The Garmin StreetPilot C320 is clearly a direct competitor to the TomTom go unit and as its late to the party it needs a few extra tricks, for a start it comes with a good selection of Maps on their city select CD, the user chooses which maps they want on their device and downloads via a USB connection to the 256mb SD card that sits in the unit.

The C320 is pretty similar to the Go unit in dimensions as well with a familiar looking form factor and mounting system which clamps onto your windscreen with tenacity, the 3.5" 320 x 240 pixels touch screen is bright and very vivid in its colour reproduction which is essential for a navigation unit that will be used in direct sunlight in many countries. navigation is simple enough with even clearer menus than the TomTom unit with big chunk truck driver sized on screen buttons, a choice of map views including a birds eye 3D one and spoken instructions through the inbuilt speaker.

Some extra tricks are present for example the Garmin C320 has trip computer functions with Resettable odometer, timers, average and maximum speeds, plus support for waypoint ideal for those who drive complicated routes.

The Garmin unit has its own internal lithium Ion battery allowing the C320 to be used without being hooked to the vehicles cigarette lighter socket and opens up the possibility of navigating in more unusual vehicles, however the package does come with a full set of charging leads that work neatly with the suction mount system.

Garmin also announced a bigger brother to the C320 the C330 at CES in February this unit while looking physically the same adds a hard drive so that all the European maps on the CD are held within the unit allowing you to drive around the continent seamlessly. Garmin use Navteq maps which are widely recognised as a sound choice if not always the most up to date, however all most all the major GPS systems go for Teleatlas including TomTom!

So to our review, we've had the A Garmin C320 for a week now and it's taken us on short familiar routes and a journey from Essex to Bletchley park the home of the code breakers. Setting a destination is simple and the buttons are bigger than the TomTom ones making this easier, as you enter each line of the address the list narrows until options are displayed for you to select its a little like the T9 text system.

Route planning is a swift affair and a bit faster than the Go unit, plus the all important car park test was a winner for the Garmin C320, its TFT (Time to fix) meant it acquired the necessary satellites to get us out of the car park a good 20 - 30 seconds before the TomTom unit.

Route selection is always a personal thing, but for our money the Garmin likes high streets and bigger main roads and the TomTom is a little more adventurous and therefore does provide quicker routes, the Bletchley trip proved this with a 7 minute difference in route time.

Once on the move the bight clear screen is good, however it is prone to serious reflections and took a while to get the mount in the right position to reduce them to an acceptable level, night time means a night mode and a nice touch here is an automatic change from day to night maps based on the system clock.

The mount is very secure and the sucker is almost vicious in the way it latches onto the windscreen, perhaps the release system is not as easy to use as the Go's due to the fact you have to reach around the rear of the unit to push the button.

Once en route again the Garmin StreetPilot C320 proved a better unit than the GO in the audio department with a louder speaker, perhaps the audio descriptions were not as good, TomTom does give you a last second "turn left" just as you approach the turn, the C320 gave you its last command about 200 yards back. In this respect we did find ourselves using the screen of the StreetPilot more for clarification of the exact location of the road to take.

The critical aspect of any SatNav system and therefore the review is how it navigates and how it copes when you go wrong, while route selection was excellent and it is a worthy competitor to TomTom we did manage to get it a little upset a few times. Take a wrong turn and it will shout "off route" and recalculate to get you back on course, however it seems to have a bit of a lull while doing this which can take about 0.1 of a mile, this is just enough time to miss the best alternate road as we found out on at least 2 occasions.

We are in a position to have the 2 units a StreetPilot C320 and a tom tom go side by side for most of our journeys something you won't have the luxury of and so even the smallest differences become apparent. A strange one is that when you park up and turn of the ignition the Garmin unit will power down in 30 seconds saving you battery something TomTom does not do.

But we did find on powering both systems back up when part way though a route, something you may do if you stop for petrol or food, the Garmin C320 loses its route and you have to programme it in again, very annoying indeed. Having spoken with Garmin they say this is not a feature and not something they have seen before, must just have been LP?

That said the instructions on route are good and clear and highly accurate compared to the Navman iCN510 we tested and its a joy to use, this is a very polished and well designed unit which if launched back in September would have make quite an inroad to tom-toms sales.

Perhaps that's why the Garmin C320 is a good £20 less than the Go unit and for many that will be a worthy trade for the few funnies we discovered during our week, Garmin have got it right here with a polished product and one we'd buy and therefore recommend whether it will hold up against the new TomTom go range will be the real test.

More Garmin GPS Reviews

Published - 11/04/2005

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