Garmin Nuvi 1450lmt 5-Inch Portable Gps Navigator With Lifetime Map & Traffic Updates (Discontinued
Garmin nuvi 1450LMT 5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Map & Traffic Updates (Discontinued by Manufacturer)
- Sunlight-readable, 5-inch backlit TFT color touchscreen display with 480 x 272 WQVGA pixel resolution
- Preloaded City Navigator NT North America (U.S. and Canada),1 year limited warranty
- Free lifetime map and traffic updates for the most up-to-date maps, POIs, and navigation info, along with constantly updated traffic information (vehicle power cord is traffic receiver)
- Advanced navigation features including voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions, lane assist with junction view, fuel-saving ecoRoute
- Includes travel tools such as JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock, currency/measurement converters, calculator and more,Battery life: up to 3 hours
Brand : Garmin
Category : Electronics,GPS, Finders & Accessories,Vehicle GPS
Rating : 4.4
Review Count : 3697
Garmin nuvi 1450LMT 5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Map & Traffic Updates (Discontinued by Manufacturer)
- I bought this GPS earlier this year despite my car having built-in navigation for the times that I will rent a car or when my girlfriend is driving, (this GPS is light years better than her 4 year old Magellen) we will use this one instead. The prices have come down so much that it\'s worth keeping and only using a couple times a month.I previously had a Nuvi 750 about 4 years ago and this is so much improved. Garmin GPS units are very \"intuitive\" and very easy to figure out how to use. First things first, the screen is very big and easy to read. Displaying which lane you need to be in for the next maneuver is just great, you know well in advance no guessing. Also when you get close to a major intersection it will show the \"junction view\" which is a picture of what the road looks like, complete with all lanes and the large overhead signs so you know exactly which way to go. Also when you get close to a maneuver, the GPS automatically zooms in for you, and once you pass it zooms back out. There is no need to manually hit the zoom in/out keys while using it, another great feature. You can change the bottom left to be estimated actual time of arrival, estimated time left, miles left, etc. The estimated time left seems to assume you don\'t stop at all... so if a part of your route takes you on roads with traffic lights, expect it to take longer. Speed limit in the bottom right I thought I would hate, I actually like it. It doesn\'t nag or anything if you exceed, all it does is turn to red which isn\'t a big deal. If you are unsure what the speed limit is somewhere, check the GPS. However it\'s not 100% accurate but I\'d say 9 out of 10 times it is. Don\'t expect to be able to tell a police officer or judge that you thought the limit was xx mph because your GPS said it was, that\'s not going to fly folks. Part of what you agree to upon starting up the GPS and hitting \"Agree\"There are a ton of POIs, everything from restaurants to train stations to churches to parks to casinos. Everything. 5 stars in this department.The traffic feature... yes there are ads. That is why it is free. But they are small an unobtrusive, I was really worried about this. As far as coverage, it doesn\'t seem to work in some areas where I think it should, where I am close enough to a city where I should get the FM signal(the data is carried over FM radio waves). Yet no green icon appears for traffic info. Strange. It is smart and adjusts your arrival time to include any traffic delays. I find the traffic to not be as reliable as what is shown on Google maps on my Smartphone. If you don\'t want the ads(and of course traffic that comes with them) you can turn off the traffic feature in the options and you will never see them. So don\'t worry about that.One thing I don\'t like is that when you use a finger and scroll around on the map, every time you touch the screen a set of coordinates is put into the recent destinations list. If you are just thumbing around a map to see something, you will find the list polluted with a ton of coordinate listings. This is kind of annoying as your recent actual destinations get shoved down a few pages, and there isn\'t a way to delete individual recent listings, just the whole entire list of recent destinations. But this isn\'t worth even a whole star off, minor quip.Time to get a lock on the satellites is acceptable. If you put it on your windshield and have used it within an hour or two it\'s pretty much ready as soon as it finishes booting. If it\'s been off for a few hours or days it usually only takes me another 15-25 seconds to be ready to go, when mounted to the windshield. Don\'t expect it to work indoors, I have been able to get a lock by placing on a windowsill but only after several minutes. Also the very first time I booted it I recall leaving it outside for like 5 minutes before it got a lock. Believe this to be a onetime deal. If you go into a tunnel it won\'t panic and shut down or anything.I admit I haven\'t used the GPS a ton, so I cannot give an accurate rating of how durable it is over time. So far I have had zero issues with it. I\'m using a soft suede case that came with another electronic gadget very similar in size, I was thrilled this GPS fits right in that and saved me from finding a case I like(and paying $30 or more for it).Get the lifetime maps update version. This should be included with every GPS, but one update is like $60 and to get this feature upon purchase is $10 more, if that. Totally worth it. Online there are premium car icons and voices and such, but you have to pay for the trademarked ones(think Star Wars, Sesame Street, etc). There are some basic ones that are free. There is a Bluetooth capability in some models of this GPS as well, I skipped that since I have a working headset to use.A week ago we used this GPS for a short hour road trip, and the person driving was using an old Garmin that is on its way out that constantly reboots itself. Not even halfway through the trip he was sold on my unit, with the lane indicators and junction view features especially helpful. Future birthday present idea was born.I think the quality has suffered ever since these GPS units have really took off the last few years, and they are mass producing so many more, judging by all the reviews of people with problems. But maybe that\'s just the usual deal of most people who don\'t have problems don\'t review things, but when you do you make sure to give it a bad review. So there are a lot more good units out there that people just didn\'t review, while the small percentage of bad ones, a lot more people review. FWIW no problems with mine so far...Bottom line: If you need a solid, easy to use/view GPS you can\'t go wrong here. Be sure to get the lifetime maps(LM) version at least.
