By: William Pinn

William Pinn — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:34:57 +0000

Fantastic review! Your side-by-side comparison really opened my eyes! Thanks!

By: Rich Owings

Rich Owings — Fri, 25 May 2007 22:46:02 +0000

Great comments D. Many relate to the relative immaturity of this technology, and I think you’ll find similar problems with other units. A few features you mention (the lack of some time of day or remaining time enroute) are available on the custom display of some older units. See this post for more on that…http://gpstracklog.com/2006/08/does_the_nuvi_h.html

By: D. Sperber

D. Sperber — Fri, 25 May 2007 10:35:12 +0000

I bought a C550 three weeks ago and called for an RMA today. This was my first GPS unit and I’m severely disappointed with its user interface deficiencies. Mostly, I’m disappointed in its skills as a navigator.
No TOD clock on the MAP, or anywhere else for that matter aside from the main menu when it powers on (the one that prompts you to do something and go to another screen, where the clock then disappears). You ALWAYS want a clock on a display that provides trip/time details. Ridiculous.
No compass on the MAP. You don’t know what direction you’re driving unless the next turn instruction is short enough in text length to allow the current driving direction to be shown in words, and then only if it is changeable as your driving direction changes. Otherwise, the only way to get the compass is to go into “trip details” which provides lots of worthless information and which you shouldn’t be looking at while you’re driving. Ridiculous.
No “where am I now, and what direction am I going?”. You have a map showing the next turn instruction, but no way to ask the simple question: what road am I on and where am I pointed? Ridiculous.
No display of “how long, in time, to my destination?”. There is an ETA to your destination, which is remarkably accurate actually. But there is no way to really use that information since there’s no clock shown on the MAP (where the ETA is displayed in the lower left corner) and no conversion of ETA to number-of-hours-left-to-drive. Is that ETA 5 minutes or 5 hours from now? Who knows? Ridiculous.
No automatic adjustment of time-zone setting. You have to do that manually. It knows where you are precisely, but doesn’t seem to know what time zone that relates to… other than by your manually choosing one from a list. Ridiculous.
Cannot seem to determine your direction at all when stationary… e.g. when exiting the parking lot of a restaurant and setting a new destination before you really get moving and are on the road. It seems to have no real idea which direction you’re headed, and often tells you to make a left or right (now that you’re on a street) when that’s either an impossible turn or clearly the opposite from what you should be doing to get to your next turn on the route. Apparently you have to be moving (and fairly rapidly) for it to triangulate accurately (since it obviously does not have a built-in compass or gyro).
It also can’t seem to judge distances reasonably. You can be 50 feet from a corner and the display will show “200 feet to next turn”.
Very often will simply pick a silly or patently ridiculous route that is neither fastest, nor shortest, and definitely not “best” or “smartest”. Seems to want to take you to a main drag street if you choose “fastest” even if that takes you miles out of your way, when a direct shortcut is obviously the way any local would go for both fastest and shortest!
Very often has incorrect freeway exit names (numbers seem correct) in the instructions. This is very bad. Compounding this is a strong tendency to exit freeways prematurely or totally inappropriately to get onto some local street for some reason. I of course disregard the silly instruction and it recalculates reasonably, but I thought IT was in charge of coming up with good navigation advice… not me.
It is particularly weak (either in the maps or in picking a route) when there are express lanes on a freeway, or an express or toll road available. For some reason it seems to be obvlivious to those superior routings and asks you to take city street exits (even when “fastest” is in effect) for no obvious reason, or bear right to a named exit or ramp when the direction should have been bear left. I mean this unit is DANGEROUS!
Recovery from wrong turns (or intential disregard for ridiculous instructions) is often even worse than the ridiculous instruction you disregarded! Get off a freeway to go to a restaurant as a “waystop” (multiple of which which cannot be inserted) and you will then endure the most ridiculous series of recalculation attempts to get you headed in the opposite direction, to get back on route. It seems to lose track of the freeway as the prime directive and begins to send you on a wild journey through side streets, to maybe join up with the freeway miles away from where you are! Terrible.
If I didn’t know where I was going without the C550, this C550 would probably get me lost, or get me there late or through a silly route. If a restaurant is 1 block off of a freeway exit, and that exit is 15 miles from O’Hare Airport, and there should be no other instructions other than “get on the freeway, go 15 miles, exit 51F, right one block, and you’re there” then that route should always be given no matter whether you want fastest or shortest. It is the ONLY route… but it was not given by the C550. It had me get off (or wanted me to get off) at the Harlem exit (1 mile south of O’Hare and 14 miles north of the restaurant).. because I was in “shortest” mode. Ridiculous.
It’s either the fault of the maps, or the navigation software… but this C550 is going back. Very disappointing.
I don’t know what’s better, but this C550 (as highly rated by reviewers as it was) was an unexpected disappointment as a navigation tool. I don’t play MP3′s on it, and I don’t need it for a phone. I want it to be my GUIDE… and at that I rate it VERY VERY POOR!

Comments on: Garmin StreetPilot c550 vs. TomTom GO 910

By: William Pinn

By: Rich Owings

By: D. Sperber