A fusion of in-car and handheld navigation (and more)

GPS navigation systems have undergone a revolution in the last few years. Once expensive and bulky, new models have become increasingly smaller and more affordable. They're a popular option in cars, while small handheld units are increasingly common in the rucksacks of travelers, whether exploring the backcountry or strolling city streets.

Garmin's nüvi 350 fuses a plug-and-play car navigation system with a portable navigation system into a device that's equally at home on the dashboard of your car or in your pocket. And to make it more appealing to travelers who enjoy the digital lifestyle, they've added some other cool features as well. To put the nüvi to a real world test I took it along on our family's spring break ski trip to Colorado.

Garmin's nüvi 350 combines the best of in-car and handheld navigation — with some cool added features as well.

About the nüvi 350

Here at the Crutchfield offices, everyone's first impression of the nuvi was, "Wow, it's small!" And it is — the nüvi is about the size of a deck of poker cards, with a bright 3.5" LCD touchscreen dominating the front side. With the exception of a power button on the top, virtually all the nüvi's functions are controlled from the touchscreen. The back side houses an internal speaker, power jack, and the fold-out antenna, while a headphone jack, mini-USB connection, and an SD card slot occupy the right side. The nüvi's internal Lithium-Ion battery will power it for 4 to 8 hours (5 hours seemed to be the average for me), or you can operate and charge it by using the included mini-USB to USB cable, AC adapter, or 12-volt DC plug.

Using the nüvi is easy. The touch screen interface is so logical and intuitive I was happily enjoying many of its features within a few minutes of opening the box. When you consider all that it can do, it's one of the most user-friendly pieces of electronics I've ever encountered. If I wanted to dig a little deeper into a particular feature, the included manual and quick-start guide was complete, clear, and easy to follow.

In the car with the nüvi

The first leg of our trip was a simple shakedown cruise through the Virginia countryside to Dulles International Airport, near Washington, D.C. I attached the nüvi to our car's windshield with the included suction cup mounting bracket, then plugged into the 12-volt power outlet. It was up and running in a jiffy, so we entered our destination and hit the road.

The included suction cup mount puts the nüvi to work in your car

Navigation with the nüvi is straight-forward. You can choose your destination and have the nüvi provide turn-by-turn directions, or it can display your real-time position on a map and allow you to make the driving decisions.

If you choose to enter a destination, you start by pressing "Menu" on the touchscreen and then "Where To?" Simple and logical. From there, you have a choice as to how you select your destination. You can choose from the device's preset categories (such as Fuel, Shopping, etc.), enter an address, spell the destination name, or browse the map. Destinations can be chosen that are near your present location or you can select different cities to search for destinations. However you choose to use it, the interface is intuitive and easy to use, and it boasts information, a level of detail, and map features that are the equal of any other in-car navigation system I've used. Once you've chosen your destination, it can be saved into the nuvi's memory for future trips. If you forget to, don't worry ? the nüvi saves the 50 most recent destinations for you automatically.

The nüvi guided us to the airport without a hitch (if only it could help get us through security as well). It provided ample warning of upcoming turns with voice prompts and clear, close-up map graphics. The screen was easily readable, with excellent brightness and contrast, despite it's relatively small size. A nice feature of the device is a "nighttime" screen setting that eliminates distracting screen glare at night by giving the map a black background. Best of all, the nüvi can be set to change to and from the "nighttime" mode automatically at sunset and sunrise.

Some extra travel features

You can load music into the nüvi with the mini-USB connection, or just use the SD card slot

The extra features of the nüvi made it a great travel companion during my time on the plane. The device has a built-in MP3 player, so there was no need to carry a separate audio player. The nüvi has up to 700 MB of internal storage available for MP3s, pictures and supplemental maps — it won't take the place of a dedicated digital portable, but it can hold a pretty fair amount. I plugged in my headphones and listened to music and podcasts while we flew west. If you dig audio books, the nüvi will also play audio books downloaded from Audible.com (Audible.com fees required).

