Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A tennis ball. The Garmin StreetPilot i5. What do the two have in common? Size. The i5 is without a doubt, one of the best purchases I've ever made. Everyone has the same reaction I first had when I saw it on display at a marine supply store. "That's a GPS? No way." Then they want a demonstration. The main selling point for this unit is it's size. It can do everything that other competitor's GPS units can do, and more, at a third of the size. If you've ever wanted a GPS on your motorcycle, the i5 is the real deal. The unit comes with a 12V power cord for automobile use. You can also pop in 2 AA's and leave the cord behind. The unit is rated for 3-4 hours use when using with AA's alone. If you are going to use the 12V cord, Garmin still recommends having fresh AA's in the unit, as the unit is able to update it's position upon powering up faster, that just going with the cord alone. The i5 gets a perfect score from me when it comes to ergo. Navigating through menus is quick and painless. It also has an auto-brightness setting that brightens or dims the unit's display depending on ambient lighting conditions. Even cooler, at night, the nav map changes it's color scheme to darker colors which is cool. Voice prompts are right on cue. Very glad the voice has NO "computer-voice" and even happier it's a female voice. I call her "Garmina". So why not 5 stars? There's no Mac support for this device. This is why I had to buy the i5 instead of the i3. Having North America pre-loaded however might be worth the extra $100 bucks for some. Garmin also offers a "POI" (points-of-interest) loader software FREE, again, only for Windows users. This nifty feature enables you to load user defined proximity notifications for all kinds of different variables. Approaching a school speed zone? Once programmed, the unit will warn you to reduce your speed. Bluetooth support would have been nice too, since other new (but much larger) units have it. If you have a Bluetooth cell phone and a Bluetooth GPS, the cell can inform the GPS of delays, accidents, road closures etc. in real time. This is of course with a subscription. The unit does have a USB port and maybe Garmin might want to think about writing in support for the use of a USB Bluetooth adapter in future firmware updates (pretty please). Garmin does not include a carrying case for the unit, which it should have. You will not want to leave this in full view when away from your vehicle, it will most certainly be stolen and the kid who stole it will use it on their BMX, since it's so small. This unit uses NAVTEQ map data, (North America pre-loaded) which is known industry-wide as the benchmark for map database into. The i5 rules.