Garmin nüvi 270 3.5 Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Editorial Review
Navigate both North America and Europe without loading more maps with the affordable nüvi 270. This entry-level Personal Travel Assistant makes traveling so simple. For even more mapping options, nüvi 250 and nüvi 200 offer less map coverage at a lower price. Like all nüvi 200-series members, the 270 features an easy-to-use colorful touchscreen and ultra-slim design--perfect for everyday navigation.

The nüvi 270 comes preloaded with maps for North America and Europe, and features an easy-to-use touchscreen and ultra-slim design.

Configurable vehicle icons let you select car-shaped graphics.

nüvi 270 accepts custom points of interest (POIs). View larger.

Smart, Powerful Design
The nüvi 270 is built with a high-sensitivity WAAS-enabled GPS receiver for extreme accuracy, as well as an SD card slot for storing your media and additional navigation tools, and a USB interface for loading data. All this is wrapped up in a package that measures 3.8 x 2.8 x .8 inches (W x H x D) and weighs just 5.2 ounces. The nüvi 270's 3.5-inch (diagonal) display is touchscreen-enabled, making it a cinch to control the device with your fingertips. A rechargeable lithium-ion battery provides up to five hours of battery life depending on use.

Navigate with Ease
nüvi 270 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. Simply touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with 2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. In addition, nüvi 270 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs.

Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 270 features many travel tools including JPEG picture viewer, world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more. It also comes with Garmin Lock, an anti-theft feature, and configurable vehicle icons that let you select car-shaped graphics to show your location on the map. Optional plug-in SD cards for our line of Garmin Travel Guides and Garmin SaversGuide provide detailed data for attractions and information on nearby merchants offering discounts, so you can customize nüvi for your travel needs.

Note: Like most USB Mass Storage Devices, the nüvi is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.

Customer Reviews

Good value

2008-07-25
A very good value for the money, with both N American and European maps pre-loaded. Its small size makes it easy to travel with. I've used it on both continents and it works quite well, or at least up to my expectations. It seems to get confused occasionally, but usually sorts itself out if given 30 seconds. Of course, 30 seconds can be a long time when you're driving through the middle of a large foreign city, so I'd be even happier if this never happened. The only real oddity I could cite is the tendency for the verbal instructions to be overly detailed, even to the point of confusion initially. Rather than telling you to go straight at an intersection, it will tell you to 'keep right' or 'keep left' unless the intersection is exactly 90 degrees. You get used to it, but it's weird.

worked great in the U.K.

2008-07-23
Purchased, took to Europe, and had great results. Got me everywhere I wished to go for a month of a driving tour. The voice sometimes got irritating, but other than that, I was very pleased.

Appreciated by "mapaholic"

2008-07-05
As a "Mapaholic" I was hesitant to surrender to a GPS. The Garmin has allowed me to be map-free! (Although I still keep them in the car.) I rely on "her" telling me where to turn - and if I miss the turn she will get me back on track immediately. What a relief.

Great Unit with US & Euro Maps

2008-06-17
Advantages are relatively cheap, has all US and most European maps built in, Also has an SD card slot for other optional area maps.

It does NOT have all the fancy features which for me are fairly useless except to make you pay a lot of money, such as MP3 payers, bluetooth phone speakers, traffic reports for cities, etc. It also does NOT say which road to turn on. For example, much more expensive units might say "Turn right on Main Street", where this GPS only says "Turn right", and you have to read on the top of the display which street to turn on (but it's the one you are at!). This is not a big deal to me.

It is fairly small, which is good and not so good. It is not "wide screen" so it shows less information. However, I think has very acceptable readability, and does not obscure the road while hanging on the suction cup mount. On the other hand, the small size it is easy to pack and take overseas traveling. It is even small enough to carry with you walking around a foreign city so you can get back to the hotel if you get lost. You can walk to restaurants you pick from the unit, and you can even set it to "walk mode" instead of "drive mode" so it ignores one-way streets, etc. when you are walking or bicycling around. Of course, it only has roads programmed in, and not park paths, etc.

It has a built in battery that is charged through the included cigarette lighter plug. It lasts at least 8-10 hours I think? It has a USB charge connection on the GPS, but I think the voltage requirement is higher (1V?) than most laptop computers put out (0.5V), so it may not charge by plugging into a laptop?? I don't know yet.....

It has lots of "Points of Interest" such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, etc, although some of the POI's in Europe are sometimes sparse. For example I was looking for a ATM cash machine in a little town in Germany, and it said the closest one was 12 miles away. However, there were a few actually in the small town I was in, just not listed.

Also, it has many languages built in for the voice commands. German, Spanish, English, French, Chinese, and many other obscure languages are included. The "British" vs. "American" english accents are entertaining.

Out of the box, it is set up to NOT allow you to program it while moving (Safe Mode). However, this CAN BE SWITCHED OFF to allow a passenger (or a danger seeking driver) to fully program addresses or find Points of Interest when the vehicle is moving.

In short, I would definitely buy it again.

Review updated 7/14/2008, after Italy trip.

