Customer Reviews

Garmin Map Update 2009 for City Navigator North America NT

5 star:		(98)
4 star:		(71)
3 star:		(52)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

I bought my CD last week and have been visiting popular as well as remote places to see if anything's changed. For anyone who has to deal with space constraints and such (me, for example), the mapping data is about 1.4GB. Installation does take some time, presumably due to the increase in mapping data and time required to build increasingly diverse index files.
Sadly, NT2009 does not seem to be as big an update from 2008 as the latter was from NT8. There are quite a few major/popular POIs (like banks and restaurants) that are still not present. In fact, there is a BoA branch that's suddenly changed location in the '09 database. Over the past couple of years, there have been a couple of exit changes on I-84 but none of them are reflected in here. There are a couple of streets near my gf's house that were renamed a few years ago but have still not found their way into the Garmin DB (haven't checked NAVTEQ though). At the risk of belaboring my point, I'll stop right here. :)
YMMV though as many friends, relatives and members on online discussion forums have found solace with NT2009 in places such as FL and AZ. I will be in GA/ATL all through May and shall update this review in a couple of weeks.

Overall, if you're eligible for a free update, go for it. However, if you live in the N.E. and have to shell out $55-odd, I think your money is better spent elsewhere, assuming you have NT2008 already.

P.S.: If you have an older system (like the c3xx), you can fit the entire mapping data on an SD card. If you have a 1GB or smaller card, select the areas you most want via MapSource. For example, removing PR and Hawaii easily saves 70-odd MBs.

Edited on 05/28/08:
After spending a few weeks traveling through GA and NC, I can't find any location that isn't mapped in the latest version. One or two gas stations in the ATL suburbs (Alpharetta to be more precise) show up on the opposite side of the street (maybe it's bad interpretation logic in Garmin's hardware and has nothing to do with cartographic data) but hey, at least they aren't completely absent! Overall, the south-eastern U.S. seems better covered as compared to the north-east.

I have a different perspective on this Garmin 2009 North American Map Update than the other reviews I have seen thus far. My wife and I have a Garmin Street Pilot 2720 that we purchased in 2005 and we love it. We started to consider getting a map update about 6 months ago, not because we were having any particular problem with getting around on our rather frequent road trips, but because we thought that the newer version would be a little more accurate and have some other features that our old 2005 Maps did not. Honestly, the only issues we had with using our 2005 Map was an occasional street that was not recognized or a restaurant or gas station that was no longer at the location cited on the Street Pilot...again, the Garmin always got us back on track and to our destinations. We drove from Omaha, NE to Albuquerque, NM and back only last year with no problems whatsoever (even with all the new construction going on in Albuquerque the last few years)...and we spent a week driving all around Albuquerque and the surrounding areas.

Anyway, we decided to get some updated maps as it has been about 4 years. We then found out that Garmin discontinued the Street Pilot 2720 from production. This had us a little worried. I e-mailed the Garmin technical support and they assured us that the 2009 Maps would be compatible with our device. So I purchased the disc for about 8 bucks less on Amazon than from the Garmin site (I decided to go with the disc purchase option instead of risking downloading the huge program from the Garmin website to my computer).

The install of the disc maps to the computer and then to the Street Pilot 2720 was a breeze (though I had to install the original drivers from the Street Pilot 2720 to the computer as I had never bothered to check for any updates to the Street Pilot). The whole process took about 90 minutes. I was feeling pretty good.

The next day we took the Street Pilot 2720 out and drove around Omaha for awhile to see if some of the newer construction and roads were included on the 2009 Map update...they were all there (Qwest Arena and Convention Center, Some new roads, etc). The problem was that the audio/voice feature was not working. When we clicked 'speak' on the Street Pilot we got a message that said "Incompatible Audio Version'. We were NOT happy.

I went back to the Garmin website and checked for any updates to the Street Pilot 2720 and downloaded some additional audio voices from the website to the device. Though the Garmin website did not cite any updates for the American Voice (Jill) I downloaded it anyway along with a couple others (British male and female and Australian accent). When we went back out with the Street Pilot 2720, the audio features worked great with turn by turn instructions, etc. I do not know if this was my problem for not updating the Street Pilot 2720 sooner or a 'glitch' with the new Maps 2009 program for the 2720...either way I am glad that all is working well.

Things we like about the updated 2009 maps (realizing again that we are comparing to 2005 maps that were loaded on the Street Pilot 2720 when we bought it in 2005 and not to more recent versions):
1. There are more points of interest (it appears) in this version, including grocery stores, restaurants, museums, hospitals, everything...a lot more items seem to appear with you search for these than I recall on the older 2005 Maps version.
2. The maps are updated with newer streets (duh) cited---again, the only real reason to get this update anyway.
3. There are alternate voice features (different accents, etc). This does not seem to be particular to the 2009 maps, but we wanted to mention it anyway. The American voice (Jill) is a little 'harpy' and we found the British voices much more appealing...it just seems when Jill says 'recalculating' she seems quite irritated with you.
4. I think some of the icons have been changed, for example the museums and perhaps some other icons.
5. Still seems quite fast with calculating routes and getting you back on track if you alter from the planned route.

