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I at least take one wrong turn on an average every time I step out my house. I was looking for a solution to avoid this except the most obvious one - never leaving home. The solution came in the form of a sleek, portable traveler’s guide, the Garmin Nuvi 350 Car GPS System. This pocket-sized device doubles as a digital entertainment system.

The Garmin Nüvi 350 Receiver comes ready to be used with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a huge database of points of interest (POIs) with hotels, restaurants, gas stations, tourist spots, ATMs among others. I have to merely touch the color screen to enter a destination and 2-D or 3-D maps and voice directions rush to my aid. Wrong turns? Are you kidding? Its text-to-speech feature announces upcoming turns so that I can’t take a wrong turn even if I wanted to. Setting up points of interests, such as a school, safety camera, and so on is not a problem with the Garmin Nüvi 350 Receiver. I can set proximity alerts to warn myself of upcoming POI’s.

I would recommend the Garmin Nuvi 350 Car GPS System to people like me. Moreover, this GPS is not all about navigation-related features alone. It comes with an MP3 player, audio book player JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and many others. Apart from these, the Nuvi 350 Portable GPS Navigator also has an SD card slot to add music and pictures. This GPS system has a flip-up antenna to help you get the best signal. If you are safety conscious, it is all the more reason for you to go for the Garmin Nuvi 350 Car GPS System, for it also includes the Garmin Lock, an anti-theft feature. This feature disables the GPS from performing any functions until a specific 4-digit PIN is keyed in or it is taken to a preset location. Hey! Still reading about the Garmin Nuvi 350 Car GPS System? Why not go for your own right away?!

Last month, my friend and I took a roadtrip to Los Angeles. Since my friends and I have mostly lived on the East Coast, we are totally lost in the West Coast without my handy road map. Sadly, my tattered map wouldn’t make it through another trip, so we had to look for an alternative. That’s when one of my co-workers recommended the Garmin nuvi series. As I always swear by the Internet, I did a lot of browsing on GPS models. Finally, my search yielded not one, but three systems. The Garmin Nuvi 770 portable GPS Navigator, Garmin Nuvi 850 car GPS navigation system, and Garmin Nuvi 880 were all feature rich, just like I wanted. After checking out these models, I zeroed-in on the Garmin Nuvi 880 GPS navigator. I was looking for the best price when I came across Comp-U-Plus, which offered me the best deal for the Garmin Nuvi 880 at a price that had my wallet singing.

When we began our trip, this little wonder helped us through the various twists and turns of LA. We didn’t have to go looking for hotels, restaurants, gas stations, or ATMs. It took us everywhere we wanted to go. It was fun using its interactive voice recognized menu, which talked back.

I was at the wheel for most of the trip, and the Garmin Nuvi 880 Car GPS Navigation System never let me down. Not once during the entire visit did I have to look for friendly locals to guide us. The Garmin Nuvi 880 GPS navigator is compatible with my phone, so hands-free calls were not a problem either.

So tear your map to pieces like I did and get the Garmin Nuvi 880 Car GPS Navigation system today. You can even go for the Garmin Nuvi 770 or 850, as they are also on sale at Comp-U-Plus at prices that will be easy on your pocket.

I am a non-tech person, and each time I pick up a device, I sweat it out, trying to learn its dynamics. But the Nuvi 880 Portable GPS Navigator was a different story altogether. The device not only speaks to me, but I could talk to it too.

I took my new Garmin Nuvi 880 GPS Receiver on a wine tasting trip to Napa Valley and it was definitely a trip worth remembering. I didn’t have to worry about hotel, gas stations, or my next tasting room. The Nüvi 880 Navigation System took me where I wanted to go with minimal fuss. This GPS system helped me to stay on track so I saved time driving and could spend more time in tasting rooms. Though I travelled alone, the inbuilt wireless FM transmitter kept me entertained as I could listen to MP3 files and audio books, through the stereo fitted in my car. Once I got back to work, my Nuvi 880 Navigation System was still indispensable. It helped me find my car in any crowded parking lot. I could also find the quickest way to work thanks to its multi-destination routing. Now my boss has nothing to complain about.

My Bluetooth compatible phone syncs well with the Nuvi 880 Portable GPS Navigator so I can make hands-free calls while driving, and be safe from the clutches of California’s cellphone laws.

The slim Nüvi 880 Navigation System is a little expensive, but I don’t mind paying a little extra to get so much more.  I have planned the next wine tasting trip to Paso Robles with my travel companion, the Garmin Nuvi 880 GPS Receiver. I have already plotted tasting rooms, dinner destinations, and car rental places. Get this navigation system for yourself and get on the road!

And speaking of geeks in the real world, there’s a gadget that’s trying hard to bring the real world into the geek. I’m speaking of the GPS, the greatest single effort to convince non-geeks to embrace the gadget. So how does a GPS turn a non-geek into a believer?

