Customer Reviews

Garmin nüvi 270 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(202)
4 star:		(105)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The Garmin GPS was a godsend on our trip to Europe. If you have ever driven into cities or small towns in Europe you will know how difficult it is to navigate, while trying to read foreign street signs, dodging motor scooters and bicylists, finding the right exit out of a around-about all the while being pushed along by the very aggressive drivers behind you. But with the GPS most of that stress goes away as you know when and where to turn and you drive through towns like a native. I was very impressed that even going through the miles long tunnels of the alps the GPS must be programmed to keep the unit tracking without a satellite signal because several minutes later coming out of the tunnel it still provides instructions. I purchased the pricier model 270 because of the factory installed European maps. If you purchased a GPS with only North America maps and had to load the European maps the cost of those maps would be another $250. It's less money to get the 270 or 370 with maps already loaded. The windshield mounting is excellent and worked well in the rental car. The Nuvi series GPS is convenient enough in size to be carried in the pocket for walking around the cities. But it does not work as well for pedestrian purposes because it cannot keep bearings well as you tend to rotate the device and it looses it sense of direction. I read all the reviews on GPS's and chose the Garmin because of it's higher ratings for search engine, ease of use and maps. You will immediately become an expert user even without reading instructions with this device. It is literally that easy to use.

I retired a couple years ago as a commercial pilot who dealt with GPS's on a daily basis and have a factory installed unit in my Acura TL.

I bought this unit to use as a pedestrian sight-seeing in France and Switzerland. This review is only my experience trying to use the Garmin Nuvi 270 as a pedestrian in European cities. I make no supposition how it would work in a car in the USA nor in a car through the narrow streets of Europe or as a pedestrian in US cities..

The Garmin Nuvi 270 has a pedestrian mode and is pre-loaded with maps of Europe. At slightly over $300 the unit was very appealing so I bought one for my trip in May 2008.

The Good:

1. The touch screen is very responsive
2. The screen is very clear and bright.
3. 3.5 inch screen, in my view, is the perfect pedestrian size.
4. The database used is good by today's standards.
5. Physically the 270, in my opinion, is the correct size for walking.

The Bad:

1. The first bad feature and by far the overriding issue is the Nuvi 270's inability to acquire satellites in European cities . (Without Satlilite communication the Nuvi 270 is not able to navigate.) I read all the reviews posted on Amazon and elsewhere, although many mentioned this issue, none seemed to adequately drive this point home enough for me not to buy it. On our day trip to Strasbourg, France, I held the unit out at ½ arms length for 1 1/2 hours while walking and saw only two screens, `Acquiring satellites' or `unable to acquire Satellites do you want to continue'. The unit never ever acquired enough Satellites in Strasburg to even show where we were, let alone navigate. I even stood on a round-about in the middle of a busy intersection for 20 minutes hoping it would acquire enough Satellites to be functional....it did not! I cannot over stress this enough....it was useless in Paris, where it would acquire for a short time and then lose them during the walk, in Geneva where it acquired them on the lake, but lost them in town. In Marseilles where it acquired them going to an island but quickly lost them in town.
2. Once acquired, satellite retention is very poor. Sometimes aircraft GPS', as well as my Acura will take a couple minutes to acquire satellites, particularly if the unit has been moved while turned off, but once satellites are acquired they seldom lose reception, if ever unless you drive through a tunnel. The Garmin Nuvi 270, on the other hand, readily loses reception.
3. There is no Operating manual available for the Garmin Nuvi 270 either in the box or on the web. Only 11 quick start booklets in 11 languages.
4. Once you have looked for a destination it now resides in Recently found places, but cannot be deleted unless all destinations are deleted. If there is a way I couldn't figure it out as there is no manual.
5. When charging, the unit says it is charging but never tells you when it is fully charged. I let it charge for over 24 hours and it continued to display, `charging'..
6. The unit has a segmented bar that let's you know how much battery charge is left, but Garmin obviously hasn't figured out how to correlate that to time. A total of 5 bars, one would think 2 bars would indicate 40% left. WRONG, 2 bars generally meant less than 20 minutes left of usage.
7. Does not use changeable batteries, so if you're away from your hotel, walking, you can't put fresh batteries in; coupled with not having any real clue how much charge you have left on the permanently installed battery, leads to a problem. (How much do I conserve, how much charge is left in real time, etc.)
8. You can't plan your trip unless you are there. For example: If I'm in the USA and I want to see what attractions are located around the hotel I plan to stay in in Paris, the unit will not do it. It will only show me the attractions located close to where the unit physically is at that point. (Assuming you can get reception).
9. The current satellite reception strength indicator is not visible on the map screen.
10. When walking, in pedestrian mode, you have two choices for screen orientation. One allows the map to orient in the direction you are walking, the other North remains at the top of the screen. For the short time my 270 was able to retain satellites, I tried both. The unit's computing speed coupled with current satellite available accuracy makes the mode where the screen orients in the direction you are walking near useless. The screen near continually `hunts' for correct orientation. (Perhaps when the next generation satellites are all up and SA has been removed completely, this mode will work) Best to leave it on North at the top although I could not fully evaluate this in Paris because I never had constant satellite reception long enough.
11. The screen is easily washed out by bright sunlight.
12. No place exists on the unit to attach a lanyard; this is a problem in that the unit's case is very smooth and can slide out of your hand easily.

