7. Saving Your Current Location

Figure 45: Saving Your Current Location

If you want to save your current location as a favorite, simple tap on the car icon from the map view. That brings up the screen above, asking if you want to save your current location.

Although this is a handy shortcut, I would have appreciated there being an official menu option to save your location.

8. Setting Your Home Location

Figure 46: Setting the Home Address

Like most other GPS devices, the StreetPilot has a special favorite for storing your home address. This allows you to navigate home simply by tapping on the Home icon. To set your home address, tap on "Where to" -> Go Home. If no Home address has been saved, you'll be presented with the screen shown above, and you can set your home address.

9. Garmin Security

The StreetPilot c550 includes a Garmin security feature called "Garmin Lock". If you enable the feature, this is a 4-digit PIN code you use to lock/unlock the device. One nice additional feature of Garmin Lock is that you can designate a particular address as a "Security Location". If you're at your designated security location, you don't need to enter the 4-digit PIN code to unlock the c550. Moreover, if you forget your PIN code, you can drive to the designated Security Location to unlock the unit. It's thoughtful features like this that really show Garmin's maturity.

10. Bluetooth Setup

I found connecting my Bluetooth enabled phone to the Garmin to be easy and straight forward. The c550 and your phone must be within 10 meters of each other (about 32 feet). Garmin has a nice web page where you can check if your Bluetooth enabled cell phone is compatible with Garmin. My phone was listed, and it looks like a fairly extensive list (many more phones than TomTom supports, for example).

Figure 47: Bluetooth Menu

Once your phone is paired with the c550 via Bluetooth, you can make and receive phone calls using the StreetPilot c550 as a speakerphone (the c550 has an internal microphone mounted in the front of the unit). When you receive an incoming phone call, the c550 displays the caller ID information, and you can tap either "ignore" or "Answer". When using the c550 as a speakerphone, you adjust the volume using the volume knob. The c550 supports standard phone call options, such as mute, call-waiting, and phone book synchronization. Also, if you have a phone paired to the c550, you can dial points of interest (e.g. restaurants, hotels, etc.) directly from the c550 by tapping "Dial" or tapping the telephone icon. You can also dial a number directly from the c550, using a touch-screen dialpad.

There's also a special "Call Home" feature. Tapping the telephone icon brings up a menu of choices, including an icon to dial your designated Home telephone number.

If your cell phone supports Voice Dialing, you can use the StreetPilot in the same way: Menu -> Telephone Icon -> Voice Dial, then speak the name of the person you want to call. I've never been a big dan of voice dialing, but I suppose for some this could be useful.

11. Setting System Options

Figure 48: StreetPilot c550's System Options Screen

Tapping on the wrench icon from the main menu brings up the system settings menu. From here you can set the mapping colors, brightness, access the Bluetooth menu, set your locale, and a few other settings. Relative to other GPS devices, the StreetPilot c550 is fairly locked down. Although a few settings can be customized, Garmin has chosen simplicity of customizability. Unlike the TomTom 910, which allows you customize pretty much every aspect of the device, the c550 allows you to make only small changes. For example, there's no way to add a compass to the map view, show the current time, or change what statistics are displayed when navigating to a destination.

12. Voice Quality

Similar to other GPS navigation units on the market, the StreetPilot c550 includes a number of male and female voices, both human recorded and computer generated. The computer generated voices can read street names aloud, while the human recorded voices sound more natural. After a while, I found the reading aloud of street names annoying, and opted for the human recorded voice instead.

13. Real-Time Traffic Data

Garmin's StreetPilot c550 is the only GPS unit I've tested that actually comes with everything you need to receive real-time traffic updates. All other units require you to buy additional hardware, and in some cases that hardware isn't even available yet.

Using the included integrated traffic receiver / 12v adapter, the c550 is able to receive traffic information broadcast over the RDS system (FM Radio Data System -- this is the same system that displays the song you're listening to on some FM radio stations). When a traffic message is received, the StreetPilot c550 displays the incident on the map and can change your route to avoid the accident/traffic.

Figure 49: Garmin Traffic Icons

If there is a traffic event received that impacts your current route, the c550 displays the appropriate icon (from the table above in figure 49) in the lower-right hand corner of the map display. Touch the icon, and you can view the details of the traffic issue, or tap "Avoid" and get routed around the problem.

The c550 comes with a complimentary 3-month traffic subscription. After that, It'll cost you $60/year (for service in the United States).