Figure 25: Turn List

The Turn List (Available by tapping on the horizontal green bar across the top of the Map Screen) displays a list of all upcoming maneuvers. Each turn can be selected to view a more detailed view of the turn (Next Turn page, shown below).

Tapping on the scroll arrows cycles through each of the upcoming turns.

Figure 26: Next Turn Page

The "Next Turn" page is available by tapping on the lower-right icon from the map view ("Turn In"), and displays a detailed view of the next turn. This split-screen shows a 2-dimensional drawing of the turn on the left side of the screen, and a text description of the turn on the right side. Also displayed are the distance and time to the turn.

Tapping the up/down arrows in the lower-right portion of the screen cycles through the remaining turns, one at a time. Voice prompts are also announced as each turn is viewed (note that the nuvi 200-series units don't have text-to-speech, so the actual street names are not spoken, just the basic turn information).

8. Finding an Address

The nuvi 250 allows you to input a destination address a number of different ways, but probably the most common method is to use a street address.

Figure 27: Accessing the Where to? Menu

It doesn't get much simpler than this: after powering on the nuvi 250, the Main Menu screen appears. From here, you can view the map, search for an address, adjust system settings (wrench icon), or adjust the volume (speaker icon).

This first step in entering a destination address is tapping on "Where to?" icon from the main menu.

Figure 28: Searching for an Address, Step 1

Most of the time you'll probably be driving to a street address (as opposed to a business name or intersection). After tapping on "Where to?" from the Main Menu, tap on "Address" to begin inputting a street address.

Figure 29: Entering the State

After tapping on "Address", nuvi asks for the State the destination address is located in. By default nuvi displays the State you are currently located in, or gives the option of spelling out a different State.

In this example, I'm currently in Connecticut, but will be entering an address in New York State, so I'll tap on "Spell State/Province" to continue on to the next step.

Figure 30: Entering the State Name

Next the nuvi asks what city the destination is located in (if you're not sure what city your destination is located in, you can choose "Search All' to have nuvi include all cities within the selected State.

Spelling the State is straight forward; you use the on-screen keyboard to spell out the city name until the nuvi has enough letters entered that it can narrow the results list to just a few, then it automatically produces a list of possible matching cities to choose from.

Figure 31: Choosing a State Name From the Results List

In the example above, I'm entering a destination in New York State, so I type out N-E-W-space, and the nuvi automatically produces a short list of matching States (just one, in this case) to choose from. I tap on "New York" and continue on to the next step.

The nuvi 250 is zippy and responsive, allowing me to enter the city name as quickly as I can type, without any annoying delays or sluggishness.

However, I did find myself wishing that the text entry system were more like Magellan's QuickSpell system, which dims out various letters as you type, only allowing you to press keys that would spell a valid city name. TomTom has a similar text entry system. These systems reduce the likelihood of misspellings and make it generally easier/faster to input text.

Figure 32: Entering the City

The next step is selecting the city. If you know what city your destination address is in, you can enter it by tapping on "Spell City" and using the same text-entry method as we used for spelling the State name.

If you're not sure what city the destination address is in, you can choose "Search All" to have the unit search all cities within the selected state.

Figure 33: Inputting the City Name

Entering the city name is identical to entering the State name; once you've entered enough of the city name that nuvi can limit the results to just a few, it will automatically product a list of matching cities to choose from.

Figure 34: Choosing the City Name

I'm entering an address in Manhattan (note that you can enter either "New York" or "Manhattan" for the city name - nuvi will accept either), so I'll tap on "Manhattan, NY" to continue on to the next step.

Figure 35: Entering the House/Building Number

Like most GPS units, the nuvi asks you for the house number before the street name, which some people find disconcerting. Some other GPS units allow you to specify the order in which you want to enter address information, although the nuvi does not allow the order to be changed.

Figure 36: Entering the Street Name

In this test I'm entering an address on "Central Park West" in New York City.

Figure 37: Selecting the Street Name

The final step in entering the destination address is the street name. Garmin does a good job thinking of the various ways people might enter street names. Nevertheless, this is the step that sometimes causes confusion among first-time GPS users. When entering a street name, you only enter the main part of the street name, and allow the GPS to search for possible matches.

For example, if you are looking for "North Main" street, you would only enter "Main" as the search criteria, and the GPS would product a list of matching street names, such as "South Main Street" and "North Main Street".

Figure 38: Address Confirmation

With the address successfully entered into the nuvi, I can now either view the address on the map (Show Map), save it to my address book (Save), or route to it by pressing the large green Go! button.

Figure 39: Viewing the Destination Address on the Map

Tapping on "Show Map" in the previous menu displays the destination address on the map. This is a nice feature as it allows you to see what the streets will look like at the destination address.

Figure 40: Navigating to the Destination Address

Tap on the green "Go!" button and the nuvi starts routing to the destination address.

9. Finding a Restaurant