Garmin Nüvi 350 Comes with Outstanding Features

Garmin International breaks new ground with its Garmin Nüvi 350. This ultraportable device aims to be the ultimate travel companion, acting as a GPS navigator, a personal traveling assistant, and a digital entertainment center.

No bigger than a deck of cards (3.8 by 2.0 by 0.8 inches; 5.1 ounces), the Garmin Nüvi 350 is small and light enough to fit comfortably in your pocket. The unit's centerpiece is a bright 3.5-inch color touch screen, framed by a thin silver bezel. The 320x240-resolution screen is daylight readable and has five backlight-timer settings.

This device is based on the SiRFstarIII GPS chip, which boasts fast satellite-acquisition times and improved GPS-signal reception in areas where the view of the sky may be partially blocked by dense foliage or tall buildings. In addition to voice-guided, turn-by-turn driving directions, the Nüvi offers all the usual features we've come to expect from today's crop of in-car navigation systems, including automatic routing, the ability to save your favorite locations, a detour function that recalculates your route when you veer off course, and 2D and 3D map views. It also has text-to-speech directions through which the actual street name is spoken, and you can hook up an optional FM traffic receiver to obtain real-time traffic alerts.

The Garmin StreetPilot comes with an expensive price tag of $964.27.