Why Didn't I Purchase This Gem Sooner?

After a few years of phone calls to my husband asking him where I was after I'd gotten myself lost going to appointments in the middle of downtown Denver or calling him to ask him to check traffic on the highway because I was frustrated at going 5 mph, my husband bought me the Garmin StreetPilot c550 GPS Receiver. I absolutely LOVE it & wonder why I didn't purchase this little gem sooner.

I was so excited I took it to work the next day, even though I obviously know the way to work I wanted to get familiar with the unit going someplace that I knew. I was amazed at how easy & quickly I was able to program in my work address & start on my way. The screens were intuitive enough that I didn't even have to read the instructions. Power it on & off, plugging it in to my car charger, & adjusting the volume were just as easy.

I did discover that the fuse that came with my travel charger had no filament in it after I had plugged it in to my car charger & had the unit lose power after several hours. After reading the manual I was able to determine how to replace the necessary fuse & am happy to report I've had no issues since. Before I was able to replace the fuse however, it was very easy to hook the unit up to my computer & recharge it for my next in town journey. I've found that I can use the GPS drawing off of its own internal charge for about 4 hours so the only time I would really need the travel charger is if I'm on a road trip that's 4+ hours or going to be out of the house running errands all day.

I noticed that when I was using it that it didn't always
pronounce the street names correctly & had a fairly heavy phonetic influence, but it wasn't enough that I didn't recognize the street it indicated, it was more amusing than anything else.

This little unit came with a traffic subscription that works off of FM Transmitters in the area that will let you know if there is congestion or an accident on your route. It also has options that you can set depending on your preference(s) like take the fastest route or avoid highways etc. If you have the take the fastest route option selected & there's heavy congestion or an accident on your typical route this little dandy will re-route you accordingly. I LOVE this feature, but I'm a little afraid to find out what the traffic subscription fee will be when mine expires. If it's a reasonable $5-$10/month I'll definitely be re-signing, if it's more like $20/month, we'll have to see.

At first some of the icons that it displayed were pretty clear, such as three cars stacked in little triangles to indicate congestion or a car tipped over to indicate an accident, but there some I had to look in the manual to be able to decode.

An additional feature of this little dandy is that it can be bluetooth enabled. My husband was always getting on to me about calling him when I was driving, so he made sure that my phone which is bluetooth enabled would be able to synch with this little device. It took me two attempts after having read the section in the manual to get it synched, but once I did I haven't had any problems with it & I'm able to voice dial my husband via my GPS so I'm not hunting around for my phone or a headset. I can even receive calls via the GPS. When I asked my brother who called me to wish me a Merry Christmas how the sound quality was, he said that there was slight background noise, but not enough to be distracting & I've never had any complaints from anyone not being able to hear me. Including my mom who has slight hearing loss. An added benefit I discovered about synching up the bluetooth was that the street names which prior to setting up the bluetooth feature were fairly phonetic seemed to be slightly cleaner sounding. As though the device were "learning" my dialect. Still not perfect mind you, but better than it was initially out of the box.


Recently I wanted to see what would happen if I purposefully veered off course. In doing so, I found that it takes the unit a half a minute or so to re-confirm the coordinates & adjust the route, but does so within a very reasonable timeframe & still gets you back to your destination.

Some added features that I found very useful are that I can save my current location say if I'm in downtown & walk to a restaraunt (one that I don't know that I'm going to) & take this little baby along. (It won't fit in small purses, but will fit in medium to large size purses or totes. I've even successfully stuffed it in my coat pocket a few times.) When I'm ready to leave the restaraunt return to my vehicle I turn the GPS back on & it'll take me safely back to my car & if you're a single female walking around downtown in the evening not exactly sure where you parked, the safety & security you feel from this little gem is divine.

I was a little worried at first about theft of this little device seeing as it is so small, but another feature of this little gem is that I was able to program in a 4 digit "lock" code as well as a "Safety Location". Basically, until I enter the code in successfully I can't really use it. Or if I ever forget my "lock" code I can always go to my safety location & it will automatically unlock so that I can re-program the "lock" code to something else. So it may not be enough to keep a thief from taking it should they choose, but it would make it more difficult to use. (By the way that's why I usually take the device with me when I go in to stores whether in my pocket or purse, or if I do leave it in the car I usually leave it in a locked glove compartment.)

And there's more! I know, how could this small little device give you more? Well, if you're a coffee junky like me & are craving Starbucks, you can find the closest Starbucks in the area by plugging in the name. I can find restaraunts, lodging etc by category if I don't know the area as well. How wonderful would that be on road trips!

Here's what really put a smile on my face. I was on the way to a friend's place, one that I always get lost going to & I wanted to hit a Starbucks mid-route. So I plugged in my friend's address & was able to put a Starbucks stop mid-route! It was so nice to be able to start on the way to my friend's decide I wanted a Starbucks, put in a mid-route stop & not have to reprogram it back to getting to my friends house.

I made it to my friend's house safe & sound & will likely continue to rave about the wonders of this device for some time to come.