Good maps. Let’s face it, the point of a GPS is to use maps. You’ll want a system that provides good maps that are easy to load. Maps find their way to the GPS in basically two different ways. 1. Internal memory or hard drive 2. CD/DVD. Geeks probably won’t mind uploading maps from theinternet or the included DVDs through their computers to their GPS units (particularly in the case of portable GPS units the need to go jogging with you), but non-geeks will probably want a device that comes with the mapsthey’llneed preloaded.

Points of interest (POI). A good map will not only get you where you know you want to go, it will also get you where you don’t know you want to go. What do I mean? A good GPS will help you find points of interest nearby in the form of local business, landmarks, parks, schools, etc. Most commercial brandGPSs come with a vast number of POIs already programmed into their maps.

Readable display. This is where it really gets personal. Everyone has different taste, different eyes, and different needs. Whether you’re hiking, biking, or driving does make a difference to the type of GPS you’ll want, so think about your primary needs when you buy and buy accordingly. Thatwidescreen display looks pretty, but it’s going to be awful heavy when you’re meandering up Mount Everest.

My father, in an effort to finally get what he wanted for the holidays this year, went out and bought himself a GPS - a Garmin nüvi 650. So we were home the other week and we got to ride in the newly outfitted GPS-enabled DadCar.

Before I launch into my first full-on GPS experience, let me say this about that, we were testing under tightly controlled conditions. Specifically, we are going to my grandmother’s apartment to pick her up for dinner. My grandmother (aka: MeeMaw) lives 5 minutes away. If you go the long way, it’s double that. She’s lived in the same place since I was 14. I’m more than double that. Dad immediately turns on the GPS.

She (the GPS, not MeeMaw, we haven’t gotten to MeeMaw yet) greets Dad politely, but I have to wonder what she’s thinking under all the complex circuitry.

What she says/What she probably means
Welcome!/Oh, not you again. Seriously? Where are going now? Nashville? I like Nashville? How about Colorado. I’ve never been to the Rockies. Bet it’s pretty. MeeMaw’s?! Again?! Fine. Whatever. I hate this job.

Dad: You’ll love my new GPS!

Turn right at next intersection./Because without me you couldn’t find your way out of the subdivision you’ve lived in for nearly 30 years.

Turn left ahead half mile/Like you have every day for the longer than the average human can count, which is to 10, if they take off their socks.

Turn left at the next intersection. Then make a left./Because it’s completely non-intuitive that you’re getting onto the highway. You’re lucky I’m here. Actually, I’m starting to think that without GPSs like me, the entire human race would fall into ruin and decay, because they’d just never get anyway. They’d drive around in…whoops.

Turn left now./…Almost missed my turn. As I was saying, they’d drive round in circles…

Right exit in 2 miles./That should keep you busy for a minute. I do like this sports radio station though. Very appealing. I really think Miami can go winless this season. Wouldn’t that be something? Oooh, college basketball, my favorite. Wouldn’t mind shooting the hoops a bit myself, if I had arms.

Right turn in 1/2 mile. ./Just in case you forgot what I told you a minute and a half ago. Do you know, if you don’t get off, we could go to Cincinnati. Or Pittsburgh. You could take me to a Steelers game. Wouldn’t that be fine? I’d have my yellow-bellied Terrible Towel….

Right turn now/ Or you could just turn now and go to MeeMaw’s. MeeMaw is very nice. She a bit of a talker though. Actually everybody in your family talks constantly. When they’re in the car, mostly they talk about me. I like that part.

You have reached your destination/Let’s take MeeMaw and go to Mexico!

So the good news is my dad’s GPS likes sports. I approve. The GPS picked the quickest way to MeeMaw. Plus. When we veered off course (which did not happen this trip, but did happen while I was in town), the GPS fairly quickly recalculated the route. It’s initial response to our “bad turn” was to suggest we U-Turn, but when we persisted in our course, it recalculated the route. The thing we didn’t do was try to come back the suggested route to see if it was quicker.

GPSs are one-way street aware, which makes them better than the average map. We didn’t hit any toll roads, so I can’t state from personal experience if it warns you about that. I’d love to see an integrated weather center so you could program your GPS to help you find the best way to your destination with as minimal weather interruption as possible, but I think that might be a ways off.

Takeaways? While the advantage of the GPS in your own backyard is perhaps debatable, but the advantage of the GPS on the road, in unfamiliar territory is less so. Sure, there’s mapquest, google maps, road atlases, and my husband’s personal favorite, the on-board navigator (me); but there’s a real advantage to not having to read a map, particularly if a) you’re driving or b) you or your personal on-board navigator is, like the majority of people, prone to car sickness when reading or c) it’s night time.

Here’s a funny clip on what our GPS must think of us: