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| Garmin nüvi 360 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Text-To-Speech | 
 enlarge | Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: $279.99
Buy New: $174.99
You Save: $105.00 (38%)
New (34) Used (12) Refurbished (9)
Avg. Customer Rating:  1122 reviews
Sales Rank: 19
Color: Li-Io
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 320x240
Display Size: 3.5
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 3.9 x 0.9 x 2.9
Array:
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
Warranty: Garmin nüvi products purchased through Troy Ford will receive a full 3-Year Warranty. This is a FULL 2-Years longer than the warranty a consumer would receive, if a similar product was purchased through a consumer retailer.
MPN: 010-00538-00
Model: 010-00538-00
UPC: 753759058845
EAN: 0053759058846
ASIN: B000EXS1BS
Release Date: October 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Almost perfect.. September 12, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I held off on a GPS for a long time because of the constant slide in prices and increase in features. Finally I could not pass up this 360 model when I saw it with its pricing. It has been everything I dreamed of, and more! Reasonably priced. Easy to navigate touch-screen. Small and portable to move between cars (a 2nd windshield mount would be best, but I suffer bravely). A great looking screen, which is very clear and doesn't smudge from fnger-prints. This nuvi allows you to zoom or pull back the map view, and automatically does this depending on your speed (higher level view at higher speeds). It also has your next turn on a banner across the top and counts down the distance. It gives estimated time of arrival in a corner so you know if you are running on schedule. Average speed, and current direction are on there too and you can change various views and displays.
There are many options/settings, like choosing if you are in a car, or walking, if you want it to use u-turns to redirect you or dirt roads, etc.. I was in a rural area of ND driving around some farm country and it had everything on its map.
I could hardly believe all the info packed in with the locations. Nearby parking lots, restaurants, hospitals, etc.. -With phone numbers! And if linked to your phone with Bluetooth, just hit the button on the screen to dial.
The battery lasts a long time, compared to many other electronics I have. You also have the option of having the screen dim during time between instructions to save on the battery life.
The voices are really well done, and while I loved the British Emily at first, I now spend all my time with Jill. The female voices are easier for me to hear, and with other noises and distractions, I found it easier to have an American accent for me to catch the directions over the radio and other voices in the car.
The Bluetooth works great! I have a blackberry (a couple years old)and the addresses loaded with no trouble once I changed a Bluetooth option on the BB device to show the synced nuvi as 'trusted'.
The idea mentioned earlier of connecting to the stereo aux port is appealing, but I have not had the determination for that. I did get a 2gig card, and started to load some songs. Then it dawned on me that converting my iTunes-purchased songs to mp3, does not remove the copy protection which prevents transfer to another device. I know Apple is slowly changing that with their iTunes plus. Not Garmin's fault, and not why I bought the nuvi anyway.
Subscribing to the silent FM signal (broadcast by clearchannel in many areas) with live traffic updates to the nuvi was not worth it for me, plus I don't need an antenna strung up in my car. A cool idea though, and I would have bit if I was in a free-service area.
My few and very minor grievances were that photos were slow, the GPS twice got confused by frontage roads parallel to a main road, and twice had to be reset after I started driving before it had its satellite bearings. Until recently my biggest complaint was that I didn't get enough opportunity to go places I was not familiar with. If someone blurted the whereabouts of an unknown location I was travelling to, I berated them to tears, or wanted to anyway. GPS joy thieves is what they are.
Anyhoo, the missing star. I live in the Twin Cities, and the 35w bridge over the Mississippi went down. I don't use it regularly, so it was over a month before I connected my nuvi to my PC thinking I would update my maps hoping Garmin had made the change. As another reviewer noted, you cannot tell the device to avoid or prefer a route. I also have a trip coming up and wanted the latest entries to use this in my rental car. Turns out the mapping software is now updated to the 2008 version, and I am fresh out of luck on updating my 2007 mapping software I got less than 6-months earlier. The update is 80 bucks and they want to ship me cd-rom via a tortoise or something. Ah well, nothing is perfect.
Mostly great September 11, 2007
Only complain is that sometimes it takes too long to capture the coordinates when you are starting it up. Otherwise it has been a great way to find my way around both at home or when traveling.
 great product September 11, 2007
I really enjoy my Garmin Nuvi 360. Just came back from South Carolina and it made the trip so much easier. Try it, you'll like it.
