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284 of 290 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Never Get Lost Again!!!, October 24, 2004
Every now and then -- make that every other now and then, because it's a rare event indeed -- a product comes along that solves a problem that has been plaguing man -- and woman -- for decades, if not centuries. In recent years, these rare breakthroughs have included Combat roach traps, which made those pesky critters a rare sight in even the most infested urban environments, and the pocket hard-drive mp3 jukeboxes enabling you to have your favorite albums with you wherever you go.
Now here come the GPS navigators that make it all but impossible to get lost, not to mention the AFFORDABLE GPS navigators like this fantastic little Quest. One of the guys in my band got one of the higher priced Garmins and was raving about its accuracy. When his Garmin got him right to a place we were playing while the rest of the band circled backroads endlessly, relying on directions that said things like, "go to Smith Road", without bothering to inform you whether you were supposed to turn left or right on Smith Road or cross it -- I knew I had to have one. Better yet, he told me Garmin had a new model that did the same job for half the money.
Well, it turns out that the Quest handles more than the same job the bigger units do. With its pocket size, you can also use it when you're on foot trying to find a strange address in a strange city (or in the Village, here in Manhattan). Otherwise the only downside of the Quest is that you can't add memory; the memory built in can handle enough map detail for a large state, but if you were going across country, you would need to bring your laptop with the detailed maps loaded, to download into the Quest as you passed from one region to the next. For those of us who typically travel within our state (or the so-called tri-state area around NYC), however, the Quest has more than enough memory.
Does the little Quest work? It sure does! I snapped it into its cradle, it came to life (it gives you a warning about using it responsibly when you're driving), and soon it had located and then acquired the satellites it uses to track your position, altitude, direction, and speed. The voice pipes up loud and clear from a speaker hinged to the lighter plug unit, sounding rather like the computer voice on Star Trek, and you can enable or disable a chime preceding the announcement. Announcements are given in plenty of time so you can get in the proper lane, and turns are shown on screen with bright red directional arrows. If you miss a turn (and I did, not once but twice, the street was so poorly marked), the unit says "recalculating" and in a jiffy advised me to hang a uey in a quarter mile, then talked me back through my proper turn.
The display is bright and legible (I can read it, and I am more than 50), and useful information shown includes your current speed (it appears my speedo has been off all these years by more than 10 mph!!!), the time to your next turn, and your estimated time of arrival, based on your progress. The windshield mount works very well, using a suction cup with a vacuum clamp, and articulated joints let you position the unit where it can see the satellites and you can see it without blocking your view of the road. The built-in swing-out antenna seems to work very well; you would only need an external antenna if you had heavily tinted windshields or an in-screen heating system blocking the satellite signals, according to the instructions.
Which brings me to about the only other gripe I have about the Quest, and one for which I almost deducted a star, which is the instructions. Though the hardware and software manuals are well written, this rig cries out for a Quick Start card highlighting a few essential pieces of information, including where to find a useful tutorial on downloading maps into the Quest, which direction is now helpfully buried in an obscure Appendix at the back of one of the manuals. If you're new to GPS, as I was, expect to spend a long afternoon and evening reading and fiddling, before you get a grip on the technology. Otherwise setup all ran smoothly.
And the Quest got me right to my gig; even better, with the push of one button, it got me home again that night. Now if there's anything harder than finding a place when you have bad directions, try finding your way home in the dark, attempting to reverse those same poor directions!!! With the Quest, getting home is a piece of cake. I also tried the Quest on foot, and it led me right to my friend's building in Stuyvesant Town, not an easy place to find for the uninitiated!
Basically I'm telling everyone in the band to get one of these, and if you do a fair amount of driving -- and a fair amount of getting lost -- I'm telling you to get one too! This is already one of the greatest inventions of the 21st century!
One addendum (written a week later): it turns out that Garmin DOES include a Quick Start card -- which they hide in a pocket behind one of the software disks, where you will probably never find it! Unfortunately, except for a chart showing shortcut commands, this card doesn't tell you the really useful stuff, like what the base maps cover compared to the detailed maps or where to find the map downloading tutorial.
So my comment about the documentation holds -- if you start at the BACK of the various manuals and work forward, you might make faster progress learning the system! Nevertheless the unit works so well, you will forgive the slow learning curve the first time the tiny tyke guides you straight home from a strange place in the middle of the night...
I would also like to add a comment about another reviewer's claim that the voice prompts are confusing to follow. In my experience, the voice prompts have been right on. In fact, every time I've approached a confusing intersection, or even a bend in the road, the voice pipes up with "keep [right or left] on [name of road]." Coupled with the big bright turn arrows on the screen, the voice makes it pretty clear where you're supposed to go; and if you still do make the wrong turn, the unit will re-route you in a jiffee.
Again, I couldn't be more impressed with the performance of the Quest. It truly does everything the larger Garmin units do except allow for memory expansion, plus it's pocket-sized so it can help you find your way on foot in a strange city or on a hike...
