Living more and more on the road, and being inept at remembering directions, I've caved in to my gadget-lust and purchased a StreetPilot c330 from Garmin. I won't write a detailed review as doing so would be totally redundant. I will, however, speak to my personal experience.
Featureful and easy to use, I gave it a short road test recently, marking various locations and finding new routes to and from my regular destinations. The c330 actually plotted a drastically (50 %) shorter route to a local provincial park I frequently visit. When I first moved here, Google Maps provided the directions.
I soon realized that my vehicle was in dire need of a wash. Having a points card with a major Canadian petro company, I've been at a loss to find a nearby station with a car wash. C330 to the rescue again! Selecting Where To > Automotive Services > Car Wash showed me a detailed map from my location to the nearest car wash station.
The interface is translated from English into French (and various other languages). The audio prompts are available in American or British English, European or Canadian French and the other languages the unit's menus are translated into. I have configured the unit to provide European French audio prompts.
I have, however, elected to keep the menus in English once I discovered a conjugation error in the French translation! An infinitive has been used in the place of a past participle, something that just turned me off the idea of French menus.
« GPS déactiver (à l'intérieur) » has been used for "GPS deactivated (while indoors)"; it's an amateurish mistake of a hurried translator that even my first-year students wouldn't be apt to make. Perhaps it has been fixed in a firmware release.
This brings me to the second major flaw of the device: no drivers are available for MacOS X. This means that I have to connect it to another XP-based (actually, Windows 2000-based) computer to upgrade software or add custom POIs. How tediously unnecessary.
Some technical specifications, for those who are interested:
- Receiver: WAAS-enabled 12 parallel channel GPS
- Display: 2.8” W x 2.1” H (3.5” diag.), 320 x 240 pixels; QVGA transflective TFT with 16-bit color; 64K colors; bright white LED backlight and touch screen
- Unit dimensions: 4.4” W x 3.2” H x 2.8” D
- Weight: 9.45 ounces
- Battery life: up to 8 hours; rechargeable lithium-ion battery
- Preloaded maps for all of North America or Europe
- Fingertip touchscreen interface
- Look up addresses and points of interest (like stores, car washes,
- Choose 2D or 3D map perspective
- Upload custom POIs, including alerts for speed zones and safety cams
- SD memory card expansion slot
- Vehicle suction cup mount with 12-volt adapter
- Garmin part number: 010-00401-10
