish and French homework, and the ability to find almost every common word and phrase and actually hear its pronunciation in many languages is amazing depending on where you intend to travel to.

Figure 17 – Pictures can be cycled through in the thumbnails to view the ones you want or can be all displayed in a picture slideshow.	Figure 18 – The Oxford Language Guide can take a word you’ve inputted and give you a list of phrases that include that word.

Much More – There’s lots of more useful tools like currency and measurement converters that will prove incredibly useful on trips. Any problems you run into on a trip will most likely be able to be solved by the travel kit on your Nuvi 360. Additional travel guide SD cards and map SD cards can be purchased from Garmin to also assist you on your trip.

Figure 19 – Traveling to foreign countries just got easier with this utility that will convert your money into their money or vice-versa.	Figure 20 – SD memory cards can be purchased from Garmin that include extra add-ons such as travel guides, custom POI’s, language guides, and detailed maps of different areas.

Conclusion:

If you read through this entire review I’m sure you can come to the same conclusion as I did. While the Nuvi 360 might have some negatives still the Nuvi series is by far the best travel companions on the market. I’d rate it a perfect 5 out of 5 and if you can find a better device out there I’d love for you to e-mail me about it. Nothing is perfect, especially when it comes to electronics, you’re always going to find problems, but the problems with the Nuvi360 are so negligible that they don’t affect it from doing its primary job. Getting you where you want to go accurately and fast.