Garmin n?vi 270 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Other products by Garmin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.8 x 0.8 x 2.8 inches ; 5.1 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000OH26OM
• Item model number: Nuvi 270
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (309 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #108 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)

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  #4 in	Electronics > Car Electronics > Vehicle GPS > Motorcycle GPS
  #15 in	Electronics > Car Electronics > Vehicle GPS > Portable Vehicle GPS
  #19 in	Electronics > GPS & Navigation

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 19, 2005

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description
Navigate both North America and Europe without loading more maps with the affordable nüvi 270. This entry-level Personal Travel Assistant makes traveling so simple. For even more mapping options, nüvi 250 and nüvi 200 offer less map coverage at a lower price. Like all nüvi 200-series members, the 270 features an easy-to-use colorful touchscreen and ultra-slim design--perfect for everyday navigation.

The nüvi 270 comes preloaded with maps for North America and Europe, and features an easy-to-use touchscreen and ultra-slim design.

Configurable vehicle icons let you select car-shaped graphics.

nüvi 270 accepts custom points of interest (POIs). View larger.

Smart, Powerful Design
The nüvi 270 is built with a high-sensitivity WAAS-enabled 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 3.8 x 2.8 x .8 inches (W x H x D) and weighs just 5.2 ounces. The nüvi 270's 3.5-inch (diagonal) 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.

Navigate with Ease
nüvi 270 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) 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, nüvi 270 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.

Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 270 features many 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. Optional plug-in SD cards for our line of 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.

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

What's in the Box
nüvi 270, preloaded City Navigator NT for North America and Europe (full coverage), vehicle suction cup mount, vehicle power cable, dashboard disk, and set up and go guide.

Product Description
GARMIN Nuvi 270 Auto Navigation North America/ Europe. Features a sleek, ultra slim design with automatic routing capabilities. With an easy to use touchscreen display, nuvi can route to addresses, restaurants, hotels and more with turn by turn directions and voice guidance. The nuvi 270, nuvi 250 and nuvi 200 GPS navigators offer all of the functions of a premium in dash system at a fraction of the cost. The nuvi 270 comes preloaded with highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps for North America and Europe. The nuvi 250 offers full coverage mapping for the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. For additional cost savings, nuvi 200 is available with coverage of the lower 48 states, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Garmin is able to provide the nuvi 200 at a jaw dropping price by reducing the amount of preloaded mapping. 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

275 of 276 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GPS With European Maps, August 23, 2007

By	Lawrence Wong - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

53 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nuvi 270 used in Italy, October 19, 2007

By	Melissa Christensen (Grand Rapids, MI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

289 of 323 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for Pedestrians in France and Switzerland, June 1, 2008

By	J. Hayward (Dothan, AL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.