Garmin nüvi 260 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Other products by Garmin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.8 x 2.8 x 0.8 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000UU7ZPS
• Item model number: Nuvi 260
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (538 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  #6 in	Electronics > Car Electronics > Vehicle GPS > Portable Vehicle GPS
  #8 in	Electronics > GPS & Navigation

• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 1, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
Garmin's nüvi 260 combines the thinprofile and attractive price point of other nüvi 200-series GPS with directions in real street names. As with all nüvis, you get Garmin reliability, the fast satellite lock of a high-sensitivity integrated receiver, a slim, pocket-sized navigator with a gorgeous display, detailed NAVTEQ maps that lets you search by name for more than 6 million points of interest like stores, restaurants or hospitals, and an easy, intuitive interface.

Which nüvi is Best for You?: Click here to see a quick, simple comparison of features for all Garmin nuvi GPS navigators.

The nüvi 260 comes preloaded with maps for U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and features an ultra-slim design.

Text-To-Speech
The text-to-speech feature of the nüvi 260 means that device automatically calls out street names (saying "turn right on Main Street" instead of "turn right in 200 feet."). This feature lets drivers keep their eyes on the road while navigating through busy traffic and tricky roadways.

Smart, Powerful Design
The nüvi 260W is built with a high-sensitivity GPS receiver for extreme accuracy, as well as an SD card slot for storing your media and additional navigation tools, and a USB interface for loading data. All this is wrapped up in a package that measures 4.8 x 2.9 x 0.8 inches (W x H x D) and weighs just 6.6 ounces. The nüvi display is touchscreen-enabled, making it a cinch to control the device with your fingertips. A rechargeable lithium-ion battery provides up to five hours of battery life depending on use.

Garmin Lock
Garmin's patent pending theft prevention system that disables the unit from performing any functions until the user types in a specific 4-digit PIN or takes the unit to a predetermined secure location

Navigate with Ease
The nüvi 260 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty POI database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with 2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. In addition, the nüvi 260 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs.

Important note about map updates: Due to our high volume of sales, almost every Garmin portable GPS navigator sold by Amazon.com will come with the most recent map version. If you ever do need a map update, you can purchase one from Amazon.com at our Garmin Store.

Easy To Use Interface
Garmin's interface is a key to their success and one of the things that makes their devices such a pleasure to use. Simple controls and sub-screens make it easy to enter or search for destinations and get data about your trip.

Beyond Navigation

Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 260 features travel tools including JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more. It also comes with Garmin Lock, an anti-theft feature, and configurable vehicle icons that let you select car-shaped graphics to show your location on the map. This device is compatible with optional content plug-ins available via SD card, such as the Garmin Travel Guides and Garmin SaversGuide provide detailed data for attractions and information on nearby merchants offering discounts, so you can customize nüvi for your travel needs. Garmin has also added the ability for customers to add custom points of interest (POI’s) from third parties such as school zones and safety cameras.

Browse your stored pictures with an easy-to-use JPEG viewer.

nüvi 260W accepts custom points of interest (POIs). View larger.

Trick Your GPS Ride

Custom vehicle icons let you ride in style, at least inside your GPS. See more icon option

Like all nüvis, the 260 supports configurable vehicle icons. These fun, customized car-shaped icons come in a variety of colors to add a personal touch to your vehicle's position on the map.

What's in the Box
nüvi 260, preloaded City Navigator NT for the continental U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, Alaska, and Canada, vehicle suction cup mount, vehicle power cable, dashboard disk, and set up and go guide.

Note: Like most USB Mass Storage Devices, the nüvi is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.

Which nüvi is Best for You?

Note: All nüvis come with detailed NAVTEQ maps containing more than 6 million pre-loaded point of interest locations.