- I bought this Garmin GPS because TomTom wanted more than the cost of a new unit to provide me with an updated map for my TomTom GPS. The Garmin, with lifetime maps, would hopefully avoid that problem. The TomTom also had some serious routing bugs; for example, it assumed that any road for which it didn\'t know a speed limit was faster than one whose speed limit was, say, 55 MPH. (This resulted in the TomTom taking me miles off course on back roads during a recent trip.)The street maps and routing on the Garmin are indeed better than the TomTom\'s; MUCH better, in fact. But it can only hold an abbreviated version of the maps if you don\'t install extra flash memory. If you buy this unit, you will probably want to buy an 8 or 16 GB MicroSD card and insert it from the get-go, before the very first update, as I did. And while the maps are great, the user interface and point of interest database are in serious need of improvement.My old TomTom\'s display was information-rich, with estimated arrival time, the current time, remaining travel time, speed, etc. all displayed where it was easy to see them. On the Garmin, everything is bigger but the display is somewhat \"dumbed down,\" with less information immediately available without pressing the screen. The Garmin\'s verbal instructions are a bit choppier than the TomTom\'s as you drive, and are sometimes less helpful. When you\'re in a parking lot, for example, the unit says, \"Please drive to highlighted route\" without telling you which way to go or which street it wants you to drive to. And there\'s less warning of turns and exits. You have to dive deep into the interface to get the unit to avoid taking you on a toll road (such as Denver\'s ridiculously expensive E-470, which charges you nearly $10 to save 5 minutes going to the airport) on a particular trip, while the TomTom asks you if you want to avoid tolls as it plans a trip that might include them. But on the plus side, the Garmin does tell you which side of the street your destination is on, which is a HUGE help. (The TomTom often left me scouring the landscape for the destination.) The screen on the Garmin requires a MUCH firmer touch than the TomTom, so it is tough to scroll and pan the map or review the route that the Garmin has plotted for you.The Garmin\'s interface is inconsistent and throws you unexpected curves, especially when you are entering information. For example, when you\'re searching for a point of interest in a city other than the one you\'re in, the Garmin doesn\'t let you enter a state along with the city name. You must enter only the city name, and if it\'s a common one (e.g. \"Lincoln\") you have to scroll down and select the city and state together from a list. On the other hand, when you\'re entering a street address, the process is entirely different. If the address is not in the state you\'re in, several presses are required before you can start entering the name of the state. Then, once you begin to type, the software \"yanks\" the on-screen keyboard out from under your fingers (this happens after a variable number of letters, so you can\'t tell quite when it\'s going to happen) and displays a list of states whose names begin with the letters you typed. You can\'t just enter the 2-letter abbreviation for the state; in fact, if you do, you may be directed AWAY from the state you intended. For example, if you type \"MO,\" you get a list with one option: Montana. Type \"NY,\" and the Garmin draws a complete blank; you must type \"New\" and then select from a list of states whose names begin with that word.The Garmin\'s directory of points of interest is more finely categorized than the TomTom\'s, but is incomplete, inaccurate and in VERY serious need of updates. For example, when I tried to get the GPS to take me to Micro Center, in Denver, Colorado (one of the biggest and most popular computer stores in the city), it couldn\'t find the store in its directory. Similarly, several restaurants and entertainment venues I had recently found easily in the TomTom\'s database did not appear at all in the Garmin\'s, even though they were not new businesses. A Harbor Freight Tools store that had moved more than a year ago was listed at its old address on the other side of town. And when I was in a city I did not know well, looking for a variety store, the unit directed me to a KMart store that had closed nearly two years before. The B&B around the corner from us was absent, and hotels that had long since switched to other chains were listed under the old chains\' names. Some that had closed years ago were still listed. A night club to which the TomTom had guided me flawlessly for a show just wasn\'t in the Garmin\'s index. And the categories of points of interest are odd and not intuitive. In the restaurant section, for example, there is a an \"Asian\" category and then another -- not a subcategory but on the same menu -- that says \"Chinese.\" (It turns out that the Chinese restaurants are duplicated in the \"Asian\" category.) Indian restaurants are not listed under \"Asian\" (puzzling because, as far as I know, India is a subcontinent of Asia) but rather under \"International.\" And in that category, I found an Indian restaurant that had been closed for 10 months still listed. Another that has been open for longer (and is still open) was absent. An art gallery and a vitamin store were mixed in with the restaurants. Neighborhood coffeehouse? Not there. But the GPS did list a local church\'s charity soup kitchen as if it were a restaurant called \"Soup Kitchen.\" (It\'s amusing to imagine a hapless GPS user walking in among the homeless clientele, thinking he was entering a restaurant.)I\'ve only used the Garmin once in a city where the traffic feature kicked in, but I quickly turned it off due to the extremely annoying ads (which were not mentioned in the product literature and are not present in some other GPS brands). There should be an option to pay a small fee to kill the ads.The Garmin\'s route planning is not as good when it recalculates while you are driving as when it\'s plotting a route in advance. Twice, it has tried to lead me in a circle -- three right turns, going needlessly around a block -- when a simple left turn was legal and direct. (I think the software was trying to take me back to a route it had plotted previously rather than considering where I was at the moment.) But at least when it plans the trip ahead of time, the Garmin is better than the TomTom at finding a good route to an address for you... provided that it knows the address of your destination. If you have to find the destination using its database, though, good luck.I\'m still deciding whether or not to keep the Garmin. I can live with some of the quirks above, but the deal breaker may be the POI database. I can already see that it\'s likely to cause me much trouble with its incomplete, out-of-date, and inaccurate information.
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