Garmin Nuvi 255W (UK & Europe)

herbiecat_2

I am thinking of buying my first sat nav that will help me with my travels to Europe.

Could any techy person who knows about this product tell me how I do recharge this sat nav? I gather there is a battery in it, but what if I go to a very long trip with no possibility of recharging it?

Does the box come with a charger lead to attach to the cigarette lighter in the car?

Also I was wondering how you can download new maps to it. Can you get them from the computer and download them to it? How does it work?

Sorry to sound a bit dense, but I have never had a sat nav and I just want to make sure I get the right first one for us.
All your comments and help will be greatly appreciated.

pendulum

You say you want to make sure you get the right one but you only appear to be asking specific questions about the Nuvi 255W, have you made your mind up about getting this one or are you open to suggestions as I feel there are better system out there for the money. You should play with TomToms of similar price before making your mind up, Halfords and lots of other places have a range of systems on display that you can play with. Look into the TomTom One XL Europe.

All sat navs that I know of come with cigarette charger leads. To update maps, with TomToms you just plug the unit into your computer via a USB lead (included) and use TomTom software to update maps and other things, it's very easy. Not sure about Garmin but would imagine its very similar.

BillScarab

I've got the older Garmin Nuvi 250. You connect it to the cigarette lighter socket (or 12v outlet) in your car. That powers it and also charges the battery.

Yes, it comes with a lead.

It comes ready loaded witht maps. You can download updated ones from Garmin but they only release them once a year or so. As it costs about £60 to buy the updated maps it usually works out cheaper to use it for a few years then if you feel it is getting too out of date buy a new one.

I really like the Garmins, I much prefer them to Tom Toms but both are good.

labp04

I've just bought one of these from amazon - seemed like a good deal at just less than £100 but am wondering if anyone can help with a couple of questions. It all seems to work smashing out of the box and then I downloaded the map updates. Does anyone know if I leave the updater on my desktop if I can access the different maps if/when I travel in the different countries or is the original mapping good enough to use? Assuming its still there!

Second question which might seem a bit thick but does anyone know if this unit only accepts sd cards ie up to 2gb. If anyone knows about this, then I'd be really interested.

Have emailed garmin with these queries but, as yet, no replies

BillScarab

No idea about the SD card as I've never needed to use one with mine.

If you've downloaded the map updates you should have updated versions of all of the original maps on it so I don't see why you'd ever need to use the old ones.