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234 of 241 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What you should know, October 28, 2004
I bought the Garmin Quest as a factory GPS system was not available on my car. Also for the fact that it costs about 1/3 of the price of a factory installed GPS system. Overall I am happy with the unit however for anyone looking to buy this unit these are just some things you should be aware of:
1) You cannot just depend on the voice prompts to guide you on your way, you need to also glance at the map. The reason is that it has a limited vocab for voice prompts so it can be confusing. For example many times it says keep left/right when it wants you to go straight. A couple of times I thought it wanted me to turn left when it said keep left. Thankfully it automatically recalculated the route. Answer: anytime it says keep left/right or turn left/right just glance at the map to truly understand where it wants you to go.
2) Similar to the above it doesnt have proper voice prompts for rotaries. If you were to take the second exit on a rotary, the system would say "in x feet keep left then turn right". Look at the map you will see what you are supposed to do.
3) The screen is small, especially if you want to pan the map looking at alternative routes while in the car. Thankfully it does zoom into an intersection so you can see the lay of the land when you are coming to a turn.
4) I was driving in Manhattan and because of all the tall buildings it would have a hard time locking on to my position. Often it would announce "lost satellite reception". I ended up zooming into the map with the proposed route and started guiding myself as it lost my location for several minutes. It works much better in the suburbs.
5) The routing system was a bit weird. Even though I set the system to take me from Manhattan to Long Island on the "fastest route" it insisted on taking me through the small streets of Brooklyn instead of the highway. Tweaking the settings from best route (spends more time calculating the route) to quickest calculation (least time spent calculating the route) while still retaining the get me there on the "fastest route" setting finally got me using the highways.
6) So far the mapping has been pretty accurate except for once in Boston it asked me to take a left when there was a no left turn sign. Still to see how often map updates will be made available. New construction will throw the device off.
7) The directory of points of interest is very good. We were able to find all the restaurants we were looking for in New York (it also had their phone numbers so we were able to make reservations).
Overall the device does work and does get you there. It can be a little confusing thats all. It is easy to use and enter data, easier than the Garmin streetpilot. As for losing satellite reception I am sure all small units like this would suffer the same problem. (FYI factory car based systems usually predict your position even if they lose satellite reception (they call it dead reckoning) - but they are much more expensive). The size is great we walked the streets of New York and it took us where wanted to go (you can set it to optimize routes for pedestrian vs car - this way it ignores one way streets). Voice prompts only work in the car not when you are walking as the speaker is built into the cigarette lighter plug.
Still if I had to compare it to a factory car based GPS system I would say its 85% of the product for 30% of the money. Good value!
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80 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Product, September 28, 2004
This product is what I consider to be a great blend of field-based GPS devices and automotive-based GPS devices. I was initially interested in purchasing a unit that would offer me the convenience of electronic mapping with the ability to route and still be portable and durable enough to be used on an outdoor adventure. A Garmin dealer in my area was strongly recommending an eMap. It had most of the features I was looking for but that product has actually been discontinued, the display is gray scale and the technology for computer interface is at least 4 years old. (I'm talking serial cable connections here.) Still, it was looking like the best option and I was about the pull the trigger and buy when someone walked into the store with a printout of the Quest from Garmin's website. It was fortunate for me that I was there at that moment because the Quest is exactly what I was looking for.
This device is a smaller version of the StreetPilot series but it's completely portable and fits in the breast pocket of a dress shirt or pants pocket so it's great in an urban environment. The battery life is listed at 20 hours between charges and it has a whopping 115mb of internal memory which means you don't have to mess with data cards. The product ships with Garmin's City Select v6 and I've found the maps to be extremely accurate in the Phoenix metro area. (I think this is a good test of the software since Phoenix is one of the fastest growing communities in the US and we've got new roads going in all the time.) The display is full color and can be user modified to meet personal tastes. It also comes with a UBS computer interface cable, suction cup windshield mount/DC battery charger and an AC battery charger for indoor use. (You can find all the technical information on this unit at Garmin's website.) Oh, did I mention that it talks too?
Like other StreetPilot devices, this unit has a speaker built into the DC battery charging cable but unlike other StreetPilot devices, the Quest has a volume control. The voice technology is very clear and easy to understand and the timing of the directional advice is very accurate. The unit creates routes very quickly and the "find" feature is simple and straightforward. I do a lot of city driving, (approximately 50,000 miles per year) and I'm constantly looking up addresses in my map book. This device not only speeds up the process but also gives me the convenience of displaying a route combined with the ability to find local businesses, restaurants and points of interest along the way. (I can see this device being very handy when planning our next road trip in that we'll be able to locate places in other cities with relative ease.) The device is also very quick to recalculate your route should you deviate from the one previously created. I've found that it can update itself within the space of ½-mile while driving at about 40mph on city streets.
(...)
Overall, I think this device is a great buy for the casual outdoor adventurer and urban warrior.
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I would like to [tell that of problem of] the unit not displaying a full screen compass. Upon further tinkering, I have discovered that not only is a compass screen available but also a bearing pointer screen! These screens become available when you select "off road" as the method for creating a route and are viewable by pressing the 'page' button. (Either the compass or the bearing pointer will come up and you can then switch between them by pressing 'menu' and selecting the one you want to see.) This unit is now, in my considered opinion, the ultimate blend of urban and rural navigation and a darn fine geocaching device. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Oh, and make that rating a "5 Star" please.
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