Garmin Drivesmart 61 Na Lmt-S With Lifetime Maps/Traffic, Live Parking, Bluetooth,Wifi, Smart Notifi
Garmin DriveSmart 61 NA LMT-S with Lifetime Maps/Traffic, Live Parking, Bluetooth,WiFi, Smart Notifications, Voice Activation, Driver Alerts, TripAdvisor, Foursquare
- Easy to use GPS navigator with connected Features and bright 6.95 Inch Capacitive touch display. The display resolution is 1024 x 600 pixels
- Detailed maps of North America with free lifetime updates. Battery : Rechargeable lithium ion. Battery life is up to 1 hour
- Provides real time services, such as Live traffic and select Live parking, when using free smartphone link app on your compatible smartphone
- Bluetooth calling, smart notifications and voice activated navigation. This USB mass storage device is compatible with Windows XP or newer and Mac OS X 10.4 or later
- Built in Wi Fi for easy map and software updates
Brand : Garmin
Category : Electronics,GPS, Finders & Accessories,Vehicle GPS
Rating : 4.5
ListPrice : US $249.99
Price : US $219.99
Review Count : 3630
ChildASIN : B01MT01SB1
Garmin DriveSmart 61 NA LMT-S with Lifetime Maps/Traffic, Live Parking, Bluetooth,WiFi, Smart Notifications, Voice Activation, Driver Alerts, TripAdvisor, Foursquare
- This is the best GPS I\'ve ever owned. I\'ve owned several cars with factory nav systems.....a GMC Yukon Denali, a Chrysler Pacifica, two Mercedes AMG sports cars, an Infiniti G35X sedan, and Mercedes SUV. I also owned a Garmin Nuvi 855 circa 2008 when I bought a Honda S2000 which wasn\'t offered with a factory nav system.The only 4 things that any factory nav system I ever encountered does better than a Garmin is.....1.) It\'s fully integrated into the car\'s electrical power so no wires.2.) It\'s fully integrated into the car\'s audio system, you get automatic muting of music and calls for directions.3.) A factory system is much harder to steal and you never have to worry about removing it from the car.4.) It\'s screwed in place so you don\'t have to worry about where to put it or having it tumble across the passenger compartment.The things a factory nav system does worse than a Garmin are endless.....1.) Updates for maps are infrequent and expensive while Garmin is selling a lifetime subscription with each unit.2.) Updates for system firmware are almost nonexistent and require a trip to the dealer\'s service center at a premium cost.3.) Every factory nav I\'ve seen can only do single point to point trips while a Garmin can handle a much more complex itinerary with multiple stops. And you can set up that complex itinerary from your couch before you get out on the road.4.) At most, a factory nav can be told to avoid highways or tolls while a Garmin can be told to use specific roads simply by touching the screen. That\'s a big deal if you want to take the scenic road and not the fastest road.5.) Factory navs don\'t generally have info about food, gas, hospitals, rest areas, or attractions along the route. If they do, they are generally not up to date. Garmin not only has that stuff but includes Foursquare and Trip Advisor that are updated constantly.6. Voice control in factory nav systems has had me pounding the dashboard in frustration while the Garmin gets it right about 95% of the time.7.) Factory nav displays run the gamut from OK to pretty bad. Garmin provides really clear map displays with excellent lane guidance for complex highway interchanges. For me, it\'s all about getting the turns right.8.) The Garmin menu system is simple, logical, and everything can be accessed through a touchscreen or voice commands, Factory nav systems don\'t tend to have much of a menu system because they don\'t do much beyond point to point navigation.9.) Factory nav systems give you a map and basic turn guidance but that\'s about it. A Garmin can be customized to display a lot of other info on the map screen or you can pop up an overlay of the map screen with tons of other info.10.) The screen resolution and capacitive touch on this particular DriveSmart 61 LMT-S is far superior to any factory nav unit I\'ve owned.I could go on and on. This is just a superior driving aid for a lot less money. For this DriveSmart 61 LMT-S in particular, the 6.95\" screen is great. I struggled with whether to go with the 5\" because I thought this would be too large. It\'s not. If you can afford it, go for it. My old Garmin Nuvi 855 had a 4.3\" screen. I felt at the time that it was small but it got the job done. And in the S2000 where I used it, the small size was welcome. This unit has about twice the display area with it\'s 6.95\" screen but the unit isn\'t twice as big because of the edge to edge display design with almost no bezel on three sides. Amazingly, the Garmin interface is very familiar 8 years later. I was able to jump right in without consulting a manual and update the maps and firmware then set up my preferences and plan a 1,200 mile trip with zero drama. The interface design is excellent.So to cap off the review, what are the major reasons why I like this particular Garmin model.....1.) Display Size - Resolution, and brightness. This is the best display I\'ve seen on a portable GPS unit. Think iPad quality levels.2.) Display Capacitive Touch - This is the most responsive touch screen I\'ve seen on a portable GPS unit.3.) Features - Voice recognition works well enough to be useful, advanced lane