The Garmin Nuvi is billed as a personal travel assistant which we think means its more than an in car GPS navigation package. The specs support this with additional features like MP3 playback and also trying to cross the divide in to being a handheld device. However its fairly quick to see that this is not a device that manages to offer any aviation or marine features and judging by its lack of coordinate input it wouldn't be much use for geocaching either.

Measuring 98.3 mm x 73.9 mm x 22.1 mm and weighing 145 grams Garmin describe the Nuvi as a shirt pocket navigator and this seems to be where the market is shifting towards. Almost all new products are not pocketable and we've seen the reduction in size with both TomTom (with the One) and Navman bringing out smaller footprint models that retain the full feature sets. This latest offering from Garmin boasts a 3.5" TFT screen which is bright and clear making reading easy in bright sunlight even at quite acute angles, it backs up all the visual cues with a good, loud audio system.

We attached our Nuvi to the test cars windscreen using the supplied sucker mount, while to solidness of the mount is on a par with a TomTom or Navman system we did find the release mechanism easier to operate meaning it is simple to attach and remove the unit with one hand. This is all the more important as SatNav systems left in cars are already attracting thieves. Power is supplied via either the 12 volt power cord or from the internal battery which should be good for between 4 and 6 hours of use.

The Garmin interface has been honed over a number of devices most of which we have had for review, this version of Garmin's navigator software provides a very slick and useable interface with clear menu options which are easily operable even while moving (not that we'd advise this). Our first trip was an easy run with a mixture of motorway and A roads, a route which when given an address using street name and town the Nuvi plotted in about 12 seconds. The guidance provided is very similar to the best SatNav systems with clear mapping in 3D or 2D overhead views and a countdown to the next turn, there is an auto zoom feature which closes the map in as you approach the next direction change. Audio instruction is equally clear and very loud, a nice touch is that Garmin use a text to speech engine so instead of "in 200 yards turn right" you get "in 200yards turn right on pickle road".

Subsequent trips were equally speedily calculated and seemed in the most part to be the quickest and most obvious routes, which is handy as there is no method to influence the selection criteria of the Nuvi. When you go off route the Garmin Nuvi will try for 3 attempts to get you back onto the original route, this is often achieved by sending you into a side road or asking you to make a U turn, on the 4th attempt it gives up and plots a new route to your destination from where you now are. We are pleased to say the Nuvi also has a detour feature so as you approach the back of a traffic queue you can ask it to reroute for a fixed distance, so "avoid the M25 for 1 mile" is a possible input.

Accuracy is also a strong point of this new Garmin SatNav, the revised SiRF chipset means that loss of satellite lock is a very rare occurrence which is a good thing as the Nuvi lacks the extra gyroscope or odometer plug in which can keep the map in step during those brief losses during an inner city journey. We did note that there is no multi destination mode which may not concern all users but those who use SatNav to plan a daily route between locations will miss this feature.

Despite hunting for this marrying of Marine / Aviation and even Geocaching the only step we found was a simplistic A - B navigation or "off road" as Garmin term it, here you simply get a pink line between 2 points and the unit assumes you can drive over whatever lies between!  A nice extra we haven't seen on other all in one car satnav's is trip info, here you can see things like distance travelled and time taken, although many cars now have this it will be a welcome extra for those with slightly older vehicles.

Traffic info is always a welcome extra and one we hunt for in any new device, this is the next step for SatNav bringing the user real-time data to make journeys easier. Garmin have made the Nuvi compatible with the GTM 10FM TMC receiver. TMC is often available free to air in many European counties, in the UK the system is good news as its supplied with a lifetime subscription to Trafficmaster data. Sadly we were unable to test this feature as we couldn't get our paws on this optional extra.

POI (points of interest) are supported well inside the system and Garmin ship the Nuvi with a POI loader to make it easier to get POI maps made by 3rd parties onto the device. Using the USB connection we managed to hook up the unit and transfer the speed camera map, this was very easy and made some use of the approx 200mb of disk space that's available on the Nuvi 300 (700mb free space on the 350). The MP3 player works well and we did our best to give it a good test by plugging in an SD card into the Nuvi's slot and building a few playlists, the screen and interface makes this easy but the inbuilt speaker may be fine for navigation commands but it struggles with music. We'd have to recommend using the audio output and cabling it to your car stereo to make use of this feature.

Garmin also offer a few extras which you can purchase on SD card, these are based around the mobility of the new smaller unit and are more akin with a PDA than a SatNav system. First there is some basic translation software which should help you speak the local lingo while travelling and then there is a travel guide which may just show you some good places to visit.

A week with the Garmin Nuvi proved that this model is certainly right up there with the current SatNav offerings from TomTom and Navman and an improvement on the C320 we tested 6 months ago. The slimmer and dare we say sexier Nuvi really does challenger the current TomTom go 300 and if the Traffic feature works as described it could be a winner. Priced at £350 its close to the average price for this kind of system when supplied with UK and Ireland maps, there is a Nuvi 350 which has all of Europe on the device pre loaded and around 700mb of space for extra files / MP3 tracks but this costs £580 which is a lot.

So our strong recommendation goes to the Garmin Nuvi 300 which at last gives Garmin a real chance of fighting toe to toe with the TomTom Go.

The USA version is a Nuvi 350 with maps loaded for United States, Canada, & Puerto Rico

Published - 08/01/2006

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