Philip Robert

Last week I wrote about my brother’s website Proximity Cast During my visit he figured out that he would bribe me to help him out with his project. He offered to buy me a Garmin Nuvi 350. This way it would be easier to upload photographs to his site according to the site requirements. Each photo uploaded to Proximity Cast has to have the geographical coordinates visible on the photograph. This makes it possible for users of Proximity Cast to locate a place of interest, load the coordinates into their gps, and travel easily to the location. Works like a charm.

I agreed to help him out, and as promised he ordered the Garmin for me. It arrived in a huge box. Sometimes I think that they’re in such a rush to get products out that they use the smallest box available that will get the job done. Sometimes that’s a pretty big box.

Inside this big box was the smaller Garmin Nuvi 350 box. The pretty one that’s designed to grab your attention in Best Buy or Target.

This is what was inside that huge shipping box.

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. Inside the box is the Garmin Nuvi 350, a mounting kit, cables, and a small getting started pamphlet.

I’ve enjoyed using the Garmin. Driving cross country I much prefer my maps, and watching the local road signs because the Garmin isn’t the greatest long distance navigator. It will make choices that don’t always make sense which can be frustrating and annoying. What I do like is the trip information screen. This tells me how far I’ve traveled. How far I have left to travel. How long I’ve been traveling. How long I’ve been stopped. My highest speed, and my average speeds. It’s interesting information to me.

Where this little gadget shines is getting around town locally. My car was in bad need of a brake job, I had hoped that it would make it to Hammond where I know a really great auto shop, however when I went flying with my brother’s friend it was clear that the brakes wouldn’t make it to Memphis, let alone Hammond. Dave gave me the coordinates to his friend’s shop and the Garmin took me right to it.

Garmin offers some mapping programs so that you can plan your trip on the computer. I get the idea that somehow I should be able to plan a trip on my computer, upload the information to the Garmin, and have the trip route available in the menu. If the Garmin does this I haven’t been able to figure it out. The most I can get are points of interest (POI’s) uploaded. This makes it easier, I number them and this way I can select each poi as I’m traveling. What would be better is to have routes in the system. For example when I want to travel from Hammond to Bend, Oregon I would be able to plan where to stop each day and select the entire route.