Reviews

It took a week and a half for it to show up. The tracking # showed it having arrived but it didn't show up for another three days. When it did arrive it was the wrong item. Got an RMA real quick.

Bought this map for my Colorado 300. Installation was relatively easy - hardest part was getting the computer to recognize the GPS and the SD card (treats as two separate drives). Once there, downloading into the GPS was easy although it took almost two hours to load the entire map (1.09GB), which amounted to about a tranfer rate of about 165 kB/s; not good at all for USB. However, once downloaded into the GPS and powering it up, the map came up a soon as the GPS got the location; no adjustments were needed. Map is very well detailed and has most of the key points of interest (food, gas, shopping, parks, etc.). Is very easy to use. Does a reasonbly good job of getting you from point A to B, but if you want to avoid a route(s) or add in-between stops, plan to the route on the computer first using MapSource (must buy the DVD version to get this), then download into the GPS. You will not need to buy this product (North America City Navigator) if you have a Nuvi. In spite of minor glitches (few missing POIs and very few outdated names), I have no regrets buying the product. POIs (waypoints) can be added into the GPS and MapSource.

After reading the reviews, I knew the installation process was going to be lengthy. Okay, I got that. What I couldn't stand was they had absolutely no tutorial for the product. I consider myself to be somewhat savvy when it comes to figuring out how to work programs, but this was ridiculous. It took hours just to figure out the basics. Maybe they expect you to have already purchased their maps before. Once I have figured out how to navigate my way through the basics, yes they give good directions and are accurate. It's just hard to get past the fact that they told tell you how to use it.

As finicky to unlock as previous reviewers have mentioned. I've owned this product fo about a year and get frustrated every time I need to load the interface onto a new PC. So far I've used Apple, Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 OS. Each time the unlocking process is frustrating. Installing on the Apple was the easiest. It didn't matter if IE or Mozilla was used as a browser. It didn't matter if I knew my key or used their 'find your key' interface. Even having the correct key produced random results. The Garmin unlock would not work even though it was deemed 'successful' When you go back to the program even after rebooting your PC--the map would still say that it was locked. The only thing that seemed to work was to keep trying and eventually, the unlock would take. Anther frustration with this product, is that I have yet to be able to register it on their website. I have the other Garmin Maps I own registered. But the closest product choice available on their site is this map software in the SD version. This means that I have not been able to upgrade it properly. My attempts to correspond with Garmin were also very frustrating. The map itself worked fine on my eTrex Vista HCx. So no problems with that. One thing I hate in general, is that while I own both the city navigator, topo, and lakes maps, There is no overlay feature (you can't combine maps). On the water I can get only very basic information as to what lies off shore. If I want to know that information, I have to switch out the microSD card containing the lake map with the one storing the 'city navigator map'. And speaking of Maps--be sure to back up your favorite maps. You cannot add to a map. Beware of accidently 'sending' map information to your GPS. You can add waypoints, routes, etc. to what is loaded on your GPS but if you send map information, it will overwrite the one on the GPS.

I like Gramin products very much. Have two GPS's and paid good money for them. I bought this map and I was able to use it with only one GPS. Was planning to update my other GPS but Garmin does not allow its use with more than one, and charges full price to update the other unit. I understand limiting the use but, if you own several GPS you should be able to use your DVD map to update your units.