How do You like your 265WT

refurbished unit looked and works like new. happy i now have downloaded all of the red light cameras in the area. a lot more than i realized. i'm notorious from zooming thru yellow/red lights.

The feature that was most important to me was the power conector, where the power cable connects to the base, thus when you disconnect the unit from its craddle base, you do not have to unplug the cable!

I struggled getting custom alert wavs to work. The culprit seemed to be the most recent version of sox.exe. I rolled back to the version posted by member Gary A here:
http://rs56.rapidshare.com/files/139638423/sox.zip

and custom alerts work well.

Jake

The only thing I miss with the 265WT,is that it doesn't have Lane Assist. If not for that, I would love it.

As long as you use [*only] SOX version 14.0.1 it will work.

*Note: I ran into a problem using SOX myself because I had two different versions of SOX in my PC (v14.1.0 & 14.0.1), which caused crazy stuff to happen. I deleted both versions and then re-downloaded the correct version 14.0.1 and everything worked great.

I can't compare to other GPS units, as its my first. But I'm really enjoying it:
- Free traffic is great. Small adverts are hardly noticable.
- Nice large screen, clear audio.
- Easy updates online, link to Google Maps.
- Wish via points weren't so locked to an exact spot (i.e. go to X via Y city might take you downtown of Y city).
- Some strange routes through cities instead of around them, but I guess most have that.

I have had mine for about 4 months, and am very pleased with the operation, and the free traffic, and the way it performs. I think you will agree. Good luck!

I bought a refurb on ebay about 6 months ago for 165. No issues with the seller and the unit, but I the traffic feature has not been useful at all for me.

What is the next model level up that will give you lane assist?

newer ones, it would be 1350, 1350T with free traffic

older models, would be the 755T

I know I am late to the conversation, but thought I would chime in anyways.
I bought mine about 3 months ago (new), and I love it. I had a C340 for about a year and wanted to upgrade and get a flat panel. I really like the options it has.

rockne

I just bought one from Best Buy for $180 a couple days sgo, now it shows $192. I must have found a moment of weakness with them.

The mapping part of the 265WT is great except in bad weather. I live here in GA and we have had a LOT of rain lately and when it is really cloudy, I get ZERO signal at times. This is where I would have to give it negative marks. Another place where it gets less than stellar marks is in its Bluetooth capability. I have a motorola phone that it just drops connection with which is very irritating when you are on a call. Oh, and the person I am talking with says I sound like I am talking in a tunnel. I dont know exactly what that means but I know it is not good. Having said all that, the mapping part of the unit works fine.

I just got it a few weeks ago from Costco. I had a few minor problems so far, that the unit would hang, but just touching the menu button relsoved it. The information displayed in the States is better than what you get in Canada. I liked the fact that on highways and major streets the speed limit will show on the screen. Aquiring satellites is very fast as long as you stay in the same area. After moving the unit from Toronto to Las Vegas it took about 2 - 3 minutes to get the new satellites. After that it was fine again. I also found the traffic info very useful and most of the times accurate. So far I like the unit.

I have owned my 265w for almost two years now and more then happy with the features.It is fast acquiring a satellite signal. I have used it on several trips around CA, NV and Az.The volume of the speaker is very good.It comes with lots of new features including Bluetooth and free FM Traffic, which is great.

Great GPS for the price and lots of good features.
- Battery could last longer - when traveling without charger / fm module
- Microphone pickup could be better - sometimes person on other end of phone says it is hard to heard depending on where the gps is located on dash.
- Speaker volume sensitivity could be better. Volume at 8 is soft. 9 is loud. 10 is dissorted. 1-7 is not worth using.
- More of an issue with Garmin. I wish there is a feature that asks "do you want to use toll roads" before routing is selected like TomTom.

cheers.

I don't have 265WT so can't speak from experience but all 3 of the Garmmin's I have all of them offer that choice. Seems weird that the 265WT wouldn't.

Go to Tools, Settings, Navigation and see if you don't have Avoidances. If you do, click on it and it will give you choices of what you wish to avoid, and on my GPS's, Toll Road is one of them.

