So, What's the Best 5" Screen Nuvi Out There?

Hi alpine1,

Just purchased Nuvi 2450LM a short time ago. I haven't noticed any problem with screen refresh rate or slow processor - at least for me. I like it, especially since upgrading from an older model 765. Enjoy the 5" screen. Have had no problems with routing (got us out of a rural "lost" situation, and got to see some new country roads too.

Bottom line, I like it, especially Lifetime Map Updates (don't care for traffic myself).

But, ultimately, concerning reviews, everyone has their own idea of "slow", so you have to look at the overall reviews - and make a decision.

Hope this helps a little.

Whatever you buy, don't buy a 1450 or 1490!!!
No hard drive space and full of bugs!

Anyone have an opinion about either the NuLink 1690 or 1695?

Leave it to Garmin to squeeze every last cent out of their customers at $5.00 a month for NuLink service. In a time when they should be concerned that they will become irrelevant because of smart phones.

Interestingly, only one year of the NuLink service is included with the purchase of the 1695, down from the two years of service the 1690 offered.

Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/car-gps-navigation/garmin-nulink-169...

The 2460 is said to have 8GB of internal memory.

I love both my Nuvi 260 and 1490LMT. I removed all the extraneous voices, languages, pictures from my 1490 and I keep all my Custom POIs on a SD card. Says I still have 200 Mb of space left on GPS. No problems with speed or refreshing or satellite acquisition unless I don't turn it on and travel a bunch. Takes a few minutes then to acquire a full set of satellites.

No problems from this owner of 4 different Garmin GPSs and 2 Magellans over the past 10 years.

My brother has had a terrible experience with the 1450!

I bought the Nuvi 2450LM at Amazon for $183.
It was the best deal for a 5" with all the features I needed. It doesn't have the mp3 but I can always buy an mp3 player.

I do love the 2450. It is very fast. I have a Nuvi 750 and the 2450 is so much faster.

I am extreamly happy with all the new features and speed of the Nuvi 2450LM.

Garmin is going downhill, I'll stick with 350

I have a 1690 and love the GPS. As far as the NuLink, when my 2 year subscription runs out, I probably won't renew it.

NuLink is a service, which brings a data connection to the portable navigation device. This data is used to provide traffic data, weather forecasts, fuel prices, flight status, and other real-time, location-relevant content, as well as bring Google Local Search for points of interest to the dashboard.

I have found the traffic data useless, the fuel prices are not correct. Every now and then I have used Google for local searching but I rarely use it because of the great POI's on this site.

That may be true if you just enter an address and let the GPS guide you. I create routes in Mapsource and then upload to the unit; a lot of problems which are not present on my other unit (Nuvi 765). I also use or should I say, suffer trying to use the bluetooth feature which is, pardon my French, "CRAP". Plus, why do I have to remove almost all the drive content just to be able to load new maps???
Do you have the full Juction View file loaded or you have the watered down version Garmin had to come up just so owners could download a partial new map?

My map update went OK. I can't load the large Junction View. I had to reboot only once in about 20,000 miles. Load up the Custom POI & you are ready to go. I highly recommend the 1490.

It's ok it does routes and I like the lane assist. I saw a junction view once but it was so short. I lost my 760 which was a good unit.

should be enough to kill this one off...

I have a 1490T. It's been stable. No problems.

In regards to space: Download the lifetime updates to your computer and then put a 2GB micro SD card into the side and load the maps, using Map Manager (Mac - I know there's a similar Garmin app for Windows) to load them directly onto the micro SD card. I have the entire North American set on my 1490T using this method. Works fine.

I've had the 1490T for about 2 years now, and it has pretty much behaved itself. It has just about everything I want: a 5-inch screen, junction view, lane assist, bluetooth, ecoRoute, multi routing and some. What I want to add are: trafficTrends, myTrends, voice-activated navigation, Garmin Locate, 8-Gb internal memory and some. That's when the 2460 comes in. Hmmm...

Not just Garmin. The entire business is going downhill. Almost all smart phones have gps.

I have had no problems at all with my 1490.

Following your prediction I guess camera manufacturers will be next, I can see it now, wedding photography by iPhone.

I have the 1490T. It had it's problems with the ecoRoute feature that caused problems with the bluetooth connection to the phone and disabled the voice prompts. After learning about a fix, everything is now fine. The only thing I wished the 1490T have that the nuvi 660 have is the mp3 feature, but I lived without it. I too am looking for another 5" screen.

Is this more than other models? Why would you need much more than 2GB?

I guess I am biased but I have the 1490LMT and I have never had any problems with it, so I recommend it.

Same here... 1490LMT with no problems to date.

Which of the 5 inch display units has track logs? That's one feature I'd like to have that my 660/680 don't offer. (And the Garmin comparison site doesn't think that's something people are interested in.) Otherwise for me it looks like a decision between the 1490lmt and the 2460lmt.

I've had my Garmin 1490 for a year now, and I love it! If you want to spend a lot more money on the thinner models, go ahead, but the 1490 LMT is the best bang for the buck.

