Garmin Nuvi 360

Summary: I have owned the new Nuvi 360 for two weeks now. Previous to this, I had the Nuvi 350, which is also an excellent device. Since the function is identical ...

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Summary: I have owned the new Nuvi 360 for two weeks now. Previous to this, I had the Nuvi 350, which is also an excellent device. Since the function is identical in nearly every regard to the 350, there is little point in covering the basics in much depth, but it's worth re-stating some of them. I will go into great detail on the Bluetooth functionality below.

This is such a handy device, and is so well executed, that you would be hard-pressed not to love it. The first thing I noticed about the Nuvi was its incredibly small size and weight. I could not believe how light it was. I literally expected it to have at least twice the heft when I went to pick it up the first time - it was like picking up a deck of cards, but lighter.

The antenna is a flap that is raised from the back, maybe about the size of a matchbook. When raised the Nuvi immediately starts locking in on satellites, when lowered, the unit knows you are through navigating for a while. Intuitive and effective.

Navigation on the Nuvi is very good, fast, and intuitive. It's no different from many of Garmin's other offerings in that regard. Some buildings and businesses that you would expect to be shown as POIs are not there, but most are. One thing I would suggest: when a route is less than ideal, Garmin should allow you to correct it permanently so that it does not re-suggest the non-preferred route each time.

The screen clarity is good, but I understand that an antiglare screen protector is made which really improves the clarity. I will probably be researching and buying one, as direct sun does make the screen very hard to read.

I had a problem with my Nuvi 350 that I have not observed on the new 360. Sometimes the 350 would not lock onto the satellite signal. Once it went into this mode of searching for, but not locking in, for over a minute it just never found anything. The only way I found to correct this was to push the small reset button under the antenna. I notice that another reviewer found that his new 360 had the same problem. This must be a bug in some Nuvi units that would be worth following up with Garmin on. I can tell you that my 360 NEVER has required a reboot, and I've been using it continuously.

I did not test the MP3 functionality beyond verifying that it plays back the songs that are pre-loaded for demo purposes. I didn't care about this feature; I'm very happy with my iPod for song management and playback. I can verify that you would not want to use the Nuvi's internal speaker for song playback, though. It's good enough to use as a speakerphone and for voice prompts, but it's not a hi-fi.

Now, for the fun part: Bluetooth functionality. I have been using it with my BlackBerry 8700c with excellent results so far. I had no problems with the initial discovery and mating process. The interface is robust. What happens is that once your phone has made the connection with the 360, a phone icon appears on the Nuvi. You can now use the 360 to call ANY POI directly from the screen! This is truly amazing; you are now walking around with the yellow pages in the palm of your hand, sortable by your current location, or any other location you choose. I just find the Point of Interest, and touch the phone number of that POI, and the phone starts dialing it. The sound comes out through the speaker of the Nuvi, and conversations have been natural so far. It's working like an absolute charm, and this single feature moves the device beyond anything else available right now.

When you select the phone icon from the main screen, several phone-related icons appear. From the phone screen, you can make a call manually, access your address book, call a POI, etceteras. The manual dial function works fine from the touchscreen. The really cool news: Nuvi automatically downloads your phone's address book to its database when it makes the initial Bluetooth link. So, if your phone supports this functionality, you can use it for all dialing functions, since the display is so much nicer than most phones, and the touchscreen works really well. You can always break the BT connection once you get the number dialed if you want a private, non-speakerphoned conversation. I have done that many times already. Once your call ends, the connection to the Nuvi is reestablished automatically. One word of warning: BlackBerry does not support sending its addresses to the Nuvi, so I was unable to test the download feature, but this does not surprise me given BlackBerry's security obsession. I am confident that it would work fine with other supported phones.

Overall, the device is a joy to operate. The battery life is good, although I would not call it excellent. The menus are very intuitive. The accuracy is very high. Even the windshield mount earns my praise. I did a lot of research on the Nuvi, comparing it in excruciating detail to the latest Tom Tom 910, the Magellan Roadmate 800, etceteras. The 350 was a great unit, the 360's Bluetooth functionality makes it even better, and worth the extra money for me.

