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Garmin nüvi 255 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator | 
| Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: $249.99
Buy New: $99.99
as of 3/15/2010 18:45 MDT details
You Save: $150.00 (60%)
New (69) Used (2) Refurbished (2) from $109.00
Seller: MTJunction
Rating:  180 reviews
Sales Rank: 126
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 320 x 240
Display Size: 3.5
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 3.8 x 2.8 x 0.8
nv:Condition: New
Type: Automotive
Waypoints: 1000
Display: TFT
Display: Backlight
Screen Size: 3.5"
Touch Screen: Yes
Voice: Yes (Voice Prompt)
Expansion Slots: microSD Card
Battery Type: Rechargeable lithium-ion
Battery Life: 4 hours
Maps Included: United States
Legal Disclaimer: We do not in any way represent that any part we sell is legal to possess in your jurisdiction. Check with you local authorities to ensure it is legal for you to possess before buying!
MPN: Nuvi 255
Model: Nuvi 255
UPC: 753759077402
EAN: 0753759077402
ASIN: B0015F0AB8
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | 3.5-inch Touch Screen Navigation with Turn by Turn spoken Directions | | • | Pre-loaded Maps for all North America, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico with 6.5 million searchable points of interest | | • | FM Traffic or MSN Direct Traffic/Content compatible (with optional GDB 55 receiver) | | • | Easy to Use Interface; slim, pocket-sized form factor; 4-hour rechargeable battery; Vehicle power cable included; | | • | Automatically Adjusts Your Time Zone While Navigating |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
For peace of mind on the go, nüvi 255 leads the way with voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions that speak street names and optional MSN Direct® to get you there on time and keep you informed. It's packed with millions of destinations and maps for North America. Like the rest of the compact nüvi 2x5-series, this portable navigator is priced right and ultra-easy to use.
Navigate With Ease
nüvi 255 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator® NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with turn-by-turn voice directions, 2-D or 3-D maps and smooth map updates as you navigate. Its digital elevation maps show you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain. In addition, nüvi 255 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. With HotFix™ satellite prediction, nüvi calculates your position faster to get you there quicker.
Take It With You
Like the rest of the nüvi 2x5-series, nüvi 255 sports a sleek, slim design and fits comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot. With its "Where Am I?" emergency locator, you always know your location. Simply tap the screen to get your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and fuel stations.
Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 255 includes many travel tools including JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currenc
Amazon.com Product Description----May 7, 2008
For peace of mind on the go, nüvi 255 leads the way with voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions that speak street names and optional MSN Direct to get you there on time and keep you informed. It's packed with millions of destinations and maps for North America or Europe. This portable navigator is priced right and ultra-easy to use.
Navigate With Ease
nüvi 255 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with turn-by-turn voice directions, 2-D or 3-D maps and and smooth map redraw rates as you navigate. Its digital elevation maps show you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain. In addition, nüvi 255 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. With HotFix satellite prediction, nüvi calculates your position faster to get you there quicker.
Take It With You
nüvi 255 sports a sleek, slim design and fits comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot. With its "Where Am I?" emergency locator, you always know your location. Simply tap the screen to get your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and fuel stations.
Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 255 includes many travel tools including JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more. With photo navigation, you can download pictures from Garmin Connect Photos and navigate to them. The 255 is compatible with optional enhanced MSN Direct content (subscription and receiver required) and our free Garmin Garage where you can download animated vehicles that show your location on the map. It also comes with Garmin Lock, an anti-theft feature. Enhance your travel experience with optional plug-in microSD cards such as Garmin Travel Guides for detailed data on attractions.
nüvi 255: Simple navigation at an affordable price
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 180
 Don't pay more, this has everything you need October 2, 2008
George Rausch (Los Angeles, CA USA)
185 out of 186 found this review helpful
Let me set the scene for you: I arrive in Los Angeles at the airport, turn on my GPS system and instantly am ready to navigate. I then spend two days driving around Los Angeles not knowing where anything is located and haven't gotten lost once...
The nuvi 255, as in my review title, is everything you need. Don't spend more because you think you'll need to talk for navigation or that you want to connect to some navigation service or whatever else they're selling. This is a small, FAST, device that you can easily carry with you when it isn't in your car. And folks, that's part of a portable GPS system: you can take it with you so it doesn't get stolen.
I will give the following heads-up. The first time you calibrate the GPS system, it may take up to 10 MINUTES. Be patient, stand in a large open field, and don't move the device. Just let it sit. After that initial setup, you'll be walking on sunshine. Second, charging the device is easy. All you need is a standard USB cable that is used for most electronics. The downside, it doesn't show a progress bar on the screen as to when a charge is complete. Third, when you turn it on, make sure you have clear views of the sky from all directions. Otherwise, the system may not initialize properly. Plus, if you're in a city with tall buildings, you may be out of luck for getting signal (i.e. NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago). Normally, the difficultly comes from initially turning it on. After that, it's great.
This device is FAST in recalculating routes. Mere seconds and boom, you're back on track. No downtime whatsoever. This is really amazing.
