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| List Price: | $649.99 |
| Price: | $306.00 |
Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days
Ships from and sold by RitzCamera
4 new or used available from $145.00
Average customer review:
Product Description
GARMIN Nuvi 270 Auto Navigation North America/ Europe. Features a sleek, ultra slim design with automatic routing capabilities. With an easy to use touchscreen display, nuvi can route to addresses, restaurants, hotels and more with turn by turn directions and voice guidance. The nuvi 270, nuvi 250 and nuvi 200 GPS navigators offer all of the functions of a premium in dash system at a fraction of the cost. The nuvi 270 comes preloaded with highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps for North America and Europe. The nuvi 250 offers full coverage mapping for the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. For additional cost savings, nuvi 200 is available with coverage of the lower 48 states, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Garmin is able to provide the nuvi 200 at a jaw dropping price by reducing the amount of preloaded mapping. The preloaded map data features nearly six million points of interest, including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, and attractions. The map data is provided by NAVTEQ, a world leader in premium quality mapping.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #820 in Consumer Electronics
- Brand: Garmin
- Model: Nuvi 270
- Platform: Not Machine Specific
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 2.80" h x .80" w x 3.80" l, .32 pounds
- Native resolution: 320 x 240
- Display size: 3.5
Features
- 3.5-Inch Qvga Display
- Sleek, Pocketable Form Factor
- No Flip-Up Antenna
- Full Coverage Of Us & Europe
- Map Data Of Internal Flash Memory
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Product Description
Navigate both North America and Europe without loading more maps with
the affordable nüvi 270. This entry-level Personal Travel Assistant
makes traveling so simple. For even more mapping options, nüvi 250 and
nüvi 200 offer less map coverage at a lower price. Like all nüvi
200-series members, the 270 features an easy-to-use colorful
touchscreen and ultra-slim design--perfect for everyday navigation.
Smart, Powerful Design
The nüvi 270 is built with a high-sensitivity WAAS-enabled GPS receiver
for extreme accuracy, as well as an SD card slot for storing your media
and additional navigation tools, and a USB interface for loading data.
All this is wrapped up in a package that measures 3.8 x 2.8 x .8 inches
(W x H x D) and weighs just 5.2 ounces. The nüvi 270's 3.5-inch
(diagonal) display is touchscreen-enabled, making it a cinch to control
the device with your fingertips. A rechargeable lithium-ion battery
provides up to five hours of battery life depending on use. Navigate with Ease
nüvi 270 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City
Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs)
database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. Simply touch
the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with
2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. In addition, nüvi 270
accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and
safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of
upcoming POIs.
Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is
just the beginning. nüvi 270 features many travel tools including JPEG
picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter,
measurement converter, calculator and more. It also comes with Garmin
Lock, an anti-theft feature, and configurable vehicle icons that let
you select car-shaped graphics to show your location on the map.
Optional plug-in SD cards for our line of Garmin Travel Guides and
Garmin SaversGuide provide detailed data for attractions and
information on nearby merchants offering discounts, so you can
customize nüvi for your travel needs.
Note: Like most USB Mass Storage Devices, the nüvi is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.
What's in the Box
nüvi 270, preloaded City Navigator NT for North America and Europe
(full coverage), vehicle suction cup mount, vehicle power cable,
dashboard disk, and set up and go guide.
The
nüvi 270 comes preloaded with maps for North America and Europe, and
features an easy-to-use touchscreen and ultra-slim design. |
Configurable vehicle icons let you select car-shaped graphics. |
nüvi 270 accepts custom points of interest (POIs). View larger. |
Customer Reviews
GPS With European Maps
The Garmin GPS was a godsend on our trip to Europe. If you have
ever driven into cities or small towns in Europe you will know how
difficult it is to navigate, while trying to read foreign street signs,
dodging motor scooters and bicylists, finding the right exit out of a
around-about all the while being pushed along by the very aggressive
drivers behind you. But with the GPS most of that stress goes away as
you know when and where to turn and you drive through towns like a
native. I was very impressed that even going through the miles long
tunnels of the alps the GPS must be programmed to keep the unit
tracking without a satellite signal because several minutes later
coming out of the tunnel it still provides instructions. I purchased
the pricier model 270 because of the factory installed European maps.
If you purchased a GPS with only North America maps and had to load the
European maps the cost of those maps would be another $250. It's less
money to get the 270 or 370 with maps already loaded. The windshield
mounting is excellent and worked well in the rental car. The Nuvi
series GPS is convenient enough in size to be carried in the pocket for
walking around the cities. But it does not work as well for pedestrian
purposes because it cannot keep bearings well as you tend to rotate the
device and it looses it sense of direction. I read all the reviews on
GPS's and chose the Garmin because of it's higher ratings for search
engine, ease of use and maps. You will immediately become an expert
user even without reading instructions with this device. It is
literally that easy to use.
Nuvi 270 used in Italy
I bought the Nuvi 270 for my 24 day trip to Italy. The unit is very
user friendly for menus and visibilty. We used our Garmin in
coordination with a TomTom 910 and our unit out mapped the TomTom every
time. The mapping is great and points of interest are good, but
rememeber that Italian locations are not always translated the same IE;
"leaning tower of Pisa" is actually "tower pendentta. The other thing
you never want to do is hit "shortest route" when in Italy!!! You will
end up driving curvy mountain roads and maybe end up on a goat trail.