All in all the unit is the right size for a pedestrian with a nice touch screen, but falls unacceptably short in Satellite reception capabilities and battery longevity (3-4 hours) given the batteries can't be changed. Assuming it found a few satellites where are you going to charge it during a 10 hour walking tour, or a hike, or a bike ride?

1/18/2008: This review was once one of the most helpful negative reviews. It now no longer lists if anyone found it helpful and is buried deep.....is Amazon manipulating reviews?

2/1/2009: After writing to Amazon and asking them why my voting disappeared, the numbers are back up....Amazon claims a software glitch.

I bought the Nuvi 270 for my 24 day trip to Italy. The unit is very user friendly for menus and visibilty. We used our Garmin in coordination with a TomTom 910 and our unit out mapped the TomTom every time. The mapping is great and points of interest are good, but rememeber that Italian locations are not always translated the same IE; "leaning tower of Pisa" is actually "tower pendentta. The other thing you never want to do is hit "shortest route" when in Italy!!! You will end up driving curvy mountain roads and maybe end up on a goat trail. We almost trippled our trip time by doing this one evening. So to end this, I highly recommend this unit if you are going to Europe and keep it when you come home, cause it has even better use on the US roads.

I own a Magellan Meridian Color GPS. I wrote a very negative review for this unit. It was a poor unit in its use of technology that existed at the time I bought it . Maps were inaccurate, incomplete and very restricted. Loading them to the GPS was a nightmare. Garmin Nuvi 270 is like a night and day different. It is very intuitive and in every respect near perfect. I travel a lot in Europe. I have been looking for a GPS I could buy here with European maps as well as US/Canada maps installed. I considered Tom Tom 910, but reviews I read discouraged me from buying one. G 270 is a basic unit that seems to do everything it is supposed to do well. It has a bright screen and sensitive reception. I love this unit. Having said all those nice things, I am disappointed that only charging capability that came with it is a car charger. I use my GPS in Europe for days without getting into my car. I quickly rectified this problem by ordering an AC charger at about $30 including shipping. If you need a GPS only for Europe, Garmin Nuvi 250 can be purchased in EU for 299 Euro. When you get your VAT back, it would be about $350. I opted to get 270 for another $110 to cover both sides of the pond. I have no regrets.

I bought the Nuvi 270 in anticipation of using it during a trip to Europe. I did extensive research comparing the major brands. I also considered TomTom, but their maps for Europe were less comprehensive than the Nuvi and the Nuvi had newer technology and maps. Reviews for the Nuvi were excellent at all tech sites, as well.

I initially used it in the states and was impressed by its design, display and compact size. Excellent verbal directions, sound and visibility in the car. Good access to settings and easy to customize (would like more options for voice and icons, though). Good battery life. Easily obtained 6-8 hours of use with display set at 30%. There are a few quirks in the interface. For instance, I find it hard to browse a town when you are not in the town itself. POI database is nice but not comprehensive. Sometimes difficult to find historical landmarks. Very impressed with accuracy and ease of use in the car. Had some "drift" initially when stationary but this was improved by downloading latest software upgrade. Overall, I was not pleased with difficulty determining which way I was facing when at stand still. Sometimes the database amazed me with the obscure places it could find. Other times I was amazed at points not available in the database.

First tested the unit on the airplane over the atlantic. It showed position and speed if I held the unit against the window. Arrived in Barcelona and had significant difficulties obtaining good satellite signal, even when near a large window. This problem was especially pronounced during start up, requiring me to leave the unit on a lot to maintain contact with satellites. Signal reception was also poor when walking the streets. Streets and alleys in Europe are much more narrow than US. This problem plagued me from Spain to Italy, France, Greece, Croatia. Accuracy especially erratic in Greece.