2GB is not enough to install new North America maps and the full Junction View file. Garmin has cheated and came up with a watered down JCV file just for us 1450-90 owners.
My 765 which is an older unit has 4GB of memory!

I am surprised that the 1450 touch screen is so terrible. Half the time I try to move location it does not move or goes the wrong way.. But as far as goin to a location that works great. It could stand a better processor. My problem is I compare it to the prius navigator gps which of course costs more??

Gotta say that I think my 2460 is the greatest thing since the heated toilet seat!! It's really several steps up from my 780, which I thought was all I would ever need.

Larry

My 2450 is the same as the 2460 but with only 4g instead of the 8g of the 2460 and no bluetooth and no traffic.

If you want the to items the 2460 would be for you, but if you have no need for the bluetooth and traffic then the 2450 is great. Mine has track logs. I also think this unit is very great.

I have had my 2450LM for about six months and believe it or not I have not had one single issue with it...No traffic, blue tooth or mp3 player and don't care. Traffic in my opinion is a joke, have a radio and CD player in the car and use a blue tooth ear piece which I personally prefer....All said and done I really like it....

I'm surprised at the number of complains about the 1490! I've had mine for about 2 years now and I love it.

Yeah, it might be memory limited(2Gb), but if you go in and remove all the junk files(languages, keyboards, goofy vehicles, etc) there's plenty of room. I just loaded the newest maps & Junction Views (three times larger file size than before), and I still have over 300 Mb of space left.

For the price, you get a pretty big bang for the buck /IMHO
(you can find them new/refurbed for well under $200 now)

Get's me where I want to go with minimum hassles, and she's been a great travel companion for well over 100K miles ☺

Just finished a 5 week tour of the country and was very pleased with the 2460. I can't say I was impressed with the trafic but paid the extra for voice control not trafic. The voice command was far from perfect put good enough to be very helpful and when it made mistakes the humor value nicely offset the mistakes.

I was originally planning on a 3790 for the better touch screen but the 2460 was so much improved over my old TomTom I had no problems using it.

Jim...

Or at least there was not enough negative things said about the 2450 LM, to make me stay away.

Just got it today, and I am loading it down with the updated map (map up dater lied about the map being current) and current POIs.

So far it looks pretty good. Garmin Communicator doesn't get along with 64 bit Windows 7 Firefox (or for that matter the 64 bit Explorer). Downloading the map started off well at 600 kbps, but the server soon throttled that back to the usual 15 kbps. Good thing I had other things to do for that 2.5 hour download.

Now we find out if I remember how to load those relevant POI files.

Thanks for the responses!

While I certainly don't know if the Garmin Nuvi 1695 is the best 5" screen Nuvi out there, at $210 with free shipping that would have been a good price, but it looks like it is $300 now! (I guess I am starting to realize that Amazon prices can bounce around a bit. I guess the moral of the story is if it is on Amazon, you want it, and it has a good price, buy while you can or it might be gone!)

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=141706

Having recently gotten an iPhone, and having loaded the Gas Buddy app (free), I have to say Gas Buddy is very accurate and very easy to use. Even in unfamiliar territory.

I have several Garmin GPSs. And this latest one (the 2450 LM) has a 1' USB cord. And they changed the plug on the end.

Come-on Garmin why so cheap? I mean really how much do you save going from a 5' cord to the 1' cord?

Anybody know where to get a 5' cord with the new end?
Because it is not the standard USB mini.
Thanks!

I lay my gps on top of my computer when I update it and the 1' cord is great. Works just fine for me. It does not get tangled up in the drawer with all the other cords.

Amazon has the longer cord.

i dont know about nuvi, but i love my tom tom xxl

Both Garmins of mine came with the short cords also.

My 2460LTM came with a long cord with the large antenna bulge for traffic that is a mini USB and plugs into the clip on mount. It also came with a short micro USB that connects directly to the GPS for doing computer connects and is plenty long enough for that.

Because of my mount points, in both my vehicles, I bought an additional short mini USB because most of the time I don't need or want the traffic updates and a short cord fits fine with no wires hanging. I got one with a 90 degree USB end and plug it into one of the USB chargers that mounts flush in the cig lighter so it doesn't stick out in the way.

I did discover that if I want to use the micro USB in the car I have to use one that is for charging only with no data wire or else it things it is connected to a computer. No real reason to use the micro in the car but when I first got it I wanted to use the short cord.

Jim...

I purchase all of my cables from Monoprice. Unbelievably low prices but excellent quality products. I believe the 2450 uses a micro usb cable. http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id...

Got a chuckle....they do seem to have some negatives now I'm on my 2nd 2350LMT...660 bit the dust after 2 1/2 yrs no more touch screen.

I purchased (my first GPS) a 1450LMT in June & I consider it a work in progress. Sort of like Windows 2.0. Although it can get you out of some sticky situations say in Chicago, it is just as likely get you off route. Ask it to get you into Manhattan from 50 mi. out and the routing is often simply bizarre. As far as I am concerned the "live traffic feature" is completely bogus. Do you really want to be taken off the highways in most urban areas if there is traffic ahead? You will be far better off using Mapquest in traditional manner & the 1450 to keep you company on the road. Why pay for voice activated GPS? Best thing about "Jill" is she won't talk back nor seek revenge when you choose to get colorful!

