Figure 41: Searching for a Point of Interest

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest" is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a pre-loaded yellow pages. Most modern GPS devices come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest database, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

To illustrate how the to find a POI on the nuvi 250, let's search for a nearby restaurant:

To search for a "Point of Interest", tap on Where to? -> Points of Interest, as shown above in figure 41.

Figure 42: POI Menu, Page 1

After tapping on "Points of Interest" from the "Where to?" page, the POI menu appears, shown above. You can search for a POI by tapping on the appropriate category, or, if you're not sure what category a particular entry would be found under, you can tap on "Spell Name" to search the entire POI database. For example, if you're looking for a restaurant, you would tap on the "Food" icon. But suppose you want to route to a local school or public library; you might not be so sure what category those addresses would be filed under, and might want to just tap "Spell Name" to input the name of the school or library.

The icons are large enough that your finger won't accidentally tap the wrong box, and the icons do a good job illustrating the POI category.

Note that there are actually three pages of POI categories to choose from. Figure 42 shows page 1, which is Garmin has intelligently populated with the most commonly used POI types: Food, Fuel, Transit, Lodging, and Shopping.

Figure 43: POI Menu, Page 2

Tapping on the down arrow in the lower-right corner scrolls to page 2 of the POI search menu. This page allows you to search for POI's in the following categories: Bank/ATM, Parking, Entertainment, Recreation, Attractions, and Hospitals.

Figure 44: POI Menu, Page 3

The third, and final, page on the POI search menu is home to the Community and Auto Services categories.

Figure 45: Choosing a POI Sub-Category

Some POI categories have sub-categories. For example, if you choose "Food" as the main category, the nuvi 250 prompts asks if you also want to enter a sub-category (in this case, a food cuisine type). If we wanted to find the closest Mexican restaurant, for example, we could choose Mexican as the sub-category, and the nuvi would limit the results to just Mexican restaurants.

If you don't want to narrow the results by cuisine, we can choose "All Food" to list all restaurants.

Figure 46: Viewing the POI Search Results

Each POI is displayed in order of closeness (by default the nuvi orders the POI lookup results by closeness to your current location. You can change the radius of the search by tapping on the "Near..." button).

Figure 47: POI Details Page

Tapping on a POI in the search results list displays the details page for that particular POI. From here you can view the POI's exact address, phone number, view the POI on the map, or begin routing to the business by tapping on the large green "Go!" button.

The nuvi 250 ships with the same large (6 million) POI database as the more expensive 300/600 series nuvi's, which is both good and bad news. It's good news in the sense that Garmin is providing the same full POI database as their more expensive units. However, if there is a weakness with Garmin's GPS products, it's almost certainly their POI database; during my testing, I consistently found that other manufacturers do a better job with POI's than Garmin, including some GPS units that have much smaller POI databases than Garmin's advertised 6+ million.

For example, the Magellan RoadMate 2200T and Maestro 4040 both have POI databases that are about 30% smaller than Garmin's. Yet in my testing, the Magellan devices were able to locate many more nearby train stations, restaurants, and gas stations than the Garmin nuvi. This was true throughout my testing in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Garmin is planning to release updated maps this Spring, so let's hope the POI database is more complete in the next map release.

10. Expanding the Search Scope

Figure 48: Expanding the POI Search Scope

When you search for POI's, the default behavior on the nuvi is to search based on your current location. But what if you want to find a restaurant near your destination address instead? Or want to find a shopping mall along the way to your destination? Tapping on "Near..." from the main Find menu allows you to specify exactly where you want to search for a given POI.

My eyes skipped over this button the first few times I used the nuvi, and I had to read the instructions to find out how to tell the nuvi to search near a different location other than my present position. This is the one area of Garmin's user interface that I feel could be made more obvious.

Figure 49: Telling the nuvi Where to Search

The nuvi allows you to specify one of four options for setting the POI search radius:

• Where I Am Now (Show results in order of closeness to your current location)
• A Different City (Enter any city name and search within that city)
• My Current Route (Search for POI's along your current route)
• My Destination (Search for POI's near your destination address)

For example, if you wanted to find a restaurant near your destination, you would tap on Where to? -> Near... ->My Destination ->Points of Interest ->Food and so on.

11. Setting the Home Address

Figure 50: Routing to the Home Address

Within the Favorites menu, you'll find a special green "Go Home" button located at the top of the list of saved addresses. Home is a special saved address that provides quick access to start routing you back to your designated home address.

Figure 51: Setting the Home Address

The first time you use the "Home" button, the nuvi will prompt you to input your home address, as shown above in figure 51.

Previous Garmin nuvi's had a dedicated Home icon on the main Find menu, making for one-touch Home routing. Unfortunately, the nuvi 250 has moved the "Go Home" button to the Favorites menu, meaning you now have an extra click (or tap) to the process. Not a big deal, but I do prefer having the Home icon right out on the main menu since it's so frequently used.

12. Using Longitude/Latitude Coordinates

Figure 52: Routing to A Set of Coordinates

I was pleasantly surprised to see Garmin has included the ability to input a set of longitude/latitude coordinates as a destination address. I find this more useful than you might think. For example, some destinations don't have an official street address and need to be input directly as a set of coordinates. Routing to coordinates is also useful for Geocaching, as it allows you to drive close to the Cache before heading out on foot.

To route to a set of coordinates, tap on "Where to?" and then scroll down to see the Coordinates option, as shown above in figure 52.

Figure 53: Entering the Coordinates

Garmin supports entering coordinates in several different formats.