guidance, live traffic, and live parking.4.) Connectivity - WiFi updates are fast and mean you\'re not tethered to a computer. Connects fast and easy to set up.5.) Bluetooth - Hands free phone calls and real time updates on traffic. Connects reliably to my iPhone 6 with zero fiddling.So what did Garmin get wrong? One thing that\'s really annoying and one thing I consider sort of sleazy.The simply annoying - Driver alerts are constant distractions telling you about railroad tracks, bends in the road, stoplight cameras, speed changes etc. You can turn off the audible warnings but not the visual alerts flashing across the top of the screen. This is information overload and not very useful for the non brain dead driver. We should be able to kill these visual distractions with a software switch like the one for the audible warnings. The annoyance factor is right up there with bad voice recognition in factory nav systems.The sleazy - Garmin gave this thing WiFi for easy map and firmware updates. The updates can take up to 2 hours according to Garmin. Yet they gave the unit a 1 hour battery life. All of which means you need external AC power (a wall charger) in order to accomplish any of the updates. You also need an AC adapter if you want to use the unit to work on a trip plan in your living room away from your car. BUT, Garmin doesn\'t include an AC charger. AND, they made this thing incompatible with every AC power block you already own like iPhone and iPad chargers. And the Garmin USB cable they supply will not charge the unit from a computer. Why supply the cable at all? Thanks Garmin. Now I\'m forced to buy your expensive proprietary power block if I actually want to use my new GPS away from my car. And I\'m forced to carry yet another AC charger on business trips and vacations. More stuff to keep track of. Just what I need.Even the missing AC charger would be better received IF Garmin were up front about the fact that you need one. But they mention nothing about it in their marketing. Just tell everyone to add $25 to any price they see for a Garmin GPS to allow for the purchase of an AC charger. Or put one in the box and charge people for what is essentially a necessary component of the system. Currently it\'s like selling someone a car and then telling them tires are extra. Oh, you actually wanted to drive the car? Silly us. Hence the 1 star reduction in an otherwise glowing review.BTW, Garmin did exactly the same thing when they sold GPS units as \"Traffic Capable\" but failed to make it clear that you need to buy a separate 12 volt power cord with a built in traffic receiver for about $60 in order to use the traffic features. Again, this would have been OK if it were made clear up front. Some people may not want traffic info. But a lot of people bought those units thinking they were getting capability that only after buying they found out they would have to pay more money for. This demonstrates a mindset by Garmin of trying to publish the lowest possible price by omitting key components and hiding that fact from potential buyers. Not cool!!!The GPS units are great. Change your pricing and disclosure policies. Just be honest with customers.EDIT 11/03/2017: OK, I just finished a 1,500 mile road trip with this GPS. At times I loved it. At times I wanted to take a hammer and smash it. Here are the highlights.Loved.....1.) Screen brightness and resolution - Excellent, I kept it on 70% brightness and that was fine in bright sunlight.2.) Touch screen - Excellent responsiveness, basically like using an iPhone.3.) Screen size - The 6.95\" screen size is nice for getting information quickly at a glance.4.) Lane guidance - Extremely helpful when you\'re on a 6 lane California freeway you\'re not familiar with at rush hour.5.) Voice recognition - Close enough to 100% accuracy that I can\'t really remember a time when it failed me.6.) Garmin app - My iPhone 6 connected easily and stayed connected. I actually used the traffic, Trip Advisor, and FourSquare features.7.) User configurable information on the right side of the screen. Not critical but helpful and interesting stuff like elevation.8.) Audio volume - Completely adequate to deal with road noise.Did not love.....1.) Driver alerts need to die. It\'s basically a nonstop assault of information that is marginally useful at best. Give us a switch to kill this.Hated.....take a hammer and smash it.....1.) Trip Planner - I wanted to take Route 1, the Pacific Coast Road from San Francisco to LA. That means avoiding highways to stay on route 1 which is a 2 lane that follows the coast most of the time. It also means navigating around a section of route 1 from south of Monterey through Big Sur down to Morrow Bay because of road closures due to mudslides.So, I used trip planner to plot out the specific roads I wanted to use by inserting \"locations\" between \"destinations\". I had used this method years earlier on my Garmin Nuvi 855 to plot routes on back roads in New England. However this time it didn\'t work. Leaving San Francisco, the GPS put me on a highway that seemed wrong to me but I trusted the Garmin. Big mistake. I was an hour off course by the time I said screw this and pulled over to determine what was going on. I ended up backtracking to my start point because I wasn\'t gonna give up my drive down the coast. That cost me 2 hours that day and