Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Garmin
• Model: 010-N0717-42
• Released on: 2009-07-28

Manufacturer's Description
nüvi 205 comes preloaded with City Navigator® NT map data for the UK and Ireland. Simply touch the colour screen, key in your destination and nüvi takes you there with turn-by-turn spoken directions, 2-D or 3-D mapping and smooth map redraw rates. Digital elevation maps show shaded contours for an understanding of the surrounding terrain. In addition, nüvi 205 accepts custom points of interest such as traffic blackspots and post offices and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. With HotFix™ satellite prediction, Garmin calculates your position faster to get you there quicker.

’Where Am I?’ gives you details about your location in a flash. Simply tap the car icon for your exact latitude and longitude coordinates, nearest address, contact details for your vehicle rescue service and directions to the closest hospital, police or petrol station.

nüvi 205’s advanced Cyclops safety camera database helps you travel with the confidence you are driving safely, responsibly and legally. As you approach one of hundreds of fixed, mobile and temporary safety cameras, variable limit or red light speed cameras across Europe, it gives an audible alert, overspeed warning and speed limit information.

nüvi 205 also comes with Garmin Lock™, an inventive anti-theft protection system that uses GPS to lock to a secure location of your choice.

nüvi 205 comes with photo navigation to revolutionise your sightseeing. Plan trips to landmarks and attractions simply and easily before you set off. Choose and save location-tagged photographs from millions of Google Panoramio pictures in a wish-list of places to visit. Then, at your leisure, select a photo destination on your Garmin for turn-by-turn directions straight to the scene.

Other built-in travel tools include a JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, a currency and measurement converter, calculator and more.

Personalise your nüvi 205 with your choice of background photograph. To customise your screen further, select a new vehicle icon from the Garmin Garage. With a wide range of wheels including off-road vehicles, motorbikes and classic cars, you can now tailor your Garmin to suit your style.

Enhance your travel experience with optional plug-in microSD cards such as Garmin Travel and Language Guides as well as links to third-party content providers including RoadTour and The Good Pub Guide 2008.

nüvi 205 has a sleek, slim design to fit comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot with up to 4 hours’ usage between charges.

View map detail, driving directions, photos and more in bright, brilliant colour. The sunlight-readable 3.5-inch display is easy to view - from any direction.

Nüvi 205: Simple, safe, portable and affordable navigation. This unit is packaged in a white box with all the same accessories and printed materials as the equivalent new unit. Each unit has been quality checked by Garmin and holds a full, standard, 12 month manufacturer's warranty.

Box Contains

Customer Reviews

A very good entry-level satnav
I don't really need a satnav, but wanted one anyway so this cost-saving 'overhauled' item seemed a good idea (and is proving to be). It came in proper original packaging with all the accessories, and although Garmin's website said "this serial number has already been registered", a call to their support line fixed the problem straight away. I'm also glad I got a non-widescreen one, as the display is big enough and easy to carry.

The 205 is very easy to use - just a series of touch-screen menus with handy options for 'Where to?' and "Where am I?" near the top of the tree. It's also very quick at finding satellites and calculating routes, as well as, crucially, recalculating them if you go off course (I missed an exit at a roundabout and it had me back on course within 100 yards). Apparently this speed of operation is a major improvement over the 200 model. The voice instructions (a rather stern-sounding lady) are clearly audible, but you do need to watch the screen as well, since they can sometimes be confusing. On one local route the lady says "turn right then left", which would send you down a dead end. Howewever the display shows clearly that she really means "turn right then stay on that street, following it round to the left".

Because it's quick, it can pivot the 3D maps so they always show your straight-ahead view, so 'turn left' is always shown as left on the screen, even if you very recently took a 90-degree right. This makes it easy to follow the directions, even when making repeated sharp turns in urban traffic systems. If you use the voice instructions as prompts to look at the screen, you won't go far wrong.

The mapping data (latest version) seems pretty accurate. I drove from Bath to south-east London, and on the way back it took me on a very neat, time-saving route through the back-streets of SW1. There's no mention of the London Congestion Charge zone in the documentation, but it is, in fact, there - choose 'toll roads' under 'Avoid' (it doesn't know about weekends being free though, so you have to switch them off again).

The points of interest data isn't so impressive. The three nearest fuel stations it lists from my house all, in fact, stopped selling fuel at least three years ago (10 in one case), while it curiously fails to mention either of Bath's two full-size supermarkets (both at least 15 years old) under 'food'. Given that Bath is one of the most-visited cities in the UK, you'd think they'd try harder to stay up to date.

This is an entry-level model, so it's bound to omit some advanced features. The most noticeable is its inability to save routes. You can save destinations and use them as via points (for example, Bath to Swindon via Chippenham), but you can't save custom routes you've built this way; instead you have to re-create them each time. It does have some nifty average speed/fuel calculation features though, and can display a 'trip log' which shows you exactly where you've driven on the map.

The nuvi 205 does its core job of telling you which turn to take next extremely well, and in a strange town on a dark night it would be absolutely priceless (watch out for your own petrol stations though). My overhauled unit is basically as new, so I'm happy with the saving too.

Excellent for the money
I always wait a while before submitting a review, so I know what I'm talking about. Many people write a review when they received the product yesterday and have hardly unpacked it. I have had mine a good six months and use it every day. Firstly, and most importantly, it works fine. It doesn't sing to you, connect to a bluetooth or have any bells and whistles, but for a good, basic satnav that will get you to where you want to be, you will not be disappointed. I am a domiciliary health worker, and was in danger of driving in to the back of the car in front as, like many of my ilk, I would try and read a map and drive at the same time. Now, I bung in the post code and relax. A little local knowledge will always help - only you know which local streets get snarled at school pickup time, but the satnav will quickly re-route you when you have finished your creative intervention. A fellow further down the list gave this a bad review because "it doesn't give you the distance to destination". It does. This is clearly someone who has just opened the box and not read the instructions. It will give you a load of extra info at the touch of a button, it just doesn't like cluttering the screen with non-essential info. It gives you the information necessary to get you where you want to go. If you want extra stuff, like average speed, max speed, direction of travel etc, it will give it you: just hit a button. The screen is plenty big enough - you don't need a wide screen. My eyes are rubbish, and I can read it just fine. It does a very good job of telling you where speed cameras are, but you still need to use common sense. The road-widening work on the M1 is a rolling feast - you cannot expect your satnav to know the precise details all the time. Use your common sense.

In short, if you want a good, functional satnav, buy this. If you want something to massage your neck or vibrate your seat, buy something costing £300.

Great first sat-nav!
This is a great sat-nav for those who have never had one before and just want something entry-level and cheap (like me). It always finds good satellite signal and gets you where you want to go. The screen is bright, clear and easy to understand. The voice instructions can seem a little blunt and to the point, but it is functional and you can always customise various features or add maps using the memory card slot. The only real problems are problems that you can aim at all sat-nav's in general. The source of any error is likely to come from human input or the mapping not being quite up-to-date (although the maps have been fine for me so far). Also the way small sections of a route are planned, particularly on short journeys can seem a little strange, but often this is down to the coldly logical way a computer thinks, and still works perfectly well, it just provokes a "that's not how I would have done it" reaction from the user. Overall, this is a good, slim, lightweight, and functional entry into the world of satellite navigation and is highly recommended for those reasons. 5 stars!