Nuvi 360 paired with Samsung's M520 (Sprint)

Hi all,

Well it was the time to upgrade the cell phone. I decided to stay with Sprint since I have such good service and a nice plan. Now comes the hard work; trying to find a phone that is on both Sprint's list and Garmin's list.

I did have a budget in mind for the phone. I did not want to spend over $50.00. That narrowed down the list to exclude all the PDA's and Blackberry phones, so I did not cross check the compatibility for those.

I narrowed my choices more because of phone features and since I currently own a Samsung A900 and I loved the phone I decided to stay with Samsung.

After searching both websites for details, not one phone I was interested in was on the Garmin list. I even went Samsung's websites to see if phones model numbers were adjusted to fit Sprint's network. Nothing. I noticed Garmin's list for Samsung is predominately unlocked phones and not specific to cell carriers. This would leave me paying full price (upwards of $300) for a phone. Not an option for me.

So off I went to the Sprint Store to find a phone via brute force. I had my Garmin in hand and paired it with every phone I was interested in.

Little background: With my A900 my contacts did not transfer cleanly to the Nuvi. Most of my contacts had several numbers associated with them and only the first (primary) number would display on the Garmin. In addition, ever since going to Garmin's BT update 3.0 the caller ID was displayed as garbage (C$%S#). This time I was prepared to spend some time making sure this would not happen again.

While in the store I created phony contacts to ensure contacts would pass with ease and even made a few calls to and from. There was one phone I could not even get to pair (Sayno Katana). All other phones paired easily and contacts/caller ID worked perfectly.

After some time, I narrowed my selection to the Samsung M520. Caller ID shows up as expected. One better on the caller ID; the phone speaks the caller ID when paired with a BT device. The contacts show up on the Garmin with the name/M and name/W, etc... so every contact is displayed.

So far I am one week in with me new phone and over all I am very satisfied with the M520.