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Go wide and get peace of mind with nüvi 255W. This affordable, widescreen navigator leads the way with voice-prompted turn-by-turn directions that speak street names and optional MSN Direct® services to get you there on time and keep you informed. It's packed with millions of destinations and maps for North America. Like the rest of the sleek nüvi 2x5-series, this portable navigator is priced right and ultra-easy to use.

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With nüvi 255W's widescreen display, you'll always get the big picture. View map detail, driving directions, photos and more in bright, brilliant color. Its sunlight-readable, 4.3-inch display is easy to read from any direction.

Navigate With Ease
nüvi 255W 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. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with turn-by-turn voice directions, 2-D or 3-D maps and smooth map updates as you navigate. Its digital elevation maps show you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain. In addition, nüvi 255W 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. With HotFix™ satellite prediction, nüvi calculates your position faster to get you there quicker.

Take It With You
Like the rest of the nüvi 2x5-series, nüvi 255W sports a sleek, slim design and fits comfortably in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or foot. With its "Where Am I?" emergency locator, you always know your location. Simply tap the screen to get your exact latitu

User Reviews about Garmin nüvi 255W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

Well I received my Garmin 255w today. Shipped overnight. I did all the updates, registered my device, and added extra features and new icons and voices. That aspect was somewhat difficult for people who aren't too good with technology and gadgets. But for myself I got it done fairly simple. Took about an hour maybe. I have to say that having a GPS for your car or bike is VERY convenient and fun lol. The screen size is perfect, and the volume is actually quite loud and I am hearing impaired! The touch screen is very basic, therefore easy to use. You can save your home address on the device, and if you're out somewhere far just click on Where To? then Go Home and you'll get instant directions from wherever you are straight back to your home. You can transfer maps and/or directions from google maps or mapquest to your gps. So if you are in your car headed to a new place or area and you want directions just type an address it'll search and go from there, wherever you are. The signal and time it takes to display and say stuff is pretty good for me. The Points of Interest feature is handy but has flaws. We searched for Food/a place to eat, and chose Bamboo Garden, it gave us directions but the place was closed down and another business was in its place. Nothing's perfect. But overall my wife and I really like having a GPS with us. I don't regret my purchase. Oh, one more thing: You might need to buy a mini usb cable, as mine didn't come with one. Luckily I found one in my closet from an old device. -- Test Drive

We used this for our vacation for a week in Washington DC area visiting from greater NY area. It turned out Garmin 255w was an indispensable tool for our trip. It helped us to find POI and get there in a way never possible without it. However, we find the navigation was not always perfect. I itemize the problems:

(1) Driving back from central DC to our hotel, we wanted to drop in to a grocery store. We picked a Safeway as the name was familiar to us. It gave us a weird route to get into it. It can be reproduced by turning GPS simulator on (all other examples presented in this review can be tested in this manner). Set current position to, say, the south side of National Air and Space Museum in downtown DC. Then go to POI/Shopping/Grocery and Spell Safeway. You should find one at 6300 Central Ave about 6.4 miles away. Select it and "Go". The route basically uses E Capitol St NE but in the end it goes past the Safeway, makes a right turn about two blocks away and comes back using Addison Rd S. In reality all you have to do is to turn left at the signal in front of Safeway. Because we were blindly following 255w, we completely missed this and had to do exactly what 255w told us. We tested this with Google map after we came back home. We find that Google gives an obviously more natural route.

(2) Our hotel was in Capitol Heights. Set current location to be at the intersection of Central Ave. and Hampton Park Blvd, Capitol Heights, MD. Go to POI/food/All food and spell-search for nearest Old Country Buffet using spell 'buffet'. You will find one 14.2 miles away at 9608 Fort Meade Rd. We went there. However, next day we accidentally found a nearer one, only 5.1 miles away at The Centre at Forestville, 3443 Donnell Drive, Forestville, MD 20747. Google finds this one with no problem. This location seems to be open as early as 2007 as we find a review in that year, so the older database is not an excuse.

(3) The third one is about avoiding toll roads. We know it is next to impossible to avoid all toll roads to enter New York from New Jersey, but it shouldn't be an excuse to give a complete nonsense. Set current location, say, to the intersection of Port Imperial Blvd and Baldwin Ave., Weehawken, NJ. Then from tools/settings/navigation/Avoidances, select toll roads in addition to default selections. Then from POI/transit/Ground transportation, spell grand and select Grand Central Terminal which is a mere 2.5 miles away if Lincoln tunnel is used. The result 255w gives is stunning 3319 miles, asking you to go all the way around Great Lakes passing through Kansas City, Mineapolis, Ottawa and Montreal. This is a total nonsense. Do the same in Google map, then you will be given the same route regardless of toll road setting. The only difference is that if you check 'Avoid tolls' then you will be warned that the route has tolls. Because of this I have no trust in 255w's capability to avoid tolls and use it as if it does not have this capability.


We updated the map of our 255w only a week ago, so we should have about the latest map available. Map update is not an excuse. Because routing is so fundamental to this kind of GPS, I was somewhat surprised to find the level of maturity the 255w has today. It seems so much weaker compared to Google Map.



-- Not sure if this navigation technology is up to date

I bought the Nuvi 255W in February and had no problem with it when driving the the Metro NY area. The problems started when I took it to Nova Scotia for a driving vacation. On the first morning the unit just died. I called tech support several times and was given a waiting time of over 45 minutes. Since this would have cost more in cell phone roaming fees than buying a new unit, I bought a new Nuvi 255W. The driving directions in rural Nova Scotia were quirky and downright dangerous at times. Many times the unit directed me to turn onto "unpaved (and unnamed) road" which sometimes was only a hiking trail (no, the unit was not on pedestrian setting). Even some of the named roads it chose were unpaved. I stopped trusting it altogether unless I was driving within a built up area. I would buy Garmin only if you don't plan to drive in rural areas. -- Usually OK, but beware rural areas

I was surprised that Garmin didn't include a mini USB cable that is needed to register their product. They want to sell you one for $15. That's my only gripe. -- USB mini cable to register product -- they don't supply