It is on the 265 also.That is pretty standard for all the units.

I got the same model in the non-wide screen version and am happy with it. Same functionality as 265WT except no QWERTY keyboard. Bluetooth voice quality was poor so I just turned it off. Unit was still eligible for map upgrade when I turned it on (6 days left) so I've now got version 2010.20. I'd recommend refirb 265 regular or wide screen. Not as versatile as my gpsmap 76csx but much better suited to in-car use.

I got mine on Black Friday at Compusa for $149.00
I have been without a GPS unit for a couple of months. It came with free traffic for life. I like how it shows you the speed limit of the road you are on. It changes the speed limit as soon as you make turns. It has EcoRoute that calculates the best route for fuel economy. You can load family pictures and has Bluetooth capability with speaker. It gives you grid coordinates and is easy load POIs and aslo acts as a mass storge device 450-700mb. I think that the only draw backs are that it does not play MP3 and if you assign it a password it will boot up without without the password.

I've had my 265WT for about 9 months and really like it. I will give it the big test in Feb when I head to FL. I have downloaded POI files and they have all worked well.....

Been using my 265T now for a week to get around in an unfamiliar city (Phoenix metro). Very happy with the unit other than sometimes being later in announcing turns than I would prefer.

We have just travelled from Philly to Florida (finished an hour ago). We in this case is my 265WT and Laptop with S&T 2010. Both kept in step with each other; even with the intentional diversions to take in the scenary.

I wish the fuel calculator was smarter (price varies between states if not stations) but thats an add-on feature.

Traffic feature is very useful (especially on I-95) and really did indicate when it was blocked - the whole screen turn to a B&W contrast with the read an yellow bits standing out.

Got mine at Amazon last August and travels around the states with me - godsend. I noticed in Sams Club a wider version out now.

265wt works great and at the current prices, you cannot go wrong with it. Wish Garmin had more voice choices and TTS for the languages other than english.
Lifetime traffic works fairly well and bluetooth is easy to set up.

Garmin has a male and female TTS voice for most major languages. Were you hoping for one that spoke Brooklynese or Bostonian

The 265 comes with the 2010-30 version of maps. If you buy one with an older version, Garmin will allow you to update it FREE once you register the unit. I recently saw the 265WT on sale at Best Buy for $189. This unit is the best gps unit you can buy for the money. I have had mine for a year, I use it every day and have not had any probles. Hopefully this will help you decide.

I have had my 265WT since last Christmas and love it. IMHO, I guess, Garmin made a mistake by putting all the best features in one unit... 265WT (as far as I am concerned). It should have been one of the upper range GPSrs. But hey, it is to our advantage that these companies make mistake!!

So, I will always go for 265WT.

P.S.: Another evidence of 265WT being one of the best models by Garmin is that it has not lost its value over the past year that much as compared to other GPSrs with MSN Direct, etc.

My 2 Cents.

The only BIG thing for me, that I wish the 265WT had, is the advance lane guidance. I really like that and when traveling in major cities and complex freeway systems, it's a MUST, as far as I'm concerned

Brooklynese would be funny especially if it had the brooklyn alphabet.

I was just lamenting that the foreign languages does not include detailed directions such as street names, exit numbers, expressways, etc.

Just drove from Vancouver to Calgary with my recently purchased Garmin (replaces a Magellan) which has many new features, but lacks others. I was able to use the FM traffic feature and like it. Also bluetooth feature worked well now that cellphone use is outlawed. I wish Calgary would get with it and implement this service.

I also liked waypoint feature (not available in Magellan) so I could force the unit to take me on a particular route (rather than the one generated by the software). Magellan allows for "most use of freeways" and "least use of freeways" in addition to shortest and fastest route which I liked. I wonder if Garmin could provide that in one of its updates. I like the Garmin feature that shows the whole route with the press of one button.

Magellan also shows both current street name you are on and next street name; Garmin only gives next street name. Also my Magellan had a much better POI database for RV camping. I will really miss the AAA database which was extensive and provided a lot of additional information on campsites.

Hope this helps!