made me arrive in Morrow Bay after dark.From what I can tell, the thing was ignoring all the carefully selected \"locations\" I had inserted which indicated the back roads I wanted to use and instead insisted on using highways even though the highways were 30 miles away from the path I wanted to follow and the Garmin was skipping every location I had entered and taking me straight to my destination. I manually set the thing to avoid highways and that seemed to fix the problem. But then when, I had to go around the closed section of route 1 in Big Sur, I had to remember to turn highways on again and then deactivate highways again once I reached Morrow Bay. Apparently, the routing software gives locations you select a lower priority than finding the fastest route. So basically, I stopped trusting the Garmin at that point and was constantly checking its choices with Google Maps on my iPhone. Not Good!From LA to the Grand Canyon then Phoenix I let the Garmin select the route and left highways turned on and the Garmin did fine selecting the fastest route using major interstates.In looking back, I think if your\'re gonna use trip planner to force this thing to use specific roads, you\'ll need to insert A LOT of locations and turn off highways or this thing will constantly be trying to use highways and ignore the route you\'ve carefully told it to follow.
- This is a welcome upgrade from my old TomTom XXL that I used for years. Although smartphone GPS accuracy has gotten much better and bigger since 2005 days, I still prefer a dedicated GPS and the largest screen I can get to make driving to unknown places easy. I personally mount it up on a vent mount near my steering wheel highest on my dashboard to be legal so it is in my field of vision so I never have to take my eyes off the road. Wow, this touch screen is responsive and such a welcome improvement from my TomTom XXL. Data entry and menu navigation is so snappy and responsive. On my old device, I would constantly select the wrong search result because it would pop in a different item by the time I selected or it registered. This is a breath of fresh air. The screen is huge, is fairly thin and lightweight overall, and turns on very quickly. It even has decent (limited) voice commands that is always listening for the wake word (which you can even change). I\'m really happy with mine.MAP UPDATES: I was impressed by its apparent real \"lifetime\" map updates support compared to what happened to my end-of-lifed TomTom with \"lifetime\" maps. For one, it comes with only half its storage space used to start with. But more impressively, when it runs out of space for map updates, it is supposed to give you a choice to an SD card, or select a region and install less. My TomTom XXL updates now just get a notice that they no longer support map updates on my device because of storage limitation, and offers me a new TomTom at only 30% off full price. I figure I can do better on sale, and did when I bought this Garmin instead!BATTERY: The battery does (or doesn\'t?) last long. On a full charge, I got to and from work 20 minutes away, powering off in-between, and got a low battery warning as I pulled into my driveway. But later the battery indicator is green and shows 4/5 full. The screen is huge, was on the whole time, WiFi turned on, Bluetooth turned on and communicating with my phone, and it doesn\'t weigh like a brick to load it with batteries. My TomTom hasn\'t held a charge in years, so the Garmin wins anyway :) . Just plug it in. It comes with a power adapter for your car.SETUP & UPDATES: It works out of the box (after charging). But it says to go to their site to register and setup for the first time, which in turn tells you to download software to sync with it, even though you really shouldn\'t have to because it is WiFi enabled. It is easy to connect it to your home computer or smart phone (needed for live traffic). A tiny problem I had at first was until it got a GPS signal for the first time, it thought I was in Florida, so the time was way off (not even just for time zone difference), and finding the first place to navigate to was difficult because auto-suggestions, WiFi updates always said \"failed to connect to server\", and every single time I turned it on it re-asks me the language and to accept terms. But after first real use, it was all corrected.MOUNTS: It starts off with the most important piece, the adapter for the back of the unit that snaps onto what seems to be a very universal ball-joint type of mount, the kind you find on nearly any other phone mount. So you will not really need to buy a mount specifically designed for Garmin or DriveSmart. I just popped off the phone holder from my favorite vent mount, and popped this onto that, and I was up and running with a vent mount. Same for my CD slot mount. The actual dash/glass-mounting portion it comes with isn\'t very universal because it will only work on glass or a flat surface (not textured like my dash). But there are plenty of mounts out there for vents, CD slots, cup holder, or even textured surfaces (with a reusable sticky kind of suction cup) for any kind of device that you should be able to match with this as long as the ball joint is universal. They may not even state it, but you might have good odds it will work (all of mine do).
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