2008-06-12
It's small, fits in a breast pocket. It's light weight, It doesn't have much of an instruction manual because if you work with it for a while, you learn all the things it can do. Sure, it might be nice to have the GPS say: "Turn right on Vine Street in .2 miles" instead of "turn right in .2 miles"... but the display shows the name of the street anyway. It does more than I thought it could because the Garmin site really doesn't elaborate on it's functions, such as multiple languages. It's fun just learning how to use it and I'm looking forward to using it in Italy soon. It comes with a suction cup mount and 12V car charger. I have purchased the leather case, a wall charger (for use in 110/220 volt) and a (off brand) 512mb memory chip. We already had two Garmin devices for sports, so the Garmin/USB cable we owned was compatible for downloading software updates and photo transfers on the Nuvi 270. I've already found and memorized my hotels in Italy on the map, but of course, it will not be able to plot out the driving routes until over there.

I will add to this review after the trip.

So far, I highly recommend the Nuvi 270 GPS. Seems like a good product and worth the money.

2/14/2008
Back from Italy safe and sound... What a great trip and it was made easier and safer by using the Garmin Nuvi 270. This thing worked great in Italy, with only a few hitches. 1. We learned quickly the "AVOIDANCES" needs to be disabled, otherwise it will not go on toll roads, make U-turns, things like that. We turned them all off and it worked better for us. 2. Remember to check your Pedestrian or Automobile modes. 3. Take the first several round-abouts carefully and listen to the Garmin lady say: "...then to round-about, turn right on 2nd exit..." 4. Be mindful of your battery supply. 5. Consider the satellite signal problems in very narrow city streets. 6. Because there is no detailed user manual, it will take time and practice to learn all the things the Garmin Nuvi 270 can do.

The Garmin in Pedestrian mode took us to our hotel in Venice. In the car, it found our way in and out of Florence. Got us to the Rome Airport and helped us day trip around Tuscany. The most impressive thing was going to a friend's house in Northern Italy. The Garmin navigated us from Venice to Valdagno, up hills above the town, rural roads got narrower, then one lane, then onto a gravel path, right to the front door of their home. They couldn't believe it when we drove up to the house. In Siena, we found our way back to the car by GPS. In Rome we really needed it with Pedestrian mode. This little machine made a huge difference in vacation navigating. It reduced travel stress,( very important factor on a vacation). As we used it each day of the trip, we learn another thing it does, then another thing, then another method of searching... you get a feel for the machine and learn to use it better as time goes on.

The Garmin Nuvi 270 perhaps is not the fanciest of the GPS units, but it worked great for us on vacation and now we use it for day trips or even finding places in our own city. Great product, very reasonable price.

Not for Pedestrians in France and Switzerland

2008-06-01
Navigate both North America and Europe without loading more maps with the affordable nüvi 270. This entry-level Personal Travel Assistant makes traveling so simple. For even more mapping options, nüvi 250 and nüvi 200 offer less map coverage at a lower price. Like all nüvi 200-series members, the 270 features an easy-to-use colorful touchscreen and ultra-slim design--perfect for everyday navigation.

The nüvi 270 comes preloaded with maps for North America and Europe, and features an easy-to-use touchscreen and ultra-slim design.

Configurable vehicle icons let you select car-shaped graphics.

nüvi 270 accepts custom points of interest (POIs). View larger.

Note: Like most USB Mass Storage Devices, the nüvi is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.

What's in the Box
nüvi 270, preloaded City Navigator NT for North America and Europe (full coverage), vehicle suction cup mount, vehicle power cable, dashboard disk, and set up and go guide.

Smoothly through Europe 2008-05-31
I am an Idiot.
1) I get lost going out of my bathroom
2 I only speak english
My brother and I decided to rent a car and tour Germany. The 270 took us on our trip without problems. It made it most enjoyable. We even drove at 131 MPH the the Autobahn.When we needed to eat we just let the GPS find a resturant for us

This GPS does US, Canada & Europe without having to buy extra maps.

Cheers!

Don't count on it everywhere in Europe 2008-05-27
I got this model because we were planning a trip to Greece and I wanted to be able to concentrate on my driving instead of navigating. As it turned out it was pretty much useless most of the places we went. It worked fine in Athens, but we didn't do any driving there. It did help us find the nearest metro station while in the maze of the Plaka, however. Once we got out on our own in the more rural areas with a rented car we found there was little detail, and what was there was often erroneous. According to the GPS we frequently drove in the Aegean or parallel to the road but some distance away. It had many of the cities and sites that we wanted to go to in its database, but it never provided useful information on how to get to them, which was on Chios Island and in the Peloponnese from Nafplio to Mycenae, Epidaurus, and Monemvasia. If it wasn't so helpful in the US I would be very disappointed and give it an even lower rating, but it has been great at finding a hotel booked online or the nearest restaurant of our choice. I would suspect that if you are planning on using it in major cities and/or in western Europe it would probably be fine, but if you plan on getting off the beaten track be sure to take a good map with you as well.

Quite Simply Put-It Works !!!!! 2008-05-22
Used the Garmin 270 extensively in South of France and Spain. Got us to and from selected locations with no errors.

Don't forget to return Pedestrian setting to Auto otherwise when driving can give you wrong turns; like down one way streets!!

Did not find the Pedestrian setting very useful as it always seems to point you in the wrong direction.

Having a good GPS unit simply makes driving more pleasureable and relaxing.

Disappointed that AC adapter did not come with the 270; but it is included with the 370. Same for the more detailed manual.

Nuvi 270 US & Germany 2008-05-22
I purchased the Garmin 270 over Amazon Germany because it has maps of Europe and North America for a low price. Besides I just needed a GPS that works and not some High Tech stuff.
From day one it worked & I used it on my Vacation to the States (MA & GA) and I never had any problems.
In Germany it works just as well.
Can only recommend it