Garmin Nuvi 1350T Review

By Court Rye | in Gear | Tags: GPS, Travel

Garmin Nuvi 1350T with free lifetime traffic alerts, widescreen, and ecoRoute

Garmin recently came out with a new series of GPS, the 1300′s, which are slimmer and faster than the older 200-800 and 1200 series. These are great for finding and marking hikes, even helping you get back to your car at the end of the day, but the best new features are traffic navigation and eco mode.

The 1350 features a wide screen, lane assist and is priced well below the 1370T which comes in all black and is blue tooth compatible for hands free calling. All in all, after doing the research this is the most feature rich well priced and best working GPS I could find.

I chose the 1350T for it’s speed, price and the lifetime traffic feature, that’s what the T stands for! Having owned a 200 series for the past three years I can’t say that much has changed. I do notice the faster load time, rerouting (if I miss a turn) and rout calculation, but for an extra $200 I would expect that and more. The wider screen is nice but since I’m not watching movies or viewing photos it’s not a huge plus, it could actually end up taking more valuable wind shield viewing space or dash space than a cheaper smaller GPS, and who wants that? Sometimes bigger isn’t better…

I found myself wondering how the free traffic feature works and did a little research, turns out the system is built on data sent from mobile phones en rout to your destination. While the 1350T and other traffic enabled Nuvi’s can receive this information they can’t yet send it which means it could be better. Basically, data is sent from iPhones, Blackberries and other GPS enabled phones which is then compared to the speed limit in that area to quantify patterns which in turn are used for other drivers. That means the more people who are using two way GPS the more accurate information will be but ultimately someone will always be going slow somewhere in order to collect that information and someone will have to pay for the phone bill. Maybe at some point phones can be tethered to in car GPS so the free traffic reporting can remain free and the GPS interface Garmin provides can still provide its benefit.

If someone out there would just make an iPhone mount with navigation software that would be a great app…

Back to the 1350T, one feature I love is the speed limit indicator. Car speed and speed limit are both shown next to each other in the lower right corner of the screen and if you’re going over the numbers turn red letting you know that you’re speeding. As I was driving I compared the GPS speed calculation to the speedometer in my 2001 Subaru Outback and found out that the speedometer in my car is a bit slow. I’ve been driving like my grandma all these years!

The older Garmin Nuvi’s had foldaway antennas built in that flopped up when in use. The newer ones are much more accurate and don’t need the antenna anymore which is good because they could easily be broken and get in the way. I also noticed that while driving in San Francisco with my older unit it would get confused and have to recalculate more because of the high buildings, this problem has been reduced with the newer units.

ecoRoute is a new feature that uses your vehicle gas type, fuel cost, city and highway mpg in order to calculate your actual fuel economy and carbon footprint. This may be a useful feature for people who are trying to remain carbon neutral by offsetting their car use through a service like Terra Pass but it’s something that is also available for iPhones and other GPS devices. One other neat feature is a Driving Challenge mode that tells you to “Maximize your score by accelerating and decelerating smoothly and maintaining constant speeds”. I haven’t used this yet but it feels a bit tacked on, as I said earlier, this is essentially a fine tuned version of what the Garmin Nuvi has always been… an outstanding GPS unit for drivers, bikers, and hikers.

Other new features include a built in calculator, unit converter and world clock. For the best results as a hiker go to Settings > System > Usage Mode and select Pedestrian instead of automobile or bicycle. I haven’t used this mode much but worst case even the automobile mode would help you walk in the direction of a nearby road if you were lost in the woods. The 1350 also features narrated directions (just like most older Nuvi’s) but I always mute it as the interruption to a conversation is terribly annoying. The 1250 uses a mini USB jack for charging via the cigarette lighter that comes standard in most cars, the unit has to be plugged in to receive traffic data and the antenna is built right into the charging cable.

In California it is illegal to mount GPS and other devices to car windshields so I was able to use double sided tape and the included mounting plate to position my Nuvi inside the gauge window. I’ve found that this position is much more discreet and less distracting than the windshield would be, see images below. While the vehicle tachometer is blocked in this position, my car is an automatic so it really doesn’t matter.