You are given the option of navigation as a pedestrian or in a car. That is really great if you're on foot. You can easily switch between the two.
NOW... my word of advice. SPEND THE MONEY to get the 255 with the "text-to-speech." When you're driving in traffic in an unfamiliar place, you don't want to have to constantly look over to read the street names on the device then find them on the street. It is worth the extra cash.
All-in-all, I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. As I said to a friend today, it isn't often that I buy a piece of electronics equipment and have my expectations met and surpassed. As I continue to use it, new things continue to amaze me.
Job Well Done September 15, 2008
AC (Illinois 60142)
71 out of 75 found this review helpful
I purchased the Nuvi 255 as a replacement for my Nuvi 350. There is nothing wrong with the 350Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text-to-Speech. The 255Garmin Nuvi 255 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator has safety features I want which include "Where Am I" that gives your location by street address, city, state, zip code, nearest intersection and coordinates. This is important in an emergency in a strange and/or unfamiliar location. Another safety feature is the display of the posted speed limit directly above your actual speed. This helps to avoid tickets and reminds one about safe driving.
Other improvements include a brighter clearer display, revised touch screen graphics, an arrow indicating direction of next turn and a TTS voice that sounds like a real person instead of an elocution professor.
The 255 also has a world clock, unit converter, calculator and photo
display.
In closing, I saved the best feature for last--the GPS function is fast, flawless and exact.
Worthy successor to the 260 September 27, 2008
d-18v (USA)
48 out of 50 found this review helpful
My son, who does not drive, wanted a GPS because most of his friends, who DO drive, don't have one. He thinks of it, along with some gas money, as his contribution to the trip. Since it was dad's money paying for it, I decided to give him my nuvi 260 so that I could get a 255 with its ability to make use of traffic information. (I've just ordered the receiver and will report on that aspect later.)
I'm not quite sure how to review a GPS. The 255 makes the fourth GPS in out family. The others are the Garmin nuvi 200, 260, 260w. Since there are so many makes and models on the market and few people will own multiple GPSs, the most helpful information would be areas in which a particular unit was found to be lacking. I've never found any of these units to be lacking. Other than the well reported difficulties they sometimes have locating satellites (the 255 seems a bit better in this regard), there's nothing about the Garmins that would make me want to try a different brand.
People debate about the 255's voices. Many prefer the 260's voices. My wife is one of them. I find the 255's voices similar to the 260's, except that I miss Emily. She and I have grown close over the months we've been together, but, alas, she was unable to make the jump to the 255. The format of the voice files must have changed. The .vpm files on the 260 are 10+kb, where those on the 255 are about 2kb and Emily was not offered as a download. So, Emily is no more. She was not included on the 255 and I could not get the voice file from the 260 to work on the 255.
I find pluses and minuses to the new interface. I'm not fond of the speed function because it takes up a lot of real estate and isn't reliable. I traveled Route 119 from Route 2 in Acton, MA, to Route 495 in Littleton, a main drag. The speed limit varies from a high of 50 to a low of 25, but the 255 showed a constant 45, so I would not rely on the 255 to warn me of speed traps.
I DO like the new distance and direction of turn indicator. It's convenient seeing the arrow indicating the direction of the turn right next to the distance indicator.
I do NOT like the new way the keypad changes from upper to lower case after the first character of a name is entered.
I WISH there were an option for a QWERTY keyboard layout.
I WISH Garmin would allow zip code entry in addition to City and State.
About 30 seconds after the 260's on/off switch is placed in the lock position, the screen dims and the voice goes silent. This is a very convenient way to silence the unit when traveling a well known road and bringing it back with a minimum of fuss when needed. On the 255, the screen goes dim, but the voice is no longer silent. It's necessary to go through menus to make the unit quiet. This means that there is no longer an easy way to silence the 255 since pressing menus is too dangerous to attempt when the car is moving.
But the quibbles are minor. They're not enough to make me remove a star.
Garmin makes a fine, accurate unit. I've stopped all but the most cursory glances at maps prior to making trips. I'm happy to let the unit send me on its merry way. (There's a movie here where someone figures out how to reprogram GPSs, luring victims into out of the way places. "Dear, are you sure the way to the mall is through the cemetary?") Just last night it showed me a new way to a place I'd been visiting for years and never used the GPS to guide me because I knew the way there. (Ah, so *that's* where that road goes!)
Now, if only I could figure a way to get Emily back...
Added in edit: Another thing I REALLY LIKE about the 255 over the 260...
When you're driving down the road, the title bar of the 260 will often say something like "Continuing on Route nnn". On that same stretch of road, the title bar of the 255 will have the name of the next turn/exit/route. That is, once you're where you're supposed to be, the 255 immediately displays the name of the next road.
Everything you need in a GPS October 3, 2008
George Varghese (Chicago, IL United States)
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
This is the fourth GPS that I have tried. Initially I had the VZ Navigator system from verizon. It's a phone GPS and works very well. However, I had to discard that after I moved from Verizon.
Then I got the top rated Nuvi Garmin 350. Garmin nüvi 350 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Text-to-Speech When I started using it, I realized that its navigation features where inferior to VZ navigator. I was surprised that a dedicated GPS had less features than a phone GPS. Few things that annoyed me with nuvi 350.