Excellent, small, portable GPS; updates too expensive September 10, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've had this Nuvi 360 since Dec, 2006. It really works well. I carried it with me to DC. Even on foot it was terrific. It knew where all the restaurants and points of interest were and faithfully navigated us around the ancient horse paths of the Virginia/DC area. Believe me, when you pop out of an underground Metro station in the middle of the night and have no idea where you are or which direction to head off in, the ol' Garmin was there.
It's so small it easily fits in a pocket. The built-in battery lasts reasonably long. In the car, the 12-Volt adapter allows the unit to stay on indefinitely. You can select which accent and which gender you want the voice prompts to speak. Australian "Bruce," American "Jill" and a host of other combinations. All very fun. The voice prompts are the best. You really don't need to look at the thing while driving because it's uncanny in telling you what to do when you need to do it. It is amazingly accurate: something like 20 feet. It takes you right to the destination driveway.
It acquires the sats quickly and doesn't get flustered if you violate its recommendation and go in a different route. It just says, "recalculating" and finds another route for you. None of this "make a U-turn, bonehead!" It gives you enough time to make the turns, too. Also, it displays how far it is until the next turn. Very nice. No need to worry if you've missed it.
If you are planning on going to Europe, buy the unit that comes preloaded with both US and Europe maps as purchasing the Europe maps after the fact will really jump the cost unnecessarily.
I haven't used the Bluetooth capability yet but might later...after I get a Bluetooth phone.
The display is quite viewable in daylight and very bright at night, though it can be set to auto-dim at sundown so it's not too bright at night. You can touch the screen and scroll the map under your finger much like Google Maps can, to preview your route if desired. It shows coordinates and you can save them as destinations if desired, even if the location doesn't have an official street address. It is an MP3 player and can display photos and play Audible books on tape. When you are using the MP3 or Audible features, it pauses the file playing back to announce directions, then returns to the file without losing any of the MP3 file or book info. Very nice.
At extra cost, it has the ability to add foreign language dictionaries which can verbally speak phrases and words to you. You can also add Travel Guides and other software via the SD chip slot.
Overall, I'm very pleased with this device. It's accurate, fast, functional and small.
The one thing that doesn't work is the windshield suction mount. It broke before I even used it once. The plastic loops on the suction cup that receive the ball arm's hinge pin are too thin and fragile and broke with just a little normal hinge adjustment.
I recommend the model 010-10908-00 friction mount that looks like a bean bag with a ball arm sticking up. I made something similar by taking an unneeded 1/4" thick mousepad and epoxying a couple of small 1" x 1" angle brackets to the pad to hold the ball arm that I salvaged from the broken suction cup mount.
A friction mount is interchangeable with multiple vehicles, doesn't slide around on the dash and allows complete and rapid removal and/or hiding to avoid theft. Plus, you don't have to glue a disk to the dash for the suction cup to attach to.
UPDATE 10-22-07:
The 360 works well enough; better than most. It should: Five point three bills should deliver one heck of a map!
I've had it since Dec 2006...less than one year. Today I get an offer from Garmin to update my North American map software for a mere point seven bills. That's AFTER the five point three bills I already sunk into this little electronic gizmo.
I heard Garmin has a one year free map update policy, but their website won't let me do it. Not cool. The cost of the unit has already fallen significantly from what I originally paid and now they want more to get it current, within a year of purchase. Not cool at all. Also, impossible to contact by email. Garmin website is in a permanent loop back to itself when clicking on the "contact by email" option. Otherwise, it's call and wait on hold between certain times. Not cool again.
Then a friend says how well his Verizon GPS works on his wireless phone. I look into that. Verizon offers a full time GPS cost and a single use option for under three bucks per use.
For what I have wasted on this Garmin--over five bills and counting upward forever with their unfriendly updates--that's a whole heck of a lot of one-time Verizon uses with what will be the most updated, most accurate database. After all, no one's going to beat the phone company with accurate phone numbers and addresses.
If I hadn't already bought into the Garmin ripoff, I'd definitely go with Verizon's phone based GPS: the phone will always be with you when you need it instead of in the glove compartment in the other car.
And it most likely won't get stolen. It's a darned pain to have to put the Garmin away after each use so some cretin won't bash in a window to steal a very, very expensive toy that could just as easily fit inside a phone.
Go with the phone.
Garmin Nuvi 360 September 10, 2007
Love the GPS. It works even when I'm sitting in my living room. Only thing I'm disappointed with number (lack) of Points of Interest. I wish also that there was a way to edit the installed maps but I guess you can't have everything in life.
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