Adding music files to the nüvi is a snap. You can plug it into your PC or Mac with the supplied mini-USB-to-USB cable, where it's recognized as an external drive. Then just drag your MP3 files into the proper directory. One important note ? the nüvi doesn't support Apple's iTunes AAC files, so make sure you convert any iTunes files to MP3 before attempting to import them. As mentioned earlier, the nüvi has an SD card slot on the side, so you can keep your music files on SD cards if you wish, and insert a card when you want to listen to music.

One small criticism of the nüvi's capabilities as a music player, or rather, a suggestion for improvement. A built-in RF modulator would be a welcome addition, particularly if you like listening to audio books during your daily drive. While the nüvi does have built-in speakers, it would be preferable to be able to listen to audio files over your car stereo when you're driving.

To pass the time while flying, I checked out a few of the other travel features. If you're planning some international travel you'll appreciate the nüvi's built-in currency and measurement converter, and world clock. There's also an optional Garmin Language Guide that provides five bilingual dictionaries (a trial version is loaded, the full version can be purchased at the Garmin website), and the Garmin Travel Guide (also an optional purchase) with info on places such as restaurants, hotels and attractions — a nice feature if you're tired of lugging around paperback travel guides when you're traveling.

Exploring new ground

Once we were on the ground in Denver it was time to put the nüvi back to work as an in-car navigation tool. In seconds, the nuvi was attached to the windshield of our rental car, plugged in, and locked in to the satellites. We were staying with friends near our ski area, so I entered their address and started on our way.

In-car navigation really pays for itself when you're traveling in unfamiliar territory. The nüvi's extensive internal database contains millions of points of interest ? gas stations, hotels, shopping, restaurants, and so on. When it was time for lunch, we were able to tap into the database and avoid the usual run of fast food joints — quickly finding an appealing place along the way to sit, munch down, and soak up some coffee before we headed further into the mountains.

Using the nüvi is a breeze, thanks to the touchscreen and a well-designed interface

While the standard features of the nüvi were impressive enough there are some neat optional features available. The nüvi's points of interest database can be modified by adding custom points of interest, available from various companies on the internet. POI Loader software is available on Garmin's website to help with this.

If you commute regularly in a major metro area, Garmin's optional FM TMC Traffic Reciever allows the nuvi to receive and use traffic info broadcast over the FM Radio Data System (RDS). With this feature, the nüvi will automatically reroute you around traffic accidents and bottlenecks. The TMC sells for $214, with 15 months of service included. After that a subscription costs $60 a year.

The picture viewer

We enjoy digital photography when we're on vacation, and the nüvi was an excellent vacation adjunct to our digital camera. The Nuvi supports JPEG files with it's picture viewer, so it was a simple matter to load pictures of our days on the slopes into the nüvi. If your camera uses an SD card, just slip it into the SD card slot or make the transfer with the mini-USB cable connection (you'll need a computer for this). Set the nüvi to it's slide show function and you can pass your photos around while you relax by the fire after a long day on the slopes. The 3.5" screen made it ideal for sharing our pics with friends and family without having to squint at the camera's tiny screen or have everyone cluster around a computer.

True portability

As our trip drew to a close, we spent a day exploring Denver, where the nüvi was a more than capable guide. It was a handy resource while we explored Denver's 16th street pedestrian mall — able to get us on the right track when we needed it, and small enough to slip into a jacket pocket when we weren't using it. The points of interest database quite complete — whatever we looked for, be it shopping, food, or even an ATM, we had no trouble checking out our available options. Satellite reception was excellent, even in an urban setting. It was so useful that I can't wait to take it with me next time I'm exploring the concrete canyons of New York City. After shopping and dining it was on to the airport and the long flight home. Even then, the nüvi continued to make itself useful, as I listened to music and scanned our vacation pictures as we traveled.

Capable, portable, easy-to-use — the Nüvi is a real winner

The nüvi combines features, size, and ease of use into a device that became a seamless and valuable part of our vacation experience. It's an excellent navigator for the car or on foot, with an easy-to-use interface and a database chock full of useful information. It's small and portable enough to stow easily in your bag and mounts easily into your car or a rental when you're driving. When you're on a plane, train, or just killing time the MP3 player eliminates having to carry an extra music player. If you travel frequently you'll want to take a close look at the nüvi 350.