OTOH: anything less that 5" NAV is obsolete. Using it in 3 different vehicles: 5" gives far more flexibility for non windshield mounting. Accepts custom POI, free topo via MapSource. Would definitely buy a 1450 again; just check Mapquest before you leave!

Cheers!

We also purchased our 1450LMT in June. We have had no problems with it. I did have an issue adding Mapsource routes to the 1450. I had created avoidances for specific roads in Mapsource but found out the avoidances don't carry over.

Now I add plenty of waypoints to my Mapsource routes and everything is fine.

Thanks for the feedback. With the MSN Direct service going away, I need to replace my existing Garmin with something that has decent traffic info and was hoping NuLink would be a suitable replacement.

Got to play with one over the weekend. It looks good -- I like the larger screen. I also like the ability to customize some of the displays. Track log is also good, something I don't have on the 660/680,

The only downsides I see are the lack of an external antenna connection, and using micro-sd cards. Regular SD cards I've got aplenty!

The 1490 has a Track Log. I remember coming across the setting the other day.

I leave mine off but I assume it'll give you the magenta dot-pattern of where you've been like other track logs.

Outside of some missing StreetPilot features (different thread), I like the 1490. No problems other than the ongoing Junction View deal where Garmin is giving users a limited Junction View file. I'd recommend it.

I just picked up a 2460LMT.

For StreetPilot Fans - this is the one that gets you the closest.

Notable items:
- 8GB memory - no playing around with how to get the full Junction View file; you can load the full maps and still have plenty of space left over
- I don't know the differences in the processor between the 1490 and the 2460 but the 2460 is quite a bit snappier.
- proper detours - not just 'Detour' and you wonder what it's doing but Detour and then you get a selection of: .5mi, 1mi, 3mi, 5mi, by Road in Route - this is exactly what you want; you have to enable it - it's dumb by default
- Advanced Avoidance - if there's a busy area like a mall or a beach area you know you want to avoid you can set a rectangle around it and avoid it or if there's a bridge closed or a road that is going through a lot of construction you can avoid a particular road - actually, you're just taking out a segment of a particular road - you touch the start and end points so if you want to avoid something on I95 you're NOT taking out all of I95 up and down the east coast.
- multiple-segment routing. The 1490 had this and to me, it's a great feature. If I'm driving to Disney World and decide to stop for some food up ahead I just want to find it and add it to my route. You can do that with this one.
- auto dimming; This is not documented anywhere but my brightness seems to be affected by ambient light and I'm not the one changing it. To see this I've been tapping the power button at various times and in my car the brightness will be at 100% if it's sunny out and, for example, in my home it'll lower to 60%. This is good. It was a gripe of mine with the 1490.

Things that could use some work or aren't quite like the StreetPilot:
- voice command - I like the voice commands. I -REALLY- wish they'd add a way of searching for places along the current route. Currently you can 'Find by Category' but you can't alter it to 'along route'. This would be so much more useful. If I'm driving on a trip I don't want know what's available within a 10mi radius. I want to know what's available 10mi in front of me. You can get to this via non-voice (button pushing) it'd just be so much easier to add it into the voice command feature.
- voice settings - the StreetPilot let you control various aspects of speech. So you could have POIs alert you with a 'bing' but have voice navigation turned off. I really don't care of the voice navigation but I do like to be alerted if there's a red light camera or something along those lines in front of me. For the 2460LMT you're limited to volume (or mute) and the most granularity you get is that you can split up your phone's volume, via bluetooth, from the voice on the unit. So, for example, you can mute the unit's voice but still use the unit for a bluetooth speakerphone.
- customizable data fields - on the main screen you can have a column of customizable data fields on the right and, for the most part they're fine. They don't have as many options as the StreetPilot did with size (normal, tiny, or wide), you can't double-size them, and the number of items to choose from is somewhat reduced. This is really a minor point as what most folks would really want to see is there and represented fine. If Garmin left this as-is it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Thank you for posting that. For those of us that "cut our teeth" on a StreetPilot, like I did with a second hand Garmin StreetPilot 2730, that is very good to know.

One other thing I thought of that the 2460 is missing that the StreetPilot had is the ability to complete control the display. With the StreetPilot you could tell it:
"I want to see POIs at the 5mi display"
or
"I want to see airports at the 12mi display"
or
"Only show me railroads when I'm looking down from the moon!"

etc.

The 2460 (nor any other nuvis) doesn't have that. basically you get: Less, Normal, or More data.

Not a huge deficiency but I figured it'd be worth noting.

The premium difference between the StreetPilot and the nuvis, in general, is that the StreetPilots seemed to be programed with: Everything should be configurable. The nuvis are programed more with: Let's be careful what we let the user do - they're easily confused.

Still, the 2460 hits the major points and you'd have to be a die-hard StreetPilot configuration fan to really have huge problems with it. Functionally, in every day use, it gets very close to the StreetPilot plus you get some of the neater/newer features from the nüvi line (that aspect is often forgotten in the StreetPilot reminiscing).