I've never bought a worse piece of technology than this. Everything about it is poor. If you can get over the poor menus and inputs and can wait sometimes 15 mins to find a satellite then you probably won't get over the fact that it can simply be wrong. From poor route choices to country lanes instead of A roads and twice it has just taken me to the wrong place when I'd entered the correct postcode. I can't trust it so now use google maps which is far superior in route choices, usability and traffic accuracy. There are some positive reviews and clearly it does sometimes work - but the sometimes is the key. You often won't know until it's too late. Avoid this product!

I have had this one for two years and have had problems with freezing and not being able to find satellites.Then one day recently it froze completely and now does not work.I have downloaded updates 3 times and it still does not work.I have been on the Garmin website which I find almost as confusing as the
nuvi.I am from UK and there does not seem to be any help with repairing only in the states.I have sent 4 emails and have never had a reply.It's now in the bin.What a waste of space and I will never buy a Garmin again.

cannot understand the negative comments.I have a nuvi 250 which gives instructions which are almost too quick in succession in city conditions. It gives the local speed limit, my speed and a fairly accurate and regularly updated ETA.I adjust the map scale to suit the the type of motoring I am doing My only criticism is it sometimes takes you off a motorway ,usually to avoid traffic when it would probably be less stressful sitting in the traffic. Have just travelled 2000 miles around France with only a few hitches. Compare this with trying to find rural out of the way places by map.

Agree with other posts here, the garmin doesn't differentiate between any other road apart from motorways and will regularly take you 'off road' to cut a corner (irrespective of fastest or shortest mode settings) which proved very frustrating sround cornwall (lanes with grass growing in the middle and hedges huging each wing mirror either side)
Also takes an absolute age to locate satelites.

generally easy to operate and clear instructions when co-operating on decent roads

Garmin Nuvi 255
Garbage. After a day in Alton Towers, I needed satnav to help me get back on to the M1 towards Leeds. My Garmin took me in the complete wrong direction, down an un-made road (and I mean un-made). Grass in the middle of the road, broken cattle grids and wildlife I'd never seen before. There was nowhere and no room to turn around so I just had to follow the satnav's advice. After about 20 minutes we ended up being surrounded by huge rockfaces and a sign telling us that we were now in the 'High Peaks'. In total in took me approximately 40 miles out of my way; added an hour on to our journey, and wasted a shed load of fuel. One other problem with this device is that it does not tell you (on the display screen), how many miles you have to go to reach your destination, so when it does get you lost, you are well and truly screwed.
Also, it does suffer from the following:
Freezes in the middle of a journey.
Tells you that you are driving at 28mph, when you are actually stood still at the traffic lights.
Tells you it's reached its destination when you are actually still a few miles away.
Top Tip: Buy a Tom Tom or print out the directions from the AA or google maps websites instead.
Dolly, Leeds

I have had this for about two years and it kept telling me to update the maps. To be honest I had noticed that things like roundabouts etc were missing on certain journeys. So I steeled myself and sat down at the computer to update. What a palaver...so complicated...and at the end a bill of over £150 to update. So have chucked in the bin and bought a new TomTom which is much easier and only cost about £20 to update. BIG TIP! Find out how much the updating costs before you buy.

I thought for £180 quid I would get a better product than my previous Navman. I was wrong. My old Navman was £99. and very good. I would not recommend this nuvi sat nav as it often sends you ona wild goose chase, has painfully tedious menus, entering destinations for example is tiresome. The voices are poorly programmed with speech impediments and poor pronounciaion. All in all rather poor and to be avoided as there are some really good systems out there for the same money or less. Avoid.

My Garmin nuvi 250 is always loosing sat signal my other GPS a Mio very rarely ever looses signal I would never ever buy another Garmin product for the one i have is a piece of rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Garmin Nuvi 250W has been the biggest waste of £170 I think I have ever spent. It has been literally worse than useless, unable to locate signals for sometimes several hours and then losing the signal with the familiar and depressing "lost satellite signal". It's not possible to give a product any stars whatsoever if it won't do what it was purchased for - to navigate. My wife bought a TomTom and it is superb, locating satellite signals within seconds even when indoors, whereas the Garmin almost always gets to the "unable to locate satellite signal" before it finds anything. If, as is so often the case, you need to switch on your satnav whilst in the middle of a journey then the Garmin is useless due to it's inability to locate a signal.
I tried to return the unit to the place of purchase (Halfords) and was told there was nothing wrong with it and that it was normal to take a while to locate a signal. They phoned Garmin who advised that it simply needed updating, even though it was fully up-to-date with the latest software version from Garmin's own website. Appalling service from both Halfords and Garmin.
Garmin should be forced to place a huge disclaimer on the front of the box, stating "This product may take several hours to locate a satellite signal and should only be purchased if you do not intend to use it as a satnav unit".
From now on nothing but a TomTom will be considered.

Really easy to use, gives you plenty of time before a junction, this is much better than the tom tom i had before which broke after a short time, would definitely buy a Garmin again, my husband has just brought the 255 model with EU

The Garmin nuvi is the worst piece of electrical kit I have ever had. Work gave me this one which it why it is still intact today, I would have driven over it a long time ago if I had brought it.

It can't find a thing, I have been though 3 chargers, the options are terrible, it tells you to stay on the motorway at every junction as if you were 6 years old.

In short, DO NOT BUY THIS SAT NAV!

need to update the Garmin nuvi 250 for caravaning as end up down roads when towing

Places of interest very easily downloaded. Wish it could go straight into postcode search rather than having to select a country first. Having UK instead of England, Wales and Scotland. I found the Garmin nuvi 250 pretty easy to use, user friendly.