Garmin Nuvi 255WT - European Mapping, Widescreen, Built-in Traffic - Electronics / Photography (Garmin)

The Nüvi 255WT from Garmin is your personal travel assistant for life on the go. The Nüvi 255WT leads the way with a large 4.3? wide screen and a full set of maps for 33 different European countries, getting you to your destination on time and safely. The Nüvi 255WT comes preloaded with a host of points of interest, allowing you to travel in the best of conditions and stop off during your journey for a spot of sightseeing. You?ll be able to plan trips to landmarks and attractions easily before you set off, and, at your leisure, look up the contact details for your vehicle rescue service and directions to the closest hospital, police or petrol station. Its longlife battery lasts nearly 4 hours before you have to recharge it through your cigar lighter port, meaning you'll never be left in the lurch if you get lost. The Nuvi 255 WT?s other built-in travel tools include a JPEG picture viewer, a world travel clock with time zones, a currency and measurement converter, a calculator and more. Enhance your travel experience with the Nüvi 255WT from Garmin!

Customer Reviews of Garmin Nuvi 255WT - European Mapping, Widescreen, Built-in Traffic

H. K.
Wirral
28th September 2008

Crash - crash - crash
I recently bought the Garmin Nuvi 255WT from Amazon. When I tried to update the software from the Garmin Website I got the message: "Updater file corrupted." Soon afterwards I found a message on the screen of the SatNav saying: "System Software missing." And I cannot find any link on the Garmin Website where I could download the system software from.

Very disappointed.

To contact Garmin by telephone I was given the number 01794519944 by Amazon, but that has changed to 02380524000, and this has apparently changed to 08082380000. I am looking forward to contacting them - if I can.

H. K.

Johnny B
Austria
26th September 2008

Car navigation
In my eighties now, I have difficulty reading small print on a map. I live in Central Europe and still drive extensively, with my wife.
I bought the Garmin Nuvi 255WT after looking at everything on the market. The Garmin had the brightest, clearest screen. The maps are easy to read and the voiced instructions clear and precise. A wide choice of languages. Programming a destination is child's play, and can be done before leaving the house.
I do not read the maps while driving. I listen to the voice and my wife monitors the LCD display. On a recent trip into a big city I was apprehensive about finding our hotel among the many one-way streets. The Garmin delivered us to the main entrance of the hotel with no problem. As with many modern inventions, I wonder how I ever managed without a machine like the Garmin during my 65 year motoring history.
No bag is supplied, but I bought a close fitting one from HAMA.
We felt the windscreen glass was too far away, and so I mounted the supplied hard plastc disc on to a flat part of the dashboard. The suction foot of the cradle is mounted on that disc. The cradle can be dismounted in one move, for storage elsewhere. When parking I unclip the Garmin from its cradle and carry it in the top pocket of my jacket.
I also leave the glove box open to show that the Garmin is not stored in there. The box contains nothing but paper items and a small tin of boiled sweets !
The machine and its cradle are manufactured to a high standard. Using a USB2 cable plugged into a PC or laptop one can access Garmin's website
for information and help.
Thoroughly recommended as a good buy.

tiborb7

16th September 2008

Highly recommended Sat Nav!
I have to admit this is my only experience of a satnav system but I thought I'd review the product I put my hard earned cash towards as other reviews were very helpful at comparing the overwhelming choice of models.

First off - is the widescreen worth it? Well maybe not for the map itself but I imagine the touchscreen keypad must be very very fiddly on the smaller screen model, so it's probably a big benefit in that respect.

I used this product on a huge journey round Scotland and the UK and the unit performed extremely well, just as comfortable with country lanes in the highlands as big city streets. It takes common sense to use the combination of listening to the vocal instructions, glancing at the map on screen and using everyday road-sense to navigate accurately and safely, but it doesn't take long to get used to the units quirks

One thing that does happen quite frequently is the unit will mis-read a sharp turn in the road for a give-way junction, but you soon learn to ignore these commands.

The traffic update system works pretty well, giving you a good idea of the seriousness of the delay and re-routing you if it thinks necessary. I have to say I've never had to use this feature, so can't comment on its re-routing accuracy. The unit must have it's power cord plugged in to use the traffic feature and does depend on the traffic info output by local radio, so not all traffic queues or holdups will be detected.

Mapping seems to be around 6 months or so out of date but these can be updated via the website. The trial subscription to safety cameras is spot-on for camera locations, and areas where mobile cameras operate. You do however need to subscribe to keep this feature upadted. Some may find the slight blip the unit emits when you go over the speed limit (even by a few mph) in camera areas annoying, but it can be turned off and well, it does encourage you to watch your speed!

Satellite acquisition only takes a few seconds on start-up and all the menu screens are easy to use. Pre-set attractions and locations (eg food, parking, attractions, petrol sations) are a little hit and miss (some major companys eg. Morrisons stores aren't listed) but they're a good basic foundation to start from when searching for something. One detail I particularly like is how the unit automatically zooms in close on the map when navigating through city and town streets, and also displays a red tint when traffic is detected. The anti-glare night display is cool too.

Perhaps the main thing to bear in mind when using any satnav is that you do have to input have an accurate address to get directly to destinations. It's not much use when you only have a vague idea of where you want to go. I sometimes know the general area of a destination, but have to use a regular street atlas to find an address nearby. Zooming out on the map to see an overview of your journey is a little fiddly, but the map is quick to refresh itself. Estimated journey arrival times are often quite a long way out to begin with, but these update once you're on the move / stop / slow down in traffic and are then generally pretty accurate.

To summarise I can't think of too many things this unit doesn't do that are honestly of any use. Bang up to date maps on purchase would be nice. I know there's a fuss about this European model not reading out road names but I'm not sure how much of a help that is - sensible reading of the map screen makes most turnings pretty obvious.

Finally, the protective accessory case is a must have, but if you own a digital camera you shouldn't have to buy the usb adaptor accessory as many camera ones work fine.

P. Davison
London / UK
15th September 2008

Muist have cigerette lighter to recharge
Design Flaw.
My cigarette lighter does not work in my van, and the Garmin will not navigate while charging from any other external power input (goes into computer connect mode). That makes it completely useless for long journeys.

My brother's Tom Tom One works fine allowing navigation while charging from any external power supply (Although it does tend to crash when running under the battery and cannot be restarted until plugged into an external power supply, making it too unreliable for me).

N. Jackson
Kent, England
1st September 2008

Nice after initial problems
Very happy with my Nuvi 255WT now - it gives clear, helpful directions, easy to use even for a novice like me. The traffic service seems spot on (though - as a previous review notes - the journey times are optimistic and so are the delay times). Though the instructions are brief a bit of exploring is showing me how to get the best out of a logical menu structure.

But my initial experience was not good. To register the produce you have to update the software online. In my case, the updating failed, and instead wiped all the software, leaving the unit unusable. (Website does warn of this problem so I'm obviously not the only person to suffer it.) Emailing Garmin's online support produced no response at all. Phoning their telephone support (after the customary call centre delays) did produce a helpful soul, who sent me the software by email. I eventually get this to work but it was very counter-intuitive (and though a satnav newbie I'm quite techie with a PC) and tricky - non-self-extracting .zip files embedded within a Word doc, none of which quite corresponded to the emailed instructions.

Hopefully this updating problem is rare. I wouldn't be put off buying but I'm not looking forward to tackling any future online updates!