Any thoughts or personal experience with 3rd party Nav systems? Looking to purchase in near future and need some feedback. Need info on mounting, portability, free updates on mapping and POIs and the such...[/IMG]
The photo you supplied looks to be a Garmin Nuvi 350. It's the one I own and I think it's one fine unit. Very intuitive and easy to use. The price is now much lower than I paid a year ago. I think you can pick it up for around $275.
It does have a few drawbacks. Tell it where you want to go and it will always get you there. Sometimes it will select a route that, you know ahead of time, will be congested. There is not way to reject a route and have the Nuvi 350 select an alternate. Some Garmins will allow you to select a route on your PC and download it into the GPS. This unit will not.
It will only allow you one "via". Some think this is a problem, but I don't. I took a long road trip back in Sept that took me from Pa to Providence, RI, then on to Bar Harbor, Me, then on to Stowe, Vt. I programmed each of my stops ahead of time. This stores the locations into a folder labeled "My Recent Locations". I then selected my next stop from this folder and all is well.
I've never placed the unit into my Malibu. I would think it would be hard to use the suction cup mount because the 'Bu dashboard is so deep. I prefer to mount the unit on the windshield above the center console in my truck. I don't think that's very practical in the 'Bu. I may be looking into the sandbag mount offered by Garmin.
I hope this helps, if you have any specific questions. please ask them.