Bearing in mind that the opinions expressed in this review are those of the reviewer and not (necessarily) of the publisher, don’t waste any money on this GPS unit!! Unfortunately, I seem to be in the minority as this is one of the top-selling units in the country. Read on and let me explain.

As usual with Garmin products, the packaging is great, easy to open, well packed. Setup is quick. Garmin Quest SAThe Quest looks good, neat kinda bronze colour, easy on the eye. Then you try and download the software and things get a little sticky. If you think you can rush straight out and start navigating around the city … think again! You will first need to load the map software from the CD to your PC, register the maps online, unlock them and then upload them to the GPS unit. As someone not au fait with technology, I struggled a bit.

The unit does not come fitted with a speaker. You need to clip the unit into a cradle which then plugs into the cigarette lighter, and the speaker is on the end of the cigarette lighter plug. The speaker also only works when the unit is actually plugged in. The sound is tinny and the wiring on the unit strikes me as being not too durable, I would be worried that it may need rewiring. Of course, I did not have the unit long enough to discover if it actually IS likely to break, so please do ask for more information from your local GPS dealer.

The unit works entirely off buttons, including a rocker keypad that rocks in all the wrong directions. If you don’t hit the rocker dead centre on UP, the arrow could go left, right, or diagonally. Very annoying. Also, the menu layout is not quite ordered in such a way that you can find things easily. On many occasions I would page through several menu categories looking for something that I knew was there, I just didn’t know where exactly. The answer to this, of course, is to learn your Quest thoroughly so that you know where to find things. Hey, this is a REVIEW, I only had it a few weeks!

The satellite sensitivity is low. The “Lost Satellite Reception” announcement gets annoying if you’re travelling down a freeway with lots of bridges for example, the darned thing loses signal under every bridge! It also doesn’t like overhanging trees with excessive folliage, extremely dense buildings, roofs – in fact, I’m pretty sure it wanted me to have a sun roof in my car!

Start up can take quite a while to first fix (when it identifies where you are), especially if you are already travelling and have changed locations before switching it on.

On the plus side, however, the area avoidance program works well. It’s rather pernickity to set up, you need to pick an area and zoom in to select the roads (using the rocker which is not helpful), but works extremely well once you’ve got it programmed. If you hear there is an accident or street riot somewhere, just select the area and you will be diverted intelligently away. However, do not get frustrated, as I did, because the unit REFUSES to give you a direct route to a destination … when in fact you’ve forgotten to deactivate the Avoidance command ;-)

Also a plus is the phenomenal battery life. The manual says 20 hours and it pushed really close to that. Recharge is very quick and easy.

A lot of people buy this unit as a 2-in-1, wanting both a street navigator and an outdoor unit. It offers the helpful ‘breadcrumb trail’ feature (tracklog & backtrack) that allows you to backtrack your route. It does work well and it is a useful feature to have, several times it saved me several hours of walking. Due to my dislike of this unit, however, I did some research and found the following suggestion on www.geocaching.com: “I have a Quest that I use for street routing. While some cachers also use it on trail, I rarely do. Instead, I picked up an inexpensive Geko 301. If I were you, I’d pick up a little yellow etrex.” My personal opinion is that you do something like that. Buy a good street navigator (such as the Nuvi 300) and an inexpensive handheld. It may cost you a thousand more, but not having to put up with the Quest’s temperamentality (is there such a word?) will be entirely worth it!

As a final nail in the coffin, I gave the Quest to my 19 year old who knows EVERYTHING about computers (in her opinion). After a while she gave it back to me in disgust. Her response?
“It’s not user friendly.”

Out of the mouths of babes…SUMMARY: (Short and snappy version)

Rating: * = Terrible / Difficult - * * * * * = Excellent / Easy

  • User-Friendliness:
    • Software/Downloads * * *
    • Packaging * * * * *
    • Unit - Ease of use * * *
    • Peripherals (Mounts, cables, carry cases etc) * *
    • Bonus features (if any) * * * *
  • Sensitivity/Reception: * * *
  • Accuracy: * * *
  • Battery-Life: * * * * *
  • Portability: * * * *

Type of User: Only for those who need a dual purpose unit (i.e. both an outdoor unit and a city navigator in one). And then only if you have LOTS of patience.

Pro’s:

  • Software and menu options are comprehensive.
  • Battery life is exceptional.
  • Unit is very portable.
  • Waterproof.
  • Avoidance features work well.
  • Handy Tracklog & Backtrack feature.

Con’s:

  • Unit is not very user-friendly.
  • Features and menu are “pernickity” to set up.
  • Loses reception quickly and accuracy not always good.
  • Detailed map software is a drag to register, unlock and then transfer to the unit.
  • Speaker is unwieldy and durability unproven.
  • You will need to spend some time learning the unit.

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Product Review By:Toni Quaradeghini
(Please contact Gismap GPS Shop for reprint rights).
Toni Quaradeghini is a travel writer and business entrepreneur who has written for the BITE paperzine, the OWL newspaper and as a guest writer for Go-Multi magazine. She is putting the finishing touches to her first novel for publication in 2007 and has written several eBooks. She is also a keen geocacher, hiker, scuba diver, dancer and general lunatic.

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