Nuvi 255

mondeo

Anyone tried one of these?, decent update to the existing 250.
I might get one I'm not sure. Suppose to have better gps accuracy..

robinph

Garmin compare 250 v 255

Does not seem to be a whole lot different between them from that page really and no indication of a change in the chipset being used so I doubt there is any change to the accuracy of the units. The 255 does store more waypoints though and speaks the road names.

coward

Just to point out, the European version of the 255 does not speak road names. I think that's only for the US version.

robinph

Is that due to the maps or the actual unit being different?

coylemj

It's probably the difficulty of handling pronunciation in different languages. You can imagine the mess they'd make of some Irish street names named after people like Meagher or Geoghegan.

robinph

That would have been my guess. When they say it speaks the road names in the states that is just because they only have to program it to count to 100 and say street and avenue and they are pretty much done.

ich_verschwinde

i am thinking of buying either the 255 or the 250 but the 250 is like 40 € cheaper.. so you guys think there isnt a whole lot of difference? what about the gps maps on the 255.. would they be more up to date than the 250..

and is there a feature on these to update the maps to the latest versions without buying a new garmin?

thanks

ich_verschwinde

also would there be a difference between the garmin 255 on komplett and the one an amazon.co.uk

robinph

You can update any of the Garmins to the latest versions of the maps, just you may have to pay for the update depending on how long ago you purchased the unit originally. The 250 may just have an older version included in the box by default than the 255 comes with.

coylemj

The 255 is a later unit but the '2008' maps have been shipping on new units for some time now so as long as you buy from one of the larger mail order websites you should get a 250 with the latest maps.

The 255 is slightly more expensive, it can store 1,000 waypoints vs. 500 for the 250 and it's memory slot is MicroSD rather than the fullsize SD slot on the 250, this shouldn't make any difference to performance but I see that the claimed battery life on the 255 is only 4 hours vs. 5 on the 250 so it's possible that the 255 is using more powerful chips than the 250 though it's now Garmin policy to not specify the exact chips being used in each model.

Krusty_Clown

coylemj wrote: »

It's probably the difficulty of handling pronunciation in different languages. You can imagine the mess they'd make of some Irish street names named after people like Meagher or Geoghegan.

My Garmin Zumo does this for Irish street names (and any other country's street names, if I bring the GPS receiver with me abroad). And yes, it messes up many of the Irish specific pronunciations. So it's not down to the difficulty, which is simply using a standard text to speech engine. The reason they do not include this in the European version is more likely down to the storage space they would require to include to the TTS module in all of the European languages..

Pity! It adds another humorous dimension to travelling around Ireland by GPS.