1) It wouldn't show the distance or direction of next turn. I had to press the turn list, everytime I needed to check the distance to next turn. Also, since the direction of turn is not shown in advance, you could endup on the wrong lane before the turn.
2) The arrival time shown on the display would not take into account the time zone. If you travel a lot between time zones, you are always forced to calculate the actual arrival time using the time shown on the display.
3) It wouldn't remember the last entered city. You have to re-enter the city, everytime you enter an address.
The only thing 350 had better than the phone gps was the bigger display. Anyway, my 350 got stolen recently. I was half happy that I could get a new GPS. I researched a little bit and figured that the Tomtom One 130S TomTom ONE 130S 3.5-Inch Touchscreen Portable GPS Navigator did not have any of the annoyances of nuvi 350. It would always display the direction and distance to the next turn. I liked the compact mounting setup of Tomtom very much. Also, the voice instructions were very clear although many reviewers had complained about voice quality. However, I was forced to return the GPS due to one major flaw. The voice instructions and the directions were not correct!!! When I had to go westbound, the GPS would instruct me to take the ramp to Eastbound direction. This happened on two instances and I decided enough is enough.
Doing some further research, I figured that garmin has introduced a new model that fixes all of the shortcomings of nuvi 350. I have used it for about 2 weeks and I am very happy with the purchase. Although some reviewers have complained about the voice quality, I havn't had any difficulty in understanding the voice instructions. Apart from fixing the annoyances mentioned above, it also has some nice additional features.
1) Faster GPS lock
2) Speed limit display
3) Internal antenna and slimmer profile; so easy to store in pocket.
Overall nuvi 255 is the ideal GPS, atleast for now :-)
Great entry level GPS November 21, 2009
Eve G. (Upstate New York)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
My love affair with GPSes.
I owned a nuvi 200 3.5" GPS, which worked perfectly well. My GPS mainly functions as a paper map substitute. I don't use any of the other features, like Points of Interest, traffic reports, photos, currency converter.
A new series!
I considered upgrading when I found out Garmin redesigned some of the screens on the 2x5 units. I was tossed between the nüvi 205 or nüvi 255. The 255 has spoken street names. I didn't want the Wide versions, because I heard those don't show more map area; they're just the same amount of map stretched on a larger screen. The 3.5 screen is plenty big for me, and small enough to be conveniently portable in a bag or a pocket.
Reconditioned snobbery.
I bought a factory reconditioned nuvi 255 for the price of a new 205. If it weren't for the white box (the new units come in a black box), I could not tell the reconditioned unit apart from a new one. It was pristine and worked perfectly, and came with the normal accessories. Based on this experience, I would not hesitate to buy another Garmin reconditioned item.
The new screen interfaces are a nice improvement over the old one. Go to Youtube and check out some side by side comparisons, if you're interested.
Things that seemed to improve from the 2x0 to the 2x5 models:
- 255 fixed on satellites much easier indoors. The 200 used to not find satellites when I turned it on inside the house.
- 255 satellite acquisition time is much faster, within 10 seconds. The 200 used to take upwards of a few minutes.
Features I like:
- I thought I wouldn't need it, but having spoken street names is nice.
- "where am I" feature shows me my long/lat and nearest emergency services.
- Garmin Garage. Free download from Garmin. It's a stupid cutesy thing, but I can modify the little vehicle to one that suits my mood.
Features I don't care for:
- There is no quick mute button. It takes at least three taps to mute sound.
- I can modify a path, by adding a waypoint, but I can't easily force it to take the road I want.
- On the 200 it was "Where To" - "Favorites". On the 255, Favorites got demoted to the next screen, and needs an extra tap. It would be nice if I could change the order of my frequently used functions.
Features I don't use/don't need:
- music
- bluetooth
- traffic reports
- maps outside of North America. I'm not a jetsetter.
- currency calculator
- Ecoroute
Feature I would like, if I won the lottery:
- Lane assist, it's in the spendy nuvi models.
One free map update.
I bought this reconditioned unit in 10/2009. It came with map version North America NT 2010.10. I downloaded their program then loaded the unit with the new map. My update to the latest version NT 2010.20 took about 1.5 hours total, and not several overnight hours I've read about. Maybe mileage varies with internet connection speed.
Neoprene case.
This isn't a review of the unit, but I thought I'd throw this in to help anyone looking for a suitable case. Ever since my first nuvi, I've searched for a proper fitting neoprene case. Garmin's official case is leather, open on one side, and spendy. This camera case fits just right.
Dolica SM-98305BK sold at the big O for $4.99 plus shipping. Internal dimensions are 4.1"x3"x0.8". External dimensions are 4.6" x 3.3" x 1.45". This will fit all of the 3.5" 2xx and 3xx series nuvis.
Mount.
I don't know anyone who owns a Garmin, use the sticky disk supplied in the package. Sticking the disk permanently to my dash is out of the question. I recommend the HandStands Sticky Pad GPS Dash Mount. Sleek, low profile and moveable.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 180
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