295w questions for newbie

Greetings,

I'm awaiting delivery of the one I just ordered so can't offer any usage details for you yet. I also look forward to answers to some of your questions.

I can say that Garmin GPS units now come only with the Quickstart Manual. For more details, view or download the full Owners Manual to learn more about your new GPS. For the 295w, it cab be found here:

http://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/nuvi295W_OwnersManual.pdf

I'm do to receive mine on the 25th along with a 2gb MicroSD card. And I do appreciate you letting me know what you find out if you get yours first lol. I have went through the manual online already a couple days ago to get more acquainted with it. Ok as I was typing this I rechecked the garmin voices thing and it appears that the only units that they don't work with is the nüvi 300 series or nüvi 600 series.
(source)http://www8.garmin.com/vehicles/voice.html?vName=DrNightmare
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It honestly kind of boggles my mind that I don't see more people buying this unit and raving about it on youtube very much since it has so many bells and whistles added onto their expected GPS. When I first seen this on wal-mart.com the other day for $79 along with all the extra features after searching for the right one, I COULDN'T RESIST IT!.. So now that I've found out about them voices the other stuff should be simply figured out with trial. I just wonder if the sound alerts (top right corner of this page) will work on this model? Since I'm not sure if you need a special model to be able to get alerts to such things. It would be awesome if it did. Because the main one I would put on the GPS is the near by police stations to act as kind of a radar detector letting me know there is even a HIGHER risk of police allowing me to check out my speedometer. But I wont get my hopes up since I can't expect much for $79 which is now out of stock. Guess they went quick. But thanks again.

Welcome. I have the 295W, and it is a nice little unit. I've loaded it with regular POIs from this site, but not the red light camera file, so I can't tell you how well proximity alerts work on it. I do know it is designed to handle them because there is a setting menu to configure the audio for these alerts, just like on my 350 and 1490T (on which I do lead the red light camera file). It loads supplementary map files fine, just like all other Garmins. I have not tried loading custom voices on it (since the built-in Jill and Karen are my favorites). As a GPSr I use it primarily for walking and geocaching, and as an emergency automotive unit. The speaker volume is awfully low. The web browser behaves more like a typical smartphone browser, so don't expect it to render full web pages. But for less than $80, you're also getting a camera, music player, and on WiFi a web browser, email client, weather.

I'd buy it if it had a larger screen -- ideally at least 5". As much as I want a GPS with wi-fi, the 3.5" screen severely reduces the wi-fi utility. Maybe if my eyes were 30 years younger...

...adding, of course since they're almost having to pay people to take this unit the geniuses at Garmin will conclude that people don't want the wi-fi features, not that the 3.5" form factor is all wrong for the feature set.

I would like to hear from an owner if they have used it for email.

Well that is cool to hear that it supports audible alerts, I may even be interested in trying to try the red light camera alerts though I'm not sure how to go about putting the necessary file on the garmin since I imagine the garmin doesn't come with a list of red light camera's allowing me to only put an audible alert to it. Yeah I haven't decided whether I want to go with Dr. Nighmare yet or not, I like the sound of it and the garage cars to go with it but with them extra voices it appears that I would lose TTS on the street names. Speaking of the audio level on the 295w I have read other places like you were saying that the audio is VERY low. have you tried this fix for it already?
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/9702
I was thinking about trying it when I got mine, and keeping the number at or right below 85 as per the instructions. Can't say I'm rich enough to own a smartphone along with the service lol which is why I was instantly taken by this unit do to it having both wi-fi capabilities and a camera. I think I've heard that I can forget about watching youtube videos but honestly that isn't going to be my prerogative when it comes to wi-fi. I've been on the road before 1000's of miles from home with no internet access available and I see a nasty storm coming along and pull over til it passes. This way I will more than likely be able to find a hot spot go in and check the radar as I hope.

Yeah that is true. Everyone seems to be interested in the bigger screens. This will only be my second unit that I have owned with the first being a nuvi 1200 with the same size screen so I imagine I will adapt to it fairly easy. And unfortunately you are right with them being practically put on clearance and marked off as a loss do to them thinking that no one finds it useful to have them extra features since they have smartphones out now, and not taking into consideration of the screen size. I just hope they continue making these types of units with the extra features like this because I don't want to have to buy an expensive smartphone and have a huge monthly bill on top of that just to be able to use things such as GPS and wi-fi.

As you already know I don't have the unit but I know this much so far. It won't work with yahoo mail since you need to have a paid subscription to their premium mail services to get POP services. It should work on your ISP's service as well as Gmail and a few others that allow POP services. Would be nice if Yahoo wasn't so greedy when they make money from everything else they do you would think they could follow googles lead. But thankfully I have a Gmail account and had one before they started requiring a cell phone for sign up. If anyone needs a Gmail account let me know, it allows me to refer up to 50 people so they don't need to have a cell to sign up. Just send me your email address that I can send the referral too.

Sally and I each have one of the 295W's and we have a third to lend to guests when they visit. We use them for email all the time, especially when traveling. I'm retired and also use the web browser to access my banking accounts and even transfer money with it.

Very easy to set up and use. For the hotmail and gmail accounts all I had to do was enter the email address and the password and I was done. I have mine set up to check my Comcast, hotmail and gmail email accounts and can send email from any of the three.

Also some one asked about red light and speed camera audible warning and yes they work fine on ours.

Glad to hear other 295W users have found this resource and kudos to the website owners.
I have the 2.5 plug>3.5 jack stereo adapter from RS (expensive and it better be worth it)
Along with the nüvi, I have a Dane-elec 8gB microSD chip from Walmart on its way.
I am shopping for a pair of those cheap speakers you see for mp3 players, etc. In my CB days, the best investments I ever made were better mics and speakers. (and antennas if you really knew your stuff)
This little unit may be crippled only by the tiny speaker. It may have the wattage to easily drive a real speaker. I may also look into FM Xmitters. Maybe.
I have read the manual in its entirety and searched the intertubes. Garmin support are nice people so far.
No GPS is perfect in any facet, but I think that we can polish this one up with a little cash and lots of mental elbow grease. Too bad the GSM and BT chipset is missing/disabled.

Cheers,
David

Glad to hear the red light and speed camera audible warnings work on this unit. As well of how simply easy it is to set it up for Gmail. Can't wait til mine gets here.

Will set it up and play with it in the day.

Has anyone tried to re-set the volume using Turboccc voice editor?That is one of the main things that has held me back from getting one so far.Seems to be the main feedback on the unit about low volume.Was also told doesn't have a pinch screen but I guess you can use the t and - to adjust the text?

There is a way to allow overvoltage in the menu according to the actual manual. Page 56.
SETTINGS>AUDIO>SOUND>AUDIO BOOST

I have heard of success in other Garmins with said editor.

Now what I'd like to know is can we stop using the Webkit based browser and use one of Opera's incredible browsers for Linux?

would also like to know this.

The way I understand it, gmail recommends using IMAP. See here:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75...

I setup gmail on my 295W using this information:

Enable IMAP in gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77695

Settings I used in 295W: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78799

Note: the port numbers automatically setup but you have to select using SSL in the 295W.

I have 2 gmail accounts on my295.
the set up I have is:
User Name: xxxx@gmail.com
Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
Mail Port: 993
Encryption: SSL
Mail Protocol: IMAP
Check Interval: 15 Minuits

I have no trouble receiving and sending email

Good Luck

It was easier than I thought. The 295 set up the config all by itself. I set up the gmail & my normal account. I later deleted the normal one because all the crap I get sent.