I purchased the Garmin Nuvi 255 for my granddaughter who lives in Denver. She loves it - easy to operate and understand. She uses it daily not only for street directions, but eating and shopping locations. The Garmin Nuvi has made her transition to Denver and learning a new city easy. We researched the product at local stores (i.e. Best Buy, Circuit City), and each sales clerk highly recommended the Garmin Nuvi 255- good choice!

After much research I decided on the Nuvi 255 due mostly to the fact that it is the least expensive model with TTS (Text to speech) in other words it speaks street names so that you can keep your eyes on the raod ahead.

This unit also has the ability to get traffic updates via a separate cable (GTM-10 or GTM-12 Traffic Receiver) that can be purchased through Amazon.com. I have not purchased this extra item, so I cannot comment on how this works. I can tell you that you need to check the various traffic providers ie. MSN, Clear Channel, etc. to make sure that they have adequate coverage in your area. There is also a monthly fee for traffic updates. The GTM-10 comes with a 15 month subscription to Clear Channel.

I have had the unit now for about 1 month and it has not led me astray. I would recommend this unit to anyone who wants an affordable but reliable GPS unit.

This GPS is really nice. I was able to purchase it on Black Friday for $151.00. The Points of Interest database is really extensive. The receiver is less sensitive than my TomTom 3rd edition, as it will not pick up a signal when I am in the house.

I bought this unit because it has the text to speech feature, which is nice. This GPS has all of the features that I consider important. It is about the size of a deck of cards and fits nicely in my shirt pocket. The 4 hour battery life is also great.

The lack of a querty keyboard is my biggest complaint about this unit. In this day and age you would assume that would be a given.

I considered getting a Garmin a year ago but at that time Garmins were selling for around $300.00. Nice to see that I can get a feature rich Garmin for $150.

After some extensive research and comparison shopping I decided to get the Garmin nuvi 255. My key factors in purchasing was that it was a name brand, it has good reviews, its the latest model with the most recent interface and processor, it has text to speech and it was under $200. I was not interested in blue tooth (I already have a hands free set) or the FM transmitter (I don't think this technology has been perfected yet) or the mp3 player. I actually planned on purchasing the Garmin 350 until I read that the 255 was the new model that replaces the discontinued 350. This is the first GPS I have owned and have had it for about 2 weeks now so I wanted to share some initial impressions.

Its a very nice unit with a bright screen and a nice compact size. I was worried that the 3.5 inch screen would be too small but it does the job. A 4.3 inch screen would definitely have been more attractive but that was a nice to have and not a necessity for me. I have read some complaints about the voice on this unit and that worried me too. However, its perfectly fine for a standard GPS unit. I'm not looking for the perfect sounding voice, just something that can be understandable and clear and this does the job. The pronunciation of some streets is not always accurate but thats not a big deal for me as the name of the streets are displayed on the screen. The volume is excellent. When the volume is at 50% I can still hear it clearly even when I have music playing in the background. However, this is with the windows up and so most of the street/car noise is blocked out. The satellite acquisition is excellent and I don't have to sit in my driveway for 15 minutes waiting for the connection. The longest wait so far has been about 2 minutes. The interface is very intuitive and so you don't really need to read any detailed instruction manuals to use this right away.

In terms of the negatives for this unit, the first is the route it chooses for you. Garmin will pick the most direct path to your destination but that is not always the fastest, given traffice lights, etc. So sometimes I find myself ignoring the Garmin directions and going down a road/street that I know would be quicker. Garmin will then immediately recalcute the directions which is a nice feature. As you can imagine this is not an issue when I'm totally unfamiliar with the streets - in that case I let Garmin show me the way and it has gotten me there at the end of the day. The other negative is the on/off switch. Its very sensitive and just the slightest pressure will turn the unit on or off which is a problem if your storing the unit and accidently turn it on (there goes the battery)...to combat this there is a lock setting.

I'm sure there are a lot more features that I still need to become familiar with but at least in the early stages, I feel this product is definitely worth it given the price and that its the latest model. If your looking for a GPS under $200 then this should be on your short list. I purchased the leather Gilsson 3.5" carrying case which is a perfect fit for this gadget (the original packaging does not come with a case) and I also got the Garmin friction mount which is really excellent.

New to GPS here, so maybe the problems we're having are intrinsic to all such units. We've used Garmin 255 for about a month now - testing it out in areas we are familiar with.

We've been misdirected numerous times. For example, it doesn't seem to do overpasses and cloverleafs well. We've been told to "get in left lane" for an exit on the Capital Beltway around DC, when the exit was only from the right lane. We've been directed to "make a u turn" in the middle of a major DC-area bridge. And, we've been told our destination address was on the right when it was clearly on the left side of the road.

Still deciding whether to trust Garmin on travels in areas where we are not familiar with the route.

We do like the clarity of the screen and voice commands though, but will continue to use our own maps as backup.