I had posted a question a few weeks back about portable GPS devices. I got tons of great info from you guys and ultimately decided on the Garmin Nuvi 350. (The Nuvi 360 is the same but adds BT which I don't care for in this type of device.) It is the new form factor for these things and is much, much smaller than offerings from Magellan, TomTom, and even Garmin's own StreetPilot serires. All of those are excellent devices but the small size of the Nuvi sold me on it. Plus it's totally portable so you can use it as a walking around GPS. There are other bells and whistles like SD cards for languages, city guides, etc, and it also plays MP3's and you can view JPEGs. I got it for GPS navigation in my navless X5, work car and rental cars.

I got it at Costco.com. There is a promo right now for it and there is the iron clad Costco warranty. As you can see, the unit is very small. It's a little bigger than a deck of cards. The mount is excellent. It is secure just about anywhere and the swivel action allows me to mount it almost any angle. I had it on the driver's side window too. The unit clips in easily and removing it is a one second operation so I can take it out of the car whenever I get out. It came with a leather slip case, a 12V cord, and an A/C cord.

So far it has worked quite well. Like just about every navigation system it doesn't always give you the best route but it does get you there. The recalculations are quick and it's quick to pick up a sat signal. The touch screen works very well and the buttons are large enough for most finger tips. The predictive typing feature works quite well too so you don't have to type in an entire city or street name.

Check out the pics. You can also see my new chrome gauge rings. Note also the absence of airbag warnings stickers. That was one of my very first mods.

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