Garmin - nüvi 42LM Essential Series - 4.3" - Lifetime Map Updates - Portable GPS - Black

Great basic GPS unit. Got me around CT on my first trip there without having to worry about getting from place to place. Love it.

I used to use GPS before the smart phones became smart. Then once I could get routes through my iPhone, I never looked at the GPS again. So after 6 -7 years, now I started feeling to have a dedicated GPS so I don't need to highly rely on my phone network to get to places (especially when my wife is driving the car as she has a limited data to her iPhone). Then when I did my research, I found this GPS being reviewed better than most others in the price range I was looking. So got that from BB, got shipped on time and all that. Setting up was easy and was impressed with life time (4 times a year) map update option as the older GPS used to suck at that. Like the look & feel, UI is clean & love the part when it shows the simulation the exists with road signs and all that. That's pretty cool. Only one concern is, even though I have kept my routing option to be the quickest & have not turned on the skip highway option either, the GPS tends to skip the highways right next to my house and prefers to take me through back roads a bit more than my iPhone routes. Which am still researching to find answer for. Those highways are not new either. Other than that, me & my wife loves this GPS and it saves our phone batteries so we could get a longer battery life for our phones too.

I got this GPS for my parents for Christmas because they've been having trouble finding there way in new places at night. I was especially concerned that the GPS be very simple and easy to use, because my dad gets easily frustrated with technology and I knew that it wouldn't get used if it wasn't simple and intuitive. It is both. It's easy to give it the instructions on how you want the GPS to function and the maps and voice direction are both very easy to follow. My husband and I own a similar GPS and have been happy with it as well. Garmin is the way to go and definitely worth the little extra you pay for it!

This is my second Garmin, my first Garmin was a gift, I loved it! I took it everywhere. Then my maps ran out so I renewed them. It was expensive (over $50). Recently my Maps again expired and when I went online to see if perhaps the price had gone down, (since new ones came with lifetime maps) sadly the cost was the same. So I bought a new Garmin with Lifetime Maps (cheaper than continuously paying for map updates--a lifetime Map update for my old Garmin was only $5 less than the price of a new Garmin. My old Garmin still works great (the maps are expired). I like my new Gatmin, but it wasn't able to give me directions to get out of my friend's neighborhood. It kept saying proceed to the highlighted route. The screen did not show a highlighted route. I had to call a friend for directions. I did like that my new Garmin actually read out the street names, my old one would say, turn right in 100 ft. The new one says turn right on Main St. I also like how it provides me with a picture of exit ramp lanes when I'm driving on the highway.

This is a great device. I went in to look at the cost of getting a new GPS against the cost of buying the updates from the website for my old one. This might be more expensive up front, but with the free map updates it will save you money from updating the old device. I would recommend this over the TOM TOM, my girlfriend has a TOM TOM and has many troubles with it including losing signal. Got it out of the box the first day and it was as easy as charge and go, haven't had a single problem with it so far... EXCELLENT

I love the Garmin nüvi 42LM Essential. I have had mine for 5 years and don't know how I got along without it. I have a smartphone but really prefer my gps. I use it for long distance road trips all over the country. It has never lead me astray.

Bought it for technologically challenged parent. Even they are able to program and use it.

Used this to do a Boston to Washington, DC trip, wanted to see if it would do the route I usually take or find a better route. