noslein303's Full Review: Garmin nuvi 200W Car GPS Receiver
I purchased the Garmin 200W for use while doing my job as a police officer. Prior to this, I had been using a much bulkier Street Pilot ColorMap for the past 8 years before it finally died. I was immediately impressed with the 200W when I took it out of the box.
The Garmin 200W is about the size of an iPhone, and can easily fit in your pocket if you need to take it out of your car. The size and light weight makes for easy suction cup mounting to the windshield, or Velcro mounting to another surface. Another immediately noticed benefit to this model is it does not have an external antenna to get in the way, everything is contained within the unit, less bulk and fewer wires is always a good thing!
Inside the box you receive the GPS unit, a car charger, windshield suction cup type mount, a plastic disc for dash mounting, and an instruction book, which is pretty worthless. The instruction book is more of a pamphlet, but lets face it, this GPS is so simple to operate a complete idiot could figure it out without a manual.
The suction cup mount for this unit works well as long as you are not constantly removing and then re-installing it. This will wear the rubber on the suction cup out and cause it to lose suction at very inconvenient times. I find the suction cup sticking to the windshield is more of a problem during cold weather (below 20 deg F). But before you go and mount it to the windshield, make sure to check your local laws and statutes to make sure it is allowed. In Colorado you are not allowed to place anything between you and the glass which could impair your vision through the glass (this includes hanging anything from your rearview mirror.)
There are some features that this GPS does not have that other, more expensive GPS come standard with. For example, this unit will speak to you, and tell you when to turn, but will not pronounce the street names. The 200W does not come with Bluetooth or MP3 capability, or traffic updates. However this unit does have the same screen size (4.8 inches) and comes with a touch screen as all the other NUVI units include. So you need to ask yourself, are these features worth an extra $500.00 to spend on top of what the 200W would cost you? Garmin seems to think so.
The sound quality on the 200W is good, and it is adjustable in 10% increments. At its loudest, it is audible and understandable over the siren in my patrol car when driving to an emergency call. This unit comes with several different voices and different languages to suit your needs.
This unit navigates easily to address which are entered in by typing on a keyboard which appears on your touch screen. If you miss a turn, it will automatically recalculate your route, which can be set by shortest distance, or fastest driving time. In my experience with the addressing feature on residential streets is usually about 95% accurate and will end up with you directly in front of the address you are trying to go to. If you are trying to find addresses off a major highway I am often finding that this can end you with being up to 2 miles away from the actual address. Generally it seems that addresses on these roads are based off of mile markers, and the GPS unit seems to have trouble understanding these.
If you are in an unfamiliar area, and are looking for a restaurant, gas station, hospital, whatever really you should need, this unit comes with a feature called Points of Interest. Just type in what you want, whether it’s a business name (Wal Mart) or something you’d like to eat (Pizza) and it will show you your closest options, and their phone numbers. This unit comes already loaded with 6 million of these Points of Interest.
The Garmin 200W comes with a feature allowing you to “Lock” your GPS. It will require a PIN number (which you get to choose) upon turning it on in order to use your GPS. If you forget your PIN number, just go to the location where you initially set your PIN number, and you can unlock your 200W and reset the PIN at that time.
I have left my GPS unit in my car since getting it this past summer. It has endured high temperatures, and sub zero Colorado nights, and functions flawlessly. The screen is a little slow to respond during extreme cold until it warms up for about 10 minutes, but this has been my experience with all LCD devices. I have noticed that when this unit is cold it uses up battery power much more quickly (about 3 hours of life) compared to normal operation (about 5.5 hours of life.)
One problem I have noticed with the 200W is when you enter in a Favorite Place (a custom Point of Interest) it puts these in a directory. This directory is not alphabetically organized, and only displays in the order of the closest Favorite Place. You can not change this setting.
Another problem I have found is that while driving, this unit automatically changes the zoom that you are viewing. If you are on a residential street you will be zoomed in fairly close, if you are on a highway, it will be zoomed out to the point you can see for several miles in each direction. Some people may like this, but I would prefer it stay at the level of zoom I set it at. I was unable to find a way to customize this, and contacted Garmin. It turns out this is another setting you can not change on any of their models.
Overall I am very satisfied with this unit, it seems to have great features for the low price. This unit has a strong construction, and meets the needs of this officer when finding obscure addresses in a jurisdiction covering 750 square miles and serving 300,000 people, in the more rural areas many of the roads are houses are not marked, and this GPS still gets me to their driveway.
I will caution people against paying too much attention to these while driving. Anything that distracts your complete attention away from you while driving is not safe. I can not even begin to give you an idea of the number of drivers I have pulled over for speeding, weaving, running red lights, or stop signs, and often the driver tells me they were watching their GPS for directions, or trying to put an address in. If you must do this, please pull over first, it will keep you, and other families on the road safe.
GARMIN Nuvi 200W Auto Navigation System. Garmin International is pleased to announce the nuvi 200W affordable GPS navigator. This newest model in the ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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