Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Garmin has the very nice capability to fix features with downloadable software and firmware updates through the MyDashboard feature on their website so I am hoping they will fix the problems. The new 2360 has all of the features of the old 755T but moved around. And all these seem to work just as satisfactorily as they worked on the 755T which is a navigator that I used extensively including a weekly commute between San Jose and Berkeley. After a good shake down of the new 2360 and getting past the confusion from features that have been moved around and hidden under 3-bar buttons which push a few features down a level and thus require finding them hidden under the 3-bar buttons since it is not always clear what one can expect to them. For example, "show map" is available under the ubiquitous 3-bar button in one context, but not another. Until you learn it, you will have to try the 3-bar button to see if it is there. On a couple of occasions I thought that features available in the 755T were no longer available until I thought to try the current 3-bar button. The new 2360LMT still has the junction view/lane-assist problem that I reported on in October, however it has be partly fixed (this problem is described later in the review). However, with the new voice controlled operations of the 2360 series, there are a couple problems that the touch controlled operations don't have. I have called support on both of these problems to confirm that they indeed exist and that I wasn't missing something. In touch and voice activated mode you can search for points of interest, but if you are on a route, going somewhere, in touch controlled mode you can search along the current route but in voice controlled mode you can not. This is a disappointment. To explain, lets pretend you are driving up the bay along a route you set up on the Garmin, and you get hungry for a hamburger. In Voice command mode you can only find the ones near you, but not necessarily close to your route, so you may spend some time trying to identify one that is ahead of you on your route rather than behind or without access from your route. On the other hand, in touch command mode, the first entry on the search results is going to be the next place along your route that fits your search criteria. A bigger problem with voice controlled operations is the use of favorites. Unlike the touch command, you can not search favorites. This is a real problem for me because I imported 120 favorites from my old 755T and in order to get to 50th on the list, I would have to say "down" 25 times to get there. Worse yet, the new nuvi 2360 supports up to 1000 favorites. Could you imagine having to say "down" 500 times to find the favorite entry you want to navigate to? For the sake of fairness, you can search in touch command mode and immediately find your entry, but in California that means pulling off of the freeway and parking your car since it is not legal to hand operate a navigator when you are driving. Why in the world they didn't include the search capability for the favorites list is a complete mystery as they do include the search capability for the main points of interest list. Logically speaking if they can do one, they certainly can do the other, even if one list is dynamic and added to, when the other is static and comes canned with the latest update. It is just a matter of correct implementation. Take this from me, a former CAD designer and implementer who knows, has been there, and has done that. There is still a lot to say about this unit and it is still the most likely the unit of choice if you want voice activated features. This unit also has maps of US, Canada, and Mexico, Lifetime Traffic, and Lifetime Maps, and 3-axial compass. The price point for all these features is excellent. It was not that long ago that there were no voice activated navigators except in the $500 to $800 range. There is a new unreleased unit called the Nuvi 2460 which is almost exactly the same except bigger by about 1/2 inch in both screen dimension although the number of pixels is not changed, for a higher price. Also if you don't care about maps Garmin has a voice actuated unit just above $200 in the 2360LT...that would almost certainly the best for those who are never going to bother to update their maps. In addition, the 2360 has a feature that has hardly been talked about. It is one of the few car navigator units which has the 3-axial compass, a feature that has only appeared recently for the Nuvi line. As far as I can tell most the new Garmins DON'T have this feature, unless the descriptions are not complete. It is hard to tell since Gramin doesn't even mention this capability in any of the Nuvi specs, and I knew of it only because it happened to be mentioned in the Garmin writeup of the 2360. The compass is a great help in pedestrian mode because it orients the display depending on the orientation of the device, a feature that was almost non-existent of my now obsolete 755T. If you park your car outdoor where it can still receive signals, the compass helps a lot in finding your orientation to your car thus enabling you to walk directly to your parking place. On the old 755T it was necessary to walk a little ways for the screen to figure out orientation by your change of location. The car last parking position option has been moved from the favorites list to 'Where to'>>park>>last parking position. This option also has a problem but there is a work around. The Garmin Nuvi is very dumb about walking routes for the parking position. If you pick the "walk" option it will set up a route, but for parking lots, the route makes no sense. I was at Costco yesterday and when I used the 2360 to navigate back to my car, it set up a walking route that would have taken me clear around the Costco building rather than taking me directly to my car which was directly in front of me about 500 feet straight across the lot. As I said before, the one major problem is only partly fixed with the 2360LMT as of this writing. If you are willing to use the unit with the narrow side at the top, taking advantage of the dual orientation feature, the Junction view no longer has the problem I will discuss later in this review, but if you mount it in the cradle the usual way, it still has the problem. I believe it is important to write about this problem because it presents a slight danger in certain frenetic driving situations. HERE IS THE BACKGROUND TO UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM There is a feature called Lane Assist which among other things, offers real time feedback on the distance to the next turn. This feature is worth its weight in gold because it often will tell you which lane you should take, but even more importantly gives you continuous feedback about the distance to the next turn. The distance is continuously updated so that the distance to the next turn is accurately known at any distance from several miles down to less than 50 feet to the turn. This means at any time you can glance at the upper left hand corner of the display and immediately know where you are in relation to the next action you are going to perform in order to turn. MORE BACKGROUND THE THE PROBLEM There is another feature called Junction View which automatically fills the whole screen at some point before many major junctions and it shows you the Highway signs and lanes. The problem with the Junction View is that it comes up at unpredictable times in relationship to the next junction. it may be a couple hundred feet before the junction or it may be half a mile. In this way it can be confusing, disconcerting, and on rare occasions distractingly dangerous. (but Garmin CAN easily fix this if they are informed and choose to do so) THE BIG PROBLEM - THE BIG PROBLEM - THE BIG PROBLEM THE JUNCTION VIEW BLOCKS OUT THE LANE ASSIST VIEW AND SO YOU CAN NO LONGER SEE THE DISTANCE TO THE NEXT TURN AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL HOW FAR THE NEXT TURN BY LOOKING AT THE GARMIN. >>>>>>> THE FIX THAT IS NEEDED <<<<<<<<<<<< There are a number of ways to fix this problem, but the most important thing is to make a small change to the display so that distance to the next turn is ALWAYS visible. This distance needs to be there ALL of the time because that way the driver can depend on being able to get this important information at any point in time no matter what. Technically speaking, one simple quick fix would be to cause the Lane Assist to ALWAYS display even if the Junction view is up. It is just in the corner so almost never interfere with the Junction view. Another possible fix would be to offer an option to disable the Junction View in the set up for those who don't want it. Another possible solution is to add only the real time distance information in the upper left hand corner during the display of the junction view. This would take less space than the Lane Assist and would interfere less with the Junction View while keeping the driver fully informed. Because in all cases this is a software fix, it could be included in software updates of the Garmin product line so that it could even be fixed for all of the older Garmin products. That is exact how other features were enhanced such as the red speed limit exceed warning that was retrofitted to the nuvi line. To get the fix all you have to do is go to the Garmin site, plug in your Garmin to the USB and use the Dashboard feature to update your software. My recommendation to all reading this article that have a Nuvi Garmin, ask Garmin to add this feature because it increases the safety of the driver. I have driven through the Berkeley Maze in the SF Bay Area, and have almost been terrified by the sudden appearance of the Junction View obscuring the distance to the next junction in the Berkley Maze where junctions can come up one after another in quick succession. Sincerely Submitted, John Sellers