Overall, I was disappointed in the unit while in Europe. Poor reception (extremely frustrating), difficulty determining heading while walking slowly or standing, difficulty with searches and POI.

I will still keep the unit because it is great in the states and it is a quality product. Hand-held GPS still has a long way to go before they are practical for use outside US and for walking tours. Garmin is the industry leader as far as I am concerned. They market this as a "personal travel assistant". I think it fell short in Europe.

The reception seemed to suffer after I downloaded the software upgrade. Maybe I just got a weak unit. Having a harder time obtaining signal at start up. Signal seems to be stronger in US in general. Quality hardware, though. You really don't need a higher end Garmin unit for use in the states. The 200 series is great and should be enough for most users.

My Nuvi 270 arrived two days ago, and after a few minutes to locating satellites, the unit found my location and in all later driving followed my routes faithfully. The POIs are accurate, and reasonably up to date although resturants, gas stations, and hotels have changed names although not locations. The routing to destinations seems good with my limited experience although the estimated mileage to destinations I have visited often seems underestimated.

I purchased the Nuvi 270 unit (my first GPS) for upcoming trips to Midwest USA, England, and Northern Europe. I anticipate that it will perform well with mapping and directing my movements in these regions.

But I suspect that the unit has many additional capabilities that I have not been able to learn because the "manual" for the unit is a joke. Where is a full guide for users who want to fully use the Nuvi 270's features? This lack of documentation is the primary reason that I give the Nuvi 270 only three stars instead of 5.

Presently I would like to learn how simulate directions from a location different from the present location of my unit. For example how can I sit in California and find the driving directions from Bloomsbury in London to Oxford. How can I display a map of my likely destinations? (I find that "sliding" the map with my finger, will bring me to London. But I can not then zoom in without the map display changing back to my home.) Without better information I guess I will have to wait until I arrive in England.

Another issue where better documentation might help is in the use of the picture viewer. This is a rather nice feature, and a fairly large number of pictures on a SD card can be displayed in a slide show. The show can be stopped at a particular slide, and the image can be enlarged and "slided" to regions of interest. However with a large number of pictures (arranged in directories on the SD card), I can not figure out how to view efficiently a picture far down the list of files. The Nuvi 270 appears to not allow the user to use the directory structure for images, but rather just presents a long list of pictures that take a long time to sequentially display and provide only a slide show with all of the pictures. What is a user supposed to do: buy many SD cards with different sets of pictures?

I am very happy with the unit, and in no way do I regret my purchase. However with more attention must be made to users who want to get maximum benefit from their investment.

This is my third Garmin GPS. The other unit I use is the Streetpilot 2610. Compared to the 2610, the Nuvi is more simple but it does the job quite well. The display is a little small but definitely readable. The unit is a little more primitive than the more costly Streetpilot (has less software features and programmability) but, I didn't want to pay for the extra MP3, bluetooth stuff that is in the 300 series. The navigation engine in the Nuvi is as good or slightly improved from the Streetpilot. When I have both GPS's side by side and select a waypoint 30 or 40 miles away, the Nuvi picks a better route most of the time. I also liked the window suction cup adapter for the Nuvi. It is well designed and does a good job holding the Nuvi steady.

I have a few complaints that are small but noticeable. First, there was almost NO documentation with the unit. There were little pamphlets for about 10 different languages with very minimal info but it left a lot of questions unanswered. I suppose Garmin decided that the "hunt and peck" method of figuring out the Nuvi would suffice :( I can't seem to find in the Nuvi 270 menus how to disable rerouting. I also would like some more info on the 3D map page such as total distance to go. That information is available but you have to go to another page. And, the voice prompts on the Nuvi are surprisingly poor in quality. It sounds like the voice is talking out of a 10 cent can.

Other than those issues, I am very happy with the features and compact size of the Nuvi. It should make our trip to Germany and France much easier to navigate. One last comment. I give Garmin 5+ stars for keeping the data formats from all of their products compatible. I downloaded my waypoints from my Streetpilot to my Nuvi without any problems and the Garmin Web updater saw the Nuvi and quickly brought it up to current revisions.

Used this on a trip to southern Ireland. Only Garmin seems to have current maps of Ireland so it was hobson's choice.

