Garmin Nuvi 350 Review

In this review we are going to cover Garmin Nuvi 350 Personal Navigator and Travel Assistant. We will present the features that make the Nuvi 350 an interesting gadget and make it stand out from the crowd. This Garmin Nuvi 350 review will offer details about the design and build quality of the device and also a brief insight into the functions and tools it offers. At the end of this review you will find lots of pictures of Garmin Nuvi 350 so you can get a better ideea about how it looks.

The revolutionizing Garmin Nuvi 350 is about the size of an ordinary deck of playing cards, the Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS navigator is practically all display with its 3.5" color touch screen. The architecture is built around a SiRF® WAAS-capable high-sensitivity receiver, claimed capable of acquiring and maintaining a GPS signal under heavy foliage as well as in urban environments. The unit is preloaded with detailed street maps for North America and includes text-to-speech technology. The unit includes a calculator, world travel clock, currency and measurement converter, and is also an MP3 player, audio book player, and JPEG picture viewer. The Garmin Nuvi 350 has a slot for SD card expansion storage, a built-in antenna and lithium-ion battery, and includes the car mount and both an AC and car power adaptor.

What really makes the Garmin nuvi 350 stand out is the simple and small design wrapped around a solid software platform that really makes traveling easy. It's based on the SiRF star III chipset, so you'll get great reception almost anywhere you can see the sky.

Features at a glance

• Compact GPS navigator with bundled MP3/audiobook player, photo viewer, and world travel clock.
• Small enough to fit in a pocket or purse
• Has 700MB of internal memory and a Secure Digital (SD) memory card slot to expand it's memory.
• North American version includes pre-loaded City Navigator NT maps of the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
• Garmin nuvi 350 is compatible with the GTM 12 Traffic Receiver which allows users to avoid traffic tie-ups by simply pushing a button that will calculate a new route.
• It also comes with an A/C charger.
• Mounts on vehicle windshield with included suction cup.

More than a GPS device. It's a Personal Travel Assistant !

MP3 Player

The Garmin Nuvi 350 packs an MP3 player, audio book player (from Audible.com), JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, and a calculator.

Language guide

Using data from the Oxford University Press, Garmin nuvi 350 provides a multilingual word bank, phrase bank, and five bilingual dictionaries. Travelers can look up and translate more than 17,000 words or 20,000 phrases per language.

Travel guide

The optional Garmin Travel Guide has an absolutely immense amount of travel information on tap including reviews and recommendations for restaurants and tourist attractions.

The information in the guide is integrated with Garmin nuvi 350 GPS functionality, so you can select a local Hotel, Restaurant or Bar and be guided directly there.

JPEG viewer

Why would you want to view pictures on your GPS? Well, if you are holiday and you have your digital camera with you, you can use the Garmin nuvi 350 to view the pictures you have taken during you travels: Garmin nuvi 350's much nicer to look at your photos on the larger Garmin nuvi 350 screen than on the standard digital camera 'postage stamp' screen, and because the screen is bigger, more than one person can view the images at a time.

Garmin nuvi 350's also a great new way to bore people with your holiday snaps; it's a portable slide show in your pocket, except you can now fit hundreds of images on one tiny SD card, so the potential to inflict your 'snaps' on an unsuspecting audience just increased massively!

Garmin Nuvi 350 specifications

Model number:	010-00455-00
Manufacturer:	Garmin Ltd.
Manufacturer Website:	www.garmin.com
Display:	2.8"W x 2.1"H (7.2 cm x 5.4 cm); QVGA TFT landscape display, with anti-glare finger-touchscreen
Resolution:	320 x 240 pixels
Backlighting:	White backlight
Channels:	12 channels
Antenna:	Flip-up antenna; includes MCX-type connector for optional external GPS antenna connection
Receiver:	High-sensitivity SiRF receiver/WAAS-enabled
Built-in mapping database:	City Navigator NT v.8 (includes detailed maps of U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico)
Travel kit:	Language guide, MP3 player, audible book player, picture viewer, world clock, currency and measurement converters, and calculator functions
Memory:	700 MB internal; SD memory expansion slot
Speakers:	Built-in
Traffic alerts:	Optional GTM 10 FM TMC traffic receiver
Navigation prompts:	Audio (text-to-speech) and visual (on-screen)
Viewing perspectives:	Three-dimensional or two-dimensional (overhead)
Dimensions (WxHxD):	3.87 x 2.91 x 0.87 inches / 98.3 x 73.9 x 22.1 millimeters
Weight:	5.1 ounces / 144.6 grams
Temperature range:	32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C)
Battery:	Built-in 800 mAh rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Battery life:	4 to 8 hours
Other power supply:	12-volt power adapter cable
Usage:	15 W max at 13.8 VDC
Headphone jack:	Standard 3.5 millimeter
PC connectivity:	USB mass storage (SD card slot or internal memory)
Case:	Not waterproof or IPX0
Warranty:	Limited one-year parts and labor
Additional Information:	WAAS enabled Built-in lithium ion battery Offers a three dimensional mapping perspective, or 2-D overhead view Text-to-Speech: Unit prompts you to turn right on main st instead of turn right in 500 feet Flip-up antenna includes MCX-type connector for optional external GPS antenna connection With the POI loader program users can set up proximity alerts for school zones, safety cameras, and more

GPS performance & accuracy

Performance (WAAS-enabled)			GPS Accuracy		GPS (WAAS) Accuracy
Acquisition times	Factory reset	Update rate	Position	Velocity	Position	Velocity
Warm: <1 second Hot: <38 seconds	<45 seconds	1/second, continuous	<10 meters, typical	0.5 m/s RMS	<5 meters, typical	0.05 m/s RMS

Body & design

The display occupies nearly the entire front face of the Garmin nuvi 350, so map details are easy to see while on the move. You'll appreciate the display for other applications too, as the nuvi 350 has a JPEG picture viewer, so you can plug in the SD card from your digital camera to enjoy vacation shots while still on vacation.

Other than a power switch located on the upper bezel, the Garmin nuvi 350 is devoid of function buttons. Instead, all commands are entered via the responsive touch screen and the user-friendly menu system, although you can use the power button as a shortcut to jump from screen to screen. While the lack of buttons gives the unit a sleek, uncluttered look, a dedicated volume control would be welcome; instead, you have to switch to a settings page to adjust the volume.

A flip-up antenna folds into the back of the case, right above the internal speaker and grille. Along the right side of the Garmin Nuvi 350 are an SD (Secure Digital) card slot, a USB port, and a headphone jack. The Nuvi has 2GB of internal flash memory, half of which is dedicated to the user interface and detailed maps of North America. That leaves about 700MB of storage for digital photos, music, and Audible Book files. The Nuvi is recognized as a removal drive when connected to your PC's USB port, so you can drag and drop files easily into the unit's folders. Included in the box is a suction-cup mount that attaches to your car's windshield and a disc for mounting it on your dashboard; a 12-volt power adapter; a USB cable; and a small carrying case. You can charge the internal lithium-ion battery in your car with the 12-volt adapter or by plugging it into your PC's USB port.

Build quality

The Garmin nuvi 350 is slim, strong and exudes quality like no other GPS system. The Garmin nuvi 350 looks like it came from the future (well 3 years into the future anyway). The screen is beautiful, and it's anti-reflective too, giving a vibrant image that is easy to read in both bright and dark conditions.

Using the Garmin Nuvi 350

The main screen consists of three selections:

• Where to
• View Map
• Travel Kit

The Where To page lets you search for destinations from a massive points-of-interest (POI) database, including food, lodging, and transit establishments. You can also enter an address, spell a name, and select a specific intersection, or you can simply tap a point on the map to create a route from your current position.

The View Map page displays your location on the map, as well as your heading, speed, and estimated time of arrival to your destination. Two touch buttons let you zoom in and out of the current map view, and a text bar along the top of the screen displays upcoming street names and turns. Touching the text bar brings up a written list of upcoming turns along your route.

Likewise, the ETA/speed box opens up a trip-information page that displays an odometer, distance traveled, total travel time, maximum speed, and current speed.

The garmin nuvi 350's Travel Kit includes the MP3 player, audio book player (for Audible.com media), JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter and calculator. Additional audio and content support is provided for optional Garmin Travel Guide and Garmin Language Guide software packages (sold separately).

Navigation features

Routes: Automatically calculated with turn-by-turn instructions. Custom road preference allows user to prioritize choice of back roads or major highways. Automatic offroute recalc shows how to get back on track if you miss a turn or exit. A detour function enables routing around traffic problems or road construction.

Voice: Navigation instructions and warnings; Text-to-speech (TTS) feature identifies turns by street name.

Waypoints: 500 with name and graphic symbol

Trip computer: Resettable odometer, timers, average and maximum speeds

The interface

Navigation is simple, and elegant in Garmin Nuvi 350 with exceptionally clear menus and graphics. All on-screen buttons and icons are massive, and they can easily be selected, even by the largest of fingers.

Mapping display

Mapping is displayed clearly, in 3D, making interpretation of on-screen information very simple with Garmin nuvi 350. CitySelect V8 is very well presented with road names clearly marked and POIs easily visible. If you need clarification on an instruction, just a quick glance at the screen is all that's required.

Mapping data

Setting a destination is very simple, with Garmin nuvi 350 FINALLY including full postcode search. Just tap in the postcode, select the house number and away you go. You can obviously use the City, Street method if you wish, but postcode is most effective for fast address entry. Point of Interest (POI) Loader program available from Garmin Website and users can create their own POI using longitude and latitude information. Sites such as www.gpspassion.com has a variety of resources and many POI files for Garmin Nuvi 350.

The trip computer

Accessing the, "Trip Computer", by tapping the speed indicator in the bottom left of the navigation screen, gives you a very nice representation of an analogue speedometer, along with lots of other journey statistics; Garmin nuvi 350 looks really hi-tech too, so the Geeks out there will probably have it running even when they aren't using the Garmin nuvi 350 to navigate. Garmin nuvi 350 is worth it just for the rather cool speedo and distance logging functions in action, plus the speed is more accurately logged on the GPS than it is in your car, so it's a function with many uses...

Other features offered are:

• Odometer showing total distance traveled.
• Timers showing duration of journey; time spent moving and time spent standing still (very handy if you are late for work due to a traffic jam).
• Average and Maximum speeds for the journey are also displayed.

You can reset all of these values to zero any time you like (just in case you don't want anyone to know the maximum speed you reached on your journey).

Auto night mode

Just when you thought Garmin nuvi 350 couldn't get any better, the display reveals that it has one last trick up its sleeve: Garmin nuvi 350 will change itself to, "night time", mode automatically (darken the screen to reduce distracting glare inside the car).

Conclusions

The Garmin nuvi 350 can be given a very high rating 9 out of 10 based on the sheer usefulness in a real time scenario. Garmin Nuvi 350 provides updates quite frequently, and you can update the unit to newest software. Maps can be purchased if new versions are out, but I guess you should be good for a few years, at least 3-5 depending on the map for your location. To conclude, the Garmin Nuvi 350 is a pleasure to own and gives driving a whole new meaning and experience.

Garmin Nuvi 350 Photos