Garmin n?vi 3590LMT

With GPS-equipped smartphones becoming more prevalent every day, is there still a place for $400 personal navigation devices? The Garmin n?vi 3590LMT ($399.99 list) is the first in the company's new Prestige line, and presents that very question.?With the 3590LMT, you get Garmin's most advanced traffic and terrain reporting to date, plus a responsive, glass capacitive touch screen that's superior to the plastic resistive screens nearly every other PND employs. Despite a few minor issues, it's a stellar performer and our new Editors' Choice for high-end GPS navigation devices.

Design, Display, and Mount
The Garmin n?vi 3590LMT isn't as svelte as its predecessor, the n?vi 3790T (4 stars). The 3590LMT measures 3.4 by 5.4 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 7.2 ounces. Even though the new model has a 5-inch screen, and the older 3790T was limited to a 4.3-inch display, the 3790T is significantly smaller. You could argue it doesn't matter, since both units are designed for in-car use. But either way, it's a curious step backwards.

On the plus side, the larger display is the best part of the 3590LMT. The glass capacitive touch screen sports a sharp 800-by-480-pixel resolution, which puts it far ahead of the similar TomTom GO 2535 M LIVE ($349.95, 4 stars). The Garmin's display looked very bright and colorful in testing, and easily stands up to bright sunlight in the car. Better still is its response; it feels like a good Android phone or iPhone, and much more receptive to touch than the plastic resistive screens found on most personal navigation devices.

One persistent nit: the charging cables. The unit itself and the mount each have charging ports. This is great, as it lets you charge the unit directly, as well as leave a cable attached to the mount on the windshield, with the other end in a power socket in your car. But while the 3590LMT employs micro USB, as is typical for most of today's cell phones, the mount contains an older mini USB port. It's not a huge problem, since the unit comes with the proper cables, and since you'll likely only need the mini USB one in the car. But it's still silly to employ two different charging connectors on a single product.

POI Search, Map Graphics, and Lane Assistance
With the 3590LMT, you get free lifetime maps and traffic (hence the 'LMT' designation in the model name), plus a database containing nearly 8 million points of interest (POIs). Garmin continues to refine its POI category breakdown, and in our opinion, it's still the best in the business. The new voice activation is a welcome addition, and performs better in testing than Magellan's comparable feature (which admittedly has been around a while now). With the 3590LMT, you say "voice command," followed by a decent selection of choices, including going home, searching for nearby POIs, stopping navigation, and changing the volume or display brightness, among other things.

Garmin also attempted to improve the way you input addresses in the 3590LMT, but the results are mixed. There's a type-ahead feature that searches as you type, but you have to remember to change the city and state first, using the small button on the top right. Otherwise, the type-ahead will never figure out the correct street. Plus, you can't specifically set the state, at least in the New York area. I searched for a specific city in New Jersey, but it also popped up examples in other states; when I scrolled down to select the one in New Jersey, it didn't register even after four or five tries. Then, without explanation, it did register and move onto the next screen?but there was no easy way, once I began navigation, to see if it did in fact choose the right one. I had to bring up the full step-by-step route list to make sure it got the right city.

Once on the road, all of the Garmin's minor issues fall away. The map graphics are absolutely gorgeous. The sharp resolution and vibrant color of the capacitive touch screen, combined with a faster processor and near 30-frames-per-second animation, make for an especially slick presentation. Sometimes, during testing, I saw more stutters when the road bent to the left or right, when the 3590LMT needed to swing the map around to keep my heading at the top, but otherwise it was very smooth. There are plenty of thoughtful touches throughout, including 3D terrain mapping and elevation data, and newly rendered 3D buildings in major cities, all of which put the 3590LMT a step ahead of every other standalone device on the market.

Especially attractive are the new, photo-realistic lane assistance graphics. Instead of switching the entire map view to a full-screen, rendered 3D graphic, now it splits the screen in two, and the right side shows the exit signs and appropriate arrows. Not only do the road signs display the right text, but the background on the road matched what I saw in real life. For example, on I-195 in New Jersey, there were trees along the side of the road. But on the New Jersey Turnpike further north, it showed the industrial structures and highway lamps along the side of the road, and even the concrete divider in the center. I almost expected to see a nearby Ikea store on the display, too.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/y1k58Y6PRA0/0,2817,2402078,00.asp

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