so the nuvi 200's and 700's don't have "ding" sound?

This seems to be correct. They do have the ding on custom POIs. If I am not mistaking, I belive my 680 stopped dinging after a recent firmware update. I will have to check it out to confirm.

My nuvi 200 has the latest update and still dings for POI alerts. What ding is missing?

My Nuvi 660 and Street Pilot 2720 have an alert tone that can be turned on "completely". That way, it not only dings to announce POIs, but it dings right before every spoken instruction. Sounds like an airline flight attendant call button.

Shame if that were to go away as sometimes I don't pay attention and used to miss commands, especially with the radio on. The ding really gets my attention and it is LOUD on the 2720!

I don't remember my nuvi 200 ever dinging before voice instructions. I've had it since the initial version.

I don't remember if my ex-nuvi 660 had a ding? Did they have it all?

My 660 and a friend's have the "ding". It is not set to activate out of the box and must be manually turned on.

It's under proximity points -> alerts (change) -> audio (at the bottom) -> continuous - all alerts.

The Nüvi 310 and StreetPilot C510 have an "Attention Tone", that can (thankfully) be turned OFF! I seem to recall, it gave some annoying bong or other, before every voice instruction...

Makes me feel like I am in an airplane...lol

However, I do keep it on because sometimes I can hear that but not the voice alerts (esp. when radio is on) and I then turn down the radio or whatever else is causing me not to hear the directions.

Yes - it could explain why I keep ignoring the instructions. I thought it was just because I had a female voice selected

I'm a new nüvi 250W owner, and am trying to sort all this stuff out myself. But on a test run of a Custom POI speed alert, I did indeed get a soft "ding" every second my speed was over the threshhold that I had set for an alert.

I was hoping an associated mp3 file would also play. But alas, it looks like the 250W can't play Custom POI mp3's.

We nüvi 250W owners have to hunt, scour and experiment for info on our units. There is no detailed owner's manual available, and the tech support staff's knowledge of the 250W is variable. They've all been kind and helpful to me. That's not the issue. Rather, it seems to be that they themselves don't have a definitive 250W knowledge base that they can reference. Perhaps that will come with time.

Another reason forums like this one are so important.

Rich

Garmin nüvi 250W | Garmin eTrex Yellow | TomTom GO 910

Here's the 16 page user's guide.

http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/1512_SetupandGo!.pdf

The Setup and Go booklet comes with the nuvi 2xx. As the title says, it'll get you up and going, but won't help you if you want to get the most out of the unit.

Thankfully, the people here are very helpful in filling in the missing info.