New Garmin 255W Help

If you go to this link: http://www8.garmin.com/aboutGarmin/
and look under Support you will see a drop down menu. you will find a tab for to Register. You will also find a tab: Manuals, look for your model 255W and that should give a you lot of information that you are looking for. If your daughter is like mine they will pick it up faster than I did.

941-441-2822

If you don't have one, and I doubt you got one with it, you will need one update the software and maps.

working should be you turning it on and walking outside and seeing if it connects to satellites. It should have enough charge to do that. You could plug the power cord into your car 12v and see if it will connect to satellites.

http://www8.garmin.com/products/webupdater/howtoinstall.jsp

You will, of course, need a USB cable.

NOP

Is it a good idea to update the installed software? On many devices (non GPS), it's often not a good idea to update the original software as many times new "features" are a step in the wrong direction and you can't restore to your original condition. Is this the case with Garmin or can you generally trust them to actually provide improvements?

Well, it may not be a good idea all the time and there have been many instances where updating firmware has broken things and removed features from units in the process. Garmin forces an update on your unit anyways when you register it and when you install a map update on it.

That is unless you use work-arounds (I've written one up here somewhere) to avoid the forced update. For most users, it's just too much trouble though and it may just be easier to "go with the flow" rather than swimming against the current.

That can sometimes be the case with a GPS as well. There have been several topics here discussing the pros and cons of doing an upgrade to a particular model or series.

Its best to ask here first or do a search on the new version number to see if there have been any posts.

Thanks for the insight.

You'll want to run a firmware and software update if you have a usb cable (if you have a blackberry you can use the same cable). Also, update to the latest map as it allows a free update within the first 60 days. You could update some of her favorite POI as well.