	Screen Size inches (w x h)	Included Maps			Text-to-Speech (Directions in Real Street Names)	Traffic	Bluetooth	Media	FM Transmitter (audio through car stereo system)	Multi- Point Routing	Battery life (hours)
		Cont. U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico	AK and Canada	Europe
nüvi 200	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 200w	3.81 x 2.25							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 250	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 250w	3.81 x 2.25							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 260	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 260w	3.81 x 2.25							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 270	2.8 x 2.1							Photos			up to 5
nüvi 350	2.8 x 2.1					FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 8
nüvi 360	2.8 x 2.1					FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 8
nüvi 370	2.8 x 2.1					FM (receiver included)		Photos, MP3s			up to 8
nüvi 650	3.81 x 2.25					FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 660	3.81 x 2.25					FM (receiver included)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 670	3.81 x 2.25					FM (receiver included)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 680	3.81 x 2.25					MSN (receiver included; 1-year free); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 7
nüvi 750	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 760	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 770	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 780	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (receiver inc.; 3 months free) receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 5
nüvi 850	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 4
nüvi 880	3.81 x 2.25					MSN-enhanced (receiver inc.; 3 months free); FM (with opt. receiver)		Photos, MP3s			up to 4
nüvi 5000	4.5 x 2.7					MSN-enhanced (with optional receiver); FM (with opt. receiver)					external battery only

Product Description
GARMIN Nuvi 260 Auto Navigation. Garmin International is pleased to announce the nuvi 260. In addition to the features found in the nuvi 250, the nuvi 260 will provide turn by turn directions with spoken street names. The text to speech feature prompts you to Turn right on Main St instead of Turn right in 500 feet. The nuvi 260 offers full coverage mapping for the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The preloaded map data features nearly six million points of interest, including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, and attractions. The map data is provided by NAVTEQ, a world leader in premium quality mapping.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

693 of 695 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great. It's just what you need in a portable GPS unit. No useless features., September 7, 2007

By	Writesoon (NJ) - See all my reviews

The Nuvi 260 is a Nuvi 250 with the addition of text-to-speech (speaks actual names). Other than the text-to-speech (TTS) feature, the units are identical in appearance and operation.

Why did I buy this?
1)Many GPS models have features not needed for navigating (such as an MP3 player or Bluetooth). The 260 only has what I really think is necessary in a portable GPS. It's sleek (fits comfortably in your pocket), easily transportable, has preloaded maps with a tremendous database, and a fast processor which calculates and recalculates routes in seconds. Eliminating unnecessary features reduces the cost, plus makes it easier to use.

2)The touchscreen interface in the Nuvi 260 is so intuitive, many people can skip the short instruction book altogether. Ten minutes of just "playing around with the unit" after taking it out of the box is all you will need to be navigating. That's the mark of a great design.

3)Unlike the flip-up antenna found in Garmin's 300 series, the 200 series has an internal antenna...a big plus. (One less thing to break.) In addition, the screen in the 200 series units is significantly brighter and sharper than Garmin's older 300 series.

4)Speaking street names is a tremendous asset. Units that don't have TTS only say "In 500 feet exit right". That forces you to glance at the screen to see what street/exit/etc you need to navigate to. A unit with TTS says " In 500 feet take exit 52, on right, to Route 80 West". You keep your eyes on the road with this feature. So besides the convenience, TTS is a safety feature that is worth the extra dollars.

What do I dislike about the Nuvi 260?
1)I am not a fan of the windshield suction mount. In many reviews people have said that the mount is not reliable in the long term. It randomly falls off (this happened to me a few times). On a hot day the suction cup can soften and is reluctant to come off at all, or it leaves a telltale ring on the windshield. That's not good. (As an aside, there has been a significant increase in the thefts of portable GPS devices from cars...even when the devices were not in plain view. Police have stated that thieves assumed there was a GPS unit hidden in the car if a residual ring from the suction cup was seen on the windshield.) Save yourself from the inevitable and buy the beanbag dash mount.
2) The information in the database and maps can be a few years old. This problem is seen in ALL brands of GPS units, not just Garmin. There are millions of points of interest and roads to keep track of. It changes by the day. By the time the final product makes it to market, some of it is already outdated. But, for over 99% of the time, it is correct and it finds what I looking for. Until the manufacturers figure out a way to update their databases and maps in real time, this is what we have.