Overall we are very pleased with the product. Recognize that I am comparing the 2009 version to my rather old 2005 maps, however, so if you are considering updating from 2008 to 2009, you may want to check out other reviews. I am also quite happy (with the exception of the above-noted audio issue) with the 2009 Maps Update and how it works with the Street Pilot 2720.

It's not mentioned anywhere in the instructions, but this update will wipe out ALL data stored on your GPS. It would have been nice if they had let you know so you could at least write down your stored addresses, etc.

I've had the Nuvi 660 since it came out back in 2006 and finally got around to updating the maps with this release. The hotels that were not in my old version are still not in it including the Hampton Inn Camden Yards. Restaurants in Charlotte, NC that have been there since 2006 are not in there. I haven't yet seen a difference yet.

Unfortunately for me I bought my update strait from the Garmin web site and it cost me 69.99! (I thought the early bird got the worm not got ripped off.) They STILL have not moved two local schools that were built in SE Michigan and opened for business 5 years ago. And I did as they said and have reported those changes to NAVTEQ [...] where they say they get a lot of their information. I searched on the Upper Peninsula and there are more POI's but still a lot missing from the Lake Gogebic area.
I tell you, we use to use the Street Atlas programs from Delorme on our lap top with a GPS adaptor...the last version we had gotten was Street Atlas 2005 and it seemed to be a lot more reliable. Although I really like my NUVI 360, I don't feel Garmin really cares about the quality of their mapping product or the dissatisfaction of their customers. I think this product was rushed out before it was ready.

Garmin uses the maps from Navteq. They are very good, among the best digital maps available. This years map is better than last years map, but only marginally so. And the POIs (Points of Interest) have been updated, too, but don't be surprised when you try to find a Wendy's Restaurant listed and find it was closed 12 months ago. It happens, not frequently, but it happens.

New streets, even those that opened a year ago, may not have been added. That is the nature of the Map business. They can only work on certain areas of the map, and they may have not been able to get around to the road change in the area in which you are traveling. But many of the new streets have been added.

All in all, this is a better map than last years, which was a better map than the one the year before, which was a better map ... well, you get the idea.

If you need as accurate a map as possible for your Garmin, get this one. And if the map in your Garmin is more than couple of years old, get this one. But you may not need or want to upgrade from your 2008 map ... wait a year or two. Besides, you may decide to purchase a new GPS with better features 6 months from now.

I've rated this 5 stars because it is that good compared to other digital maps on other GPS systems. But it is not perfect, and you may not need it.

By the way, while the installation is not difficult, it takes an hour or two to actually install, so be prepared. Don't expect to start installation and be on the road with it 10 minutes after you start. It ain't gonna happen.

We purchased this update for our Nuvi 360 primarly because it was missing many local points of interest, such as gas stations and restaurants. The good news is that this update has many of the missing points of interest in our area (NE US). Unfortunately the new map also has critical inaccuracies, with some two-way streets incorrectly labeled as one-way and some one-way streets incorrectly labeled as two-way. The effect is that the new routes proposed by the 2009 update are horrifically flawed. Instead of going from point A to point B by some short and reasonably direct route, our Nuvi 360 tells us to go in the most circuitous route imaginable, even doubling the required distance. It's so bad that we have stopped using our Nuvi and would gladly pay Garmin another $60 to undo the update. Install this flawed product at your own peril!

I've notice one interesting thing about the new software, compared to last year's version which came installed on my Nuvi 350. To route to a National Forest recreation area about 45 miles away, which contains one of my favorite hiking trails, the old version used predominately a combination of freeways and two-lane paved state highways. The new version routes to the site using a combination of freeways, county roads, and National Forest roads, some of which are two-rut dirt roads,barely passable in a two-wheel drive passenger car. This is the case even though I have unpaved roads checked under avoidances on the GPS device. I think this inaccuracy possibly could be dangerous.

I agree with other reviewers that the degree of update between the last version and this version does not make the update worthwhile, even without this potentially fatal flaw.

Just upgraded to 2009 City Navigator for North America (for my StreetPilot 340). First I had to run it through Firefox vs. IE (firewall issues); got this tip from Garmin support. Second, I discovered that this upgrade wiped out all of my saved "Favorite" locations...ugh! This did not happen when I had upgraded to the 2008 version. Contacted Garmin support (again)...they indicated that there is no way to recover those faorites: from Gramin support " Thank you for contacting Garmin International. This will sometimes happen if the operating software is very old in the unit during the update. With this unit due to it not being mass storage there is no way to back the favorites up to a computer." No mention of this potential issue was included in any documentation (BTW, I did this directly from the Garmin website).
So why would we want to upgrade?

According to an email I just received from Garmin Customer Service, this 2009 map upgrade only reflects roads that were present in mid-2007. Why does Garmin call this a "2009" upgrade if that is the best they can do?

From my observations, this map upgrade is no better than the 2007 version I replaced.

I'm sorry I purchased it and would not recommend it to anyone.