Overall worked fine. Ireland is under major construction so it's helpful to have looked at a map before going someplace. Found several cases where the roads no longer existed or the new Nx freeway was formerly a field of stones on the map, but overall worked good.

Major flaw was the system can't tell the Irish difference between an N road (freeway of sorts) an R road (probably means a real road) and everything else, (cow path with or without cows). It routes by what it thinks the shortest path is, which may be the longest time wise. In some GPS systems, there's a SELECT freeway option. In Ireland, it would have been wonderful if there was NEVER SELECT cow path option. It may be that competition like Tom Tom which doesn't have cow paths actually gets you there faster. I would gladly take an N road for 4 times the distance and arrive in half the time of an optimally routed cow path.

There is a new slogan in ireland. Give the Gift of Life. Get a Doner Card. Then drive at the posted speed limit. Garmin calculates trip times at the posted speed limit. If you plan on donating body parts, you too will drive at the posted speed limit. Over two weeks the average trip time was what Garmin calculated plus 45 minutes, whether the distance was 10 kilometers or 200 kilometers. Just add 45.

The more expensive Garmins will pronounce road names instead of turns. In Ireland, that's probably a very bad idea. Let's say you're on the N9 coming up to a round about. The 270 will say, "enter round about and take the 2nd exit". If you actually pronounced the roads it might have said "enter round about and take the o'Hagerty cow path on the left" Road names change every 50 meters or so. Plus, they're only identified on the map. Look for a street sign and you'll die of old age going round and round the roundabout.

System never got lost. Always got us to our destination.

Compared to U.S. destinations Ireland destinations were about 50% present by name, 25% findable under a different name, or otherwise findable by selecting a pub in a nearby town. For Galway, finding the nearest grocery store might take you to Dublin, so some of the features weren't real for Ireland.

Half the time, I thought the unit was trying to get me to die in traffic. Half the time, I thought it was a life saver. Probably more about Irish roads than GPS features.

Net net, study the map before you go so you know if you should be on an N or R road instead of the cow path. Otherwise, it will get you there, somehow.

The Nuvi270 is a small bit of a disappointment. In a recent trip to Europe, the only reason I pruchased the 270, it was able to find all addresses but did not know about more recent changes to the street map. In Prague, it kept insisting on bringing me to the same left turn that was no longer allowed since an ad hoc square was put in that place for the last 6 months. It could not find another way of getting me to my hotel. I was able to get to within 1 block of my destination and had to park and find out how to enter the street. It also had a tendency in Innsbruck to take me down remarkably narrow streets when I missed a turn, one of which dead ended requiring some backing up in very narrow quarters. Finally as mentioned in other reviews, it takes a long time to acquire satellites. IN europe, it may take 5-10 minutes to get acquisition which in some cases means you may already be going the wrong way. I now pre-program the address while in the airport and let the acquisition program run.

UPDATE:
I have been using the 270 for the last 5 weeks and am starting to understand its quirks. I have found that in Europe, while it continues to take a fair amount of time for sat. acquisition, this only occurs when it is not under the car's battery power. I find that acquisition time is about 2-4 minutes when plugged in and on the car's windshield. On a trip from Munich to Milan, I was able to have dueling GPS in that the car I rented had a DVD system and I was able to compare the two units. The Garmin faired well. It was able to take me to the hotel and then office address number where the car's GPS only take me to the street. The Garmin wanted me to do an illegal left turn in Milan, but quickly recalculated the route as I kept going straight. It continues to occasionaly take me down a route that puzzles me in that while it is shorter in distance, takes longer than if I stayed on the Autobahn. I confirmed my settings are for fastest route. I would say that I would probably opt for the Nuvi 370 if I were to do it again. Primarily for the satellite acquisition time. I have an 360 and noticed that it conistently finds satellites faster than the 270 when I am in the states.

I used the Nuvi 270 in Nantucket in August and September and in Provence and Paris in October. It guided us to addresses and to "points of interest" in both places with visual and oral directions. In France, passengers in our rental car were impressed and plan to buy one. It guided us on one-lane roads in Provence and got us to our destination every time. It's database was great offering phone numbers for golf courses, restaurants, etc.

The system for attaching and detaching it from a rental car windshield is terrific. The cigarette lighter plug set up is great. When you turn off the engine (and thereby power down the plug), the Nuvi 270 turns off and when you start up again it comes on. No human intervention needed.

Having a voice that told us in English to take the "2nd exit at the roundabout" and displayed the same info at the top of the screen, also in English, as we were driving through France, made our trip much pleasanter.

A winner from Garmin.