The 265WT is my wish list to Santa this year.
It looks like the new "sweet spot" in the Garmin range.

lousy job for traffic would direct you half way around the island of Oahu for traffic. Great for mainland metro areas like nyc.

So far I love my 265WT. I've been carrying it around and playing with it as much as you can really. The only thing I've been confused about is the free lifetime traffic. I have found no settings or anything pertaining to the traffic service except maybe the "avoidances" option. Is the traffic service automatic or am I missing it somehow?

You need the GPS to be connected to the car power cord since the receiver is on the cord. On the left hand side of the screen, the traffic service should appear indicating whether there are any traffic delays ahead.
Hope that helps.

Got my Nuvi 265WT for Christmas and so far it has behaved flawlessly. Even the Bluetooth set up went well. I have tried the traffic monitoring and it seems to work OK, a nice green icon on the map screen.
I updated the firmware on the Garmin site and found that I am eligible for a map update that I have to download within the next 60 days. I then used Mapsource to transfer my old favourites into the new unit. I like the bigger display and it seems to start up much faster than my Nuvi 260.

Thank you, I'm quite happy to find that out!

I just got it as the X'mas gift. Just updated the firmware & the map from the Garmin website. Still trying to figure out how to get the redlight & speed camera POI. My brother-in-law has it on his GPS. It works pretty cool.

To be able to download the Redlight and Speed cameras from this site you have to become a active member or pay small fee to get them now.Here is information on becoming active member. http://www.poi-factory.com/node/262

Hi, I just wanted to ad my opinion about the 265wt, Garmin. In a nut shell, I like it very much. It is on all the time that I am driving. Wise decision!
Good Luck with yours!

I just got a 265WT last week because it was the best deal for a garmin with widescreen display, traffic, and spoken street names.

I just bought the 265WT. I did some updating of it and such. It reboots itself a lot but I'm not sure if that is a quirk or it updating still. It connects quickly. I can't wait to get the red light POI's. The voice is very sub standard but understandable. I will try the bluetooth later today.

I picked one up at Costco for $180. So far I am very pleased with the unit. Does anyone have any recommendations on good POI files?

The red light and speed camera POI file is my favorite, as for the others, that sort of depends on where you are located.One thing for sure,if you can't find a POI list of what you want, someone on this site will provide one.Just click the "POIFiles" tab at the top of the page and start browsing.

My original 265W was returned because it would often lock up during giving me directions. I would have to reseet it completely.

With the replacement I can't seem to get the screen calibratino to come up. You are supposed to hold the power button to the left for 30 seconds turning it on. I have held it there for up to 2 min to no avail. After over an hour of searching I found it! All the other sites are WRONG!

http://home.comcast.net/~ghayman3/garmin.gps/page10.htm#cali...

Sadly, I don't have good things to say about the Nuvi265wt. Don't get me wrong, I loved it out of the box and features were great. I used it 4-5 days a week for 12 hours at a time (NYC EMS). After about two months, one day it wouldn't recognize any city names or successfully search for any addresses. I talked the store into exchanging for another.... that one did the same thing after two days (new power cord, different vehicle plug). Again, I found a sympathetic ear and #3 has just quit about a month after and I haven't even been using it since I got hurt. It's literally been sitting in the house, in it's protective bag. Now, it no longer can find satellites or determine my location. Seriously? I'm glad you guys are happy with yours, I used to be too. Perhaps I need to shop in another state.

I have had mine for a year now and it suites my needs well. I move it from vehicle to vehicle between work and home so it's compact design works well for me.

I returned mine for the 765T and am pretty happy with it. The toucpad, FM transmitter strength and bluetooth hands free mic are sub standard. As GPS it's very good.

My 265 had a problem with its software until Garmin issued a fix. Make sure you update it right away.
Other than that, mine works just fine every where I have been so far.

By the way My MSN add on doesn't work on the Big Island of Hawaii. Absolutely zero.
Paid for nothing after we temp moved from South Carolina.
Virgo

I have had mine for about a year,and very pleased with the unit! Get one, I think you will like it also. Good Luck!!