
Garmin StreetPilot c330 Automotive GPS Navigation System
Pros
Excels at the basics
Cons
Screen could be brighter, few extras
Garmin StreetPilot c330
StreetPilot c330 Automotive GPS Navigation System Review, by Tracey Capen March 27, 2006
The $460 Garmin StreetPilot c330 excels at the basics. Its 3.5-inch color touch screen is big enough for quick and easy reading, but the unit isn't so large that it takes over your dashboard; I wouldn't think twice about stowing it in a suitcase or overnight bag for use during a cross-country trip. Its built-in maps cover the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and (like the maps of other units I reviewed for our recent GPS roundup) they are said by the vendor to include several million points of interest.
On startup, the screen confronts you with two big buttons: 'Where to?' drops you into a screen that has six categories, such as Address, Food, Fuel, and Lodging; 'View Map' shows your present location on a digital map, with good accuracy. All of the buttons, including the alphanumeric keys, are of a nice size for quick and accurate touch-screen data entry.
The graphics looked great, and turn-by-turn directions were clear and precise. The product gives you multiple language and voice options; I favored the female voice with the alluring British accent.
The Garmin's screen could be brighter, but a reflective coating makes it readable in bright sun. Address searches proceeded relatively swiftly, but some points-of-interest searches were painfully slow.
The StreetPilot c330 is a great choice for delivering affordable, no-frills navigation.
Tracey Capen
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Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
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Reviewed by: kaptainii
Strengths: Was a wonderful beginner unit....3 years ago
Weaknesses: None it was cutting edge.....3 years ago
Overall: You can go to any Garmin dealer, like West Marine, and pick up an updated, sleek, Garmin Nuvi 200W for $ 119.00. Units are discontinued every year by Garmin b/c electronics technology changes daily. I have never seen any piece of electronics that didn't have some weakness, but Garmin sure makes it hard to find unlike Magellan, Lowrance and TomTom. For those of you who think TomTom rule the car nav world, you bought into a great marketing jingle.
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Reviewed by: gnwaldron
Strengths: The design is decent and is probably carried through on Garmin's devices that are not discontinued.
Weaknesses: If you buy from PCRush (and possibly this is true for other vendors), the maps will be outdated.
Overall: You can update your maps by buying the new ones for $70.00. However, the new maps do not fit on this device. You will have to copy one segment of the maps at a time, which would be pretty inconvenient.
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Reviewed by: pablojxn
Strengths: All of it.
Weaknesses: It does not drive my rental car and when my wife called the first time, she wondered who that girl was that was giving me directions.
Overall: It gets me around with the ease of a tour guide. It is super. I would not survive here in the Maryland/DC area without it. I am from out West and this place is a nut house of highways.
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Reviewed by: sanjeev4119
Strengths: acurate, recalculation, inexpensive, friendly and easy to use out of box, excellent Customer support.
Weaknesses: no multistop, takes a min to lock sometime.
Overall: I searched for inexpensive but acurate WAAS enabled GPS. after more than a month research I decided to go with C330 and after using a week I liked my decision. The only thing I miss is MP3 and Text to speech. But hey it does lot better job then what you pay compare to other similar gps. The only other issue is that it comes with 1 year old map database (NT8) and Garmin support said they don't support this model anymore even though they sell this directly on their website. But I haven't find any address issue with a year old map database.
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Reviewed by: The Mighty Quahog
Strengths: Ease of use, accuracy, good database
Weaknesses: No map updates available for Mac (Garmin will sell you one, but it doesn't work and they know it).
Overall: This is a great machine, and I'm happy to own it, with one very major exception: Garmin sold me a 2008 Map update (City Navigator North America NT) that its web site claims will work on an Intel-based Mac. Not true. I spent over three hours waiting for and talking with Garmin tech support last night - was told to call back today. So I called back to be told that there's a problem with installing the Map Update on a Mac. As I stared at the Mac/Universal label on the front of the CD case, Garmin then told me that they have no idea when the situation will be fixed...which says to me that it's not likely to happen anytime soon. Garmin was gracious enough to refund my purchase price and shipping. I'd love to hear from other Intel Mac users to see if they've had any success updating the maps.

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