We almost trippled our trip time by doing this one evening. So to end
this, I highly recommend this unit if you are going to Europe and keep
it when you come home, cause it has even better use on the US roads.
Not for Pedestrians in France and Switzerland
I retired a couple years ago as a commercial pilot who dealt with
GPS's on a daily basis and have a factory installed unit in my Acura
TL.
I bought this unit to use as a pedestrian sight-seeing in France
and Switzerland. This review is only my experience trying to use the
Garmin Nuvi 270 as a pedestrian in European cities. I make no
supposition how it would work in a car in the USA nor in a car through
the narrow streets of Europe or as a pedestrian in US cities..
The Garmin Nuvi 270 has a pedestrian mode and is pre-loaded with
maps of Europe. At slightly over $300 the unit was very appealing so I
bought one for my trip in May 2008.
The Good:
1. The touch screen is very responsive
2. The screen is very clear and bright.
3. 3.5 inch screen, in my view, is the perfect pedestrian size.
4. The database used is good by today's standards.
5. Physically the 270, in my opinion, is the correct size for walking.
The Bad:
1. The first bad feature and by far the overriding issue is the
Nuvi 270's inability to acquire satellites in European cities .
(Without Satlilite communication the Nuvi 270 is not able to navigate.)
I read all the reviews posted on Amazon and elsewhere, although many
mentioned this issue, none seemed to adequately drive this point home
enough for me not to buy it. On our day trip to Strasbourg, France, I
held the unit out at ½ arms length for 1 1/2 hours while walking and
saw only two screens, `Acquiring satellites' or `unable to acquire
Satellites do you want to continue'. The unit never ever acquired
enough Satellites in Strasburg to even show where we were, let alone
navigate. I even stood on a round-about in the middle of a busy
intersection for 20 minutes hoping it would acquire enough Satellites
to be functional....it did not! I cannot over stress this enough....it
was useless in Paris, where it would acquire for a short time and then
lose them during the walk, in Geneva where it acquired them on the
lake, but lost them in town. In Marseilles where it acquired them going
to an island but quickly lost them in town.
2. Once acquired, satellite retention is very poor. Sometimes
aircraft GPS', as well as my Acura will take a couple minutes to
acquire satellites, particularly if the unit has been moved while
turned off, but once satellites are acquired they seldom lose
reception, if ever unless you drive through a tunnel. The Garmin Nuvi
270, on the other hand, readily loses reception.
3. There is no Operating manual available for the Garmin Nuvi 270
either in the box or on the web. Only 11 quick start booklets in 11
languages.
4. Once you have looked for a destination it now resides in
Recently found places, but cannot be deleted unless all destinations
are deleted. If there is a way I couldn't figure it out as there is no
manual.
5. When charging, the unit says it is charging but never tells you
when it is fully charged. I let it charge for over 24 hours and it
continued to display, `charging'..
6. The unit has a segmented bar that let's you know how much
battery charge is left, but Garmin obviously hasn't figured out how to
correlate that to time. A total of 5 bars, one would think 2 bars would
indicate 40% left. WRONG, 2 bars generally meant less than 20 minutes
left of usage.
7. Does not use changeable batteries, so if you're away from your
hotel, walking, you can't put fresh batteries in; coupled with not
having any real clue how much charge you have left on the permanently
installed battery, leads to a problem. (How much do I conserve, how
much charge is left in real time, etc.)
8. You can't plan your trip unless you are there. For example: If
I'm in the USA and I want to see what attractions are located around
the hotel I plan to stay in in Paris, the unit will not do it. It will
only show me the attractions located close to where the unit physically
is at that point. (Assuming you can get reception).
9. The current satellite reception strength indicator is not visible on the map screen.
10. When walking, in pedestrian mode, you have two choices for
screen orientation. One allows the map to orient in the direction you
are walking, the other North remains at the top of the screen. For the
short time my 270 was able to retain satellites, I tried both. The
unit's computing speed coupled with current satellite available
accuracy makes the mode where the screen orients in the direction you
are walking near useless. The screen near continually `hunts' for
correct orientation. (Perhaps when the next generation satellites are
all up and SA has been removed completely, this mode will work) Best to
leave it on North at the top although I could not fully evaluate this
in Paris because I never had constant satellite reception long enough.
11. The screen is easily washed out by bright sunlight.
12. No place exists on the unit to attach a lanyard; this is a
problem in that the unit's case is very smooth and can slide out of
your hand easily.
All in all the unit is the right size for a pedestrian with a nice
touch screen, but falls unacceptably short in Satellite reception
capabilities and battery longevity (3-4 hours) given the batteries
can't be changed. Assuming it found a few satellites where are you
going to charge it during a 10 hour walking tour, or a hike, or a bike
ride?
1/18/2008: This review was once one of the most helpful negative
reviews. It now no longer lists if anyone found it helpful and is
buried deep.....is Amazon manipulating reviews?
2/1/2009: After writing to Amazon and asking them why my voting disappeared, the numbers are back up....Amazon claims a software glitch.
