Digital Trends

Garmin nuvi 350

January 17th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Extras

We plugged the nuvi 350 into our computer with the USB cable and it came up as a storage device. We were able to add music and pictures just by dragging and dropping them into the appropriate folder, which is great since it’s so simple. Windows Explorer told us we had about 500MB of free space, which is enough for a small music library. Supposedly you can add more storage by putting in your own SD card, but we didn’t have a card on hand to test this. The included MP3 player works okay via headphones, but using the onboard speaker to listen to music isn’t very enjoyable. The picture viewer is okay too but since the screen is so small we don’t think it’s a particularly useful feature.

The calculator works as advertised, and the currency converter is easy-to-use as well. We didn’t sample any of the paid-for add-ons since they didn’t come with the unit.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use GPS that is literally plug-and-play, the nuvi 350 should be high on your list. Having never sampled a Garmin product before we were very impressed by how easy it was to get up and running. The UI is very easy to navigate, the unit is extremely responsive, and it was truly a pleasure to have it guide us all over town. It’s a shame that many of the included add-ons are not actually included, but their presence does give the nuvi 350 the potential to be much more than a portable GPS device. We didn’t like the lack of a volume knob, however, as it makes adjusting unit volume a lot easier while driving.


Pros:

• Easy-to-use
• Very responsive and fast
• Lots of add-ons available

Cons:

• Most add-ons cost money
• No volume dial