Note: I just returned from a 4 day trip to Banff, Canada during which I logged another 20 hours of driving. The unit continues to perform perfectly, including comprehensive POIs in the Banff/Lake Louise area. I also discovered an amazing feature I had not noticed before. I was unfamiliar with the Lake Louise area and had three hungry kids in the car. I pressed Where To, then Restaurants, and the list appeared, in order of proximity to my moving vehicle. Each listing showed the distance to that restaurant, with a little arrow next to it showing the exact direction to that restaurant. I just left it on this page and drove around, following the arrows, which moved as I did, until I found a restaurant that looked good. What an amazing device. I also have nothing but praise for the window mount. Seems like a small thing, but it's so solid and well-designed I had to make special mention of it. It has a lever to easily create a large suction force, the ball joints are very solid, and the method of attachment to the Nuvi is just extremely well designed.

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Summary: I shelled out the extra $100 to get the bluetooth functionality, but it caused more problems than it was worth. I first linked my wife's LG phone to the ...

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Summary: I shelled out the extra $100 to get the bluetooth functionality, but it caused more problems than it was worth. I first linked my wife's LG phone to the unit, but it could not open her phone book so all outgoing call have to be dialed on the phone's keypad. However, when I linked my motorolla phone to the unit, the phone book appeared on the 360 and I was able to make calls. The first call worked fine, but the second one caused the unit to freeze requiring a hard reset. Each time I tried using the phone function, it worked for the first call but froze during the second--which is a problem if you are driving in an unfamiliar area and need to rely on the map.

It would have been nice to have the phone function particularly because when you search any of the millions of points of interest (which came in very handy during vacation in southern cal), aside from full address info, you get a little phone incon on the screen that allows you to directly place a call to the point of interest without having to whip out your cell.

Aside from the phone glitches, directions provided are perfect and it works well with the FM traffic receiver to rout you around trouble spots if you are in a large metropolitan area (chicago for me). However, the traffic receiver is a separate connection makes for too many wires. I'm trying to decide whether to save a few bucks and go with the 350 since the phone function is useless or to spend a bit more when the 660 comes out in a few days which hopefully corrected the bluetooth bugs and already has the traffic receiver built in (only 3 months free though compared to the 15 month deal you get with the separate antenna).

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Summary: For everyone who is asking, they are available at some retailers now. Just do a little searching and you'll find it. And, if nothing else, you can get it ...

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Summary: For everyone who is asking, they are available at some retailers now. Just do a little searching and you'll find it. And, if nothing else, you can get it on eBay too.

I've had mine for a week and this is the first GPS unit I have ever owned or used, so I may not be as insightful as others could be. I did a lot of searching online and what attracted me to this unit was the bluetooth and the size and Garmin's reputation. Plus, the positive reviews for the Nuvi 350 almost made me purchase that one despite no bluetooth, so when I saw this one I knew it was the one for me.

The routes have been great, it gives me routes that I would normally take. It does a great job of recalculating when you go off-route. The bird's eye view is great and the user interface is pretty intuitive. I had it working pretty easily right out of the box. There are a variety of voices to choose from as well, which is nice. Plus, one really nice thing is, mine came completely charged!! Thank you Garmin for not making me wait to use my new toy while it charges for 3 hours like every other piece of tech I've ever purchased!

The POIs seem to be pretty good, it has found everything I've looked for in the last few days, including a small neighborhood restaurant. Being able to dial the POIs is a great feature as well. I haven't tested it too extensively, but searching for maybe 10 things, it has been able to locate all of them for me.

The bluetooth has been pretty decent. I paired it with a Blackberry 7100g (cingular) and didn't have any problems pairing. I've had a few conversations that worked pretty well. My sister said that it sounded fine on her except that it was obvious she was on speaker phone. I wish the phone book transfer was available with the blackberry, but it isn't. I have a friend who has cingular as well and trying to call him a few times ends up not working. It shows that it is dialing, but it never rings and never disconnects. But, if he calls me, it rings right through and I can answer it on the nuvi.

I haven't used any of the travel guide/language/currency converter stuff. The audio books things would be nice if I travelled distances. The mp3 player isn't anything fancy, the speaker on the nuvi distorts with too loud of music, but I suppose you could use an fm transmitter or hook it directy to your stereo if you have the input. I synced a song to the nuvi using Windows Media Player, but I couldn't find it on the device with the mp3 player. I searched it on my computer when I got back home and it had created a folder for the song, but all of the other music (sample tunes) were in a different folder, so I transfered the song to that folder manually. The mp3 player still couldn't find the file. I haven't played around with it since then, as it wasn't a pressing matter, but perhaps I'm just missing something right now. The sample songs played just fine on the unit though.

The Garmin lock feature seems nice, but if it gets stolen, it's gone. The lock feature won't do much good then. I thought it sounded like a neat idea, but what's the point the lock now that I have it? I suppose if you use the Nuvi as a harddrive and put sensitive documents on there.

It comes with a windshield mount, a plastic disk with adhesive to create your own mounting space, a car/cigaratte lighter charger, a household outlet charger, a nice leather case to protect the screen (I throw it in my pocket or in my wife's purse when not in the car to keep it from getting stolen) and instuction booklets/quick start guides in several languages.

That's about all I can think of right now. If you ask questions, I'll check back periodically to see if I can answer them.

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Summary: Here's the deal, I have researched every GPS device out there and I have read just about every review AND spoken with seven of my friends who own everything ...

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Summary: Here's the deal, I have researched every GPS device out there and I have read just about every review AND spoken with seven of my friends who own everything from a Tom Tom to a Nuvi. When it come to the Nuvi 360 - You CAN'T go wrong. The device is well made and loads of fun. By now you have read many reviews and you know all about the great features

One word of caution. I was having trouble picking up satellite connections for the first two weeks and I was getting rather frustrated. It was taking about three to five minutes or longer to acquire a signal and that was just unacceptable. I therefore contacted Garmin and that problem has since been resolved.

You see, the software on many of the Nuvi 360s out there is already out-dated by the time you buy it. As of the time of this write-up (12/15/06), you should be using software version 3.30 on your Nuvi 360.

So how do you know... You can check which software is on your Nuvi 360 by (1) turning on your device, (2) pressing on the "tools" icon which looks like a wrench located on the right side of the screen, (3) pressing the "System" icon, and (4) pressing the "About" button located on the bottom of the screen.

If you don't have version 3.30 (or better at some point in the future) then you must connect your Garmin to your computer via the USB cable and log on to Garmin's website to download the latest software (which is FREE)... There are quite a few updates so be patient. It took about 20 minutes to upgrade my system on a cable modem connection.

One more very important thing to be aware of... For the best reception, you want to keep the antenna at a 90 degree angle. That means you should ONLY open it half way. This will increase the surface area and allow you to pick up a satellite feed much faster and with much more signal strength.

Okay, one last thing... The Nuvi 360 offers WAAS technology. So what does that mean? It means that the Nuvi 360 will constantly search for the best satellite signal out there and give you better accuracy then the Tom Tom (only if you have the WAAS option turned on). So, that begs the question: Why not always have it turned on? The answer is: Battery Life. If you have it turned on, just be sure that you are connected to an external power supply (i.e. your car) because the uses a lot of power since it is constantly searching for optimal signals. To turn the WAAS option on, just follow the instructions I gave you above in steps 1 through 3 and then press the WAAS option at the top of the screen.

All in all, this is a fantastic GP device and definitely worth buying. Shop carefully because prices vary widely. I bought mine over the internet from a reputable source and saved $275 over the retail stores. As of 12/15/06 you should not be paying more than $575 (and the price is now coming down even further because Garmin has introduced a widescreen version: Nuvi 660).

In any event. Check out the prices on Cnet.com and find out who is offering it at competitive prices. I know this was a long review, but I hope this helps...
Happy holidays!

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Summary: After doing a lot of research, I decided on the Nuvi 360 over everything else remotely in this price range. It was ready to go out of the box. I'...

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Summary: After doing a lot of research, I decided on the Nuvi 360 over everything else remotely in this price range. It was ready to go out of the box. I'm one of those guys who enjoy reading the manual, but after a few pages it became very clear that the manual was unnecessary. No instruction was needed to get this baby on the road and you headed in the right direction.

The day I got it, my wife, friends and I hit the road for a 3 hour trip to make a concert AT NIGHT. I took no backup directions and relied entirely on the Nuvi to get us to a place we had never been before. The 360 took us right to the front door. I was relieved and excited at the same time!

The size is perfect. It looks compact and neat on the dash and it is not visually intrusive for the driver. The colors and back light is bright. The night time mode and the ability to dim at a user determined time is nice. The Nuvi is easy to place in and remove from the included window mount, which I highly recommend that you do considering that this little fellow would look mighty attractive sitting in the window to passing thieves.

The most impressive thing so far is the POI feature. The list is extensive and includes food, gas, lodging and even schools. My wife is in education and travels all over the state to different schools so this is perfect for her. On the way to the concert we all wanted to stop and eat. My wife, who is not necessarily technologically savvy, was able to navigate the menus and pull up a list of fast food restaurants. We found a Chick-fil-a that everyone wanted and set it as a via point. My friends were amazed and are now considering getting one.

There are a lot of other features that are both useful and fun, too many for me to go over. I?ll just say that this device is as advertised and then some. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to get a portable nav system.

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