Once you think about what the really important features are in a portable GPS unit, you will realize that the Garmin Nuvi 260 is a wise choice.

223 of 224 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a light and excellent unit for GPS, November 21, 2007

By	CPTERM (DC,USA) - See all my reviews

I would say there is no perfect GPS unit in the market, but this definitely is one of the best.

If you were a nuvi owner like me, a previous owner of a nuvi 350 GPS, you will know that nuvi is very easy to operate. You do not need any thick manual to study how to use the unit, just get it out the box, turn it on, and play it around, then you are ready to go. This is a nuvi, so, yes, it is easy to use. As a trade off, some advanced routing functions are not included in this unit, for example, you can not add many via points to one route.

Basically, Nuvi 260 is a Nuvi 250 with Text to Speech, so even you can not find many reviews for Nuvi 260, actually you can just search those for Nuvi 200 or 250. Nuvi 260 is also a nuvi 350 after some weight loss which means some functions such as MP3 player will miss in this unit. The box comes with the unit contains less accessories than the one for 350 too. You will not have USB cable,leather case, and AC charger. However, in other hand, the 260 has more improvement. What I like most is the screen brightness which is really fantastic compared to the nuvi350. It is highly readable even directly under the sun light. The view angle of this screen is also much wider than that of the 350. Both the driver and the front seat passenger can read the screen easily if you place the unit in the middle. While my experience with 350 is that you need adjust the unit to a right angle so that the reflection from the screen will not bother the driver from reading the screen. Another sweet part is the internal antenna which makes the unit more sleek than the 350.

The mount is still easy to assemble, easy to adjust, compact. Unfortunately Garmin changed the mount slightly from the design of 350.For the nuvi 350 the power cord connects to the mount and then the mount feeds power to the Nuvi, but in the 260, the power cord connects directly to the device. So in order to disassemble your 260, you need disconnect both the power cable and the mount which is not as convenient as the case for 350.

My unit has a Bravo sensor instead of the SIRF III sensor in 350. Both are boasted as the high sensitivity sensor. After testing it for several trips and in my home. I found that the Bravo has better signal receipt ability than the SIRF III. I can easily get full bars signal before my computer desk with Bravo, but with 350, I can only receive signal near to the window. Somehow I feel that the SIRF III has better accuracy although the difference is subtle. Like I said, no GPS is perfect, so neither does the sensor.

Overall, I like the 260 very much. Garmin has the best navigation engine and algorithm in the industry, so you do not need doubt its navigation performance at all. Furthermore, this is the cheapest Garmin nuvi with text to speech. If you like Text to speech and do not need other fancy functions like bluetooth, mp3 etc, this one is definitely the best choice for you. Otherwise, if you do not care the text to speech function, you may consider nuvi 250 or nuvi 200(no Canada map) which are cheaper.

Updated(Dec. 8,2007)
For those who do not like the window mount, I strongly suggest you check out this friction mount:
http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Portable-Friction-StreetPilot-010-10908-00/dp/B000LRMS66
I purchased it with my nuvi 260 and it works great!

76 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't Go Wrong WIth This Unit., September 18, 2007

By	ItsNeverMe (USA) - See all my reviews

Never thought I'd buy I GPS unit but what the heck, the prices are dropping and I'm a gadget geek.

So I get this unit, hook it up, and all is good!

The voice is a bit robotic but that's what I expected and I suspect other GPS units are the same. Certain words/letters (street names) are not clearly annunciated given the limit of the robot voice but it's good enough. If a certain street name is not spoken clearly and you're not sure what it just spoke all you need to do is take a quick glance at the green bar at the top of the screen and it's all spelled out for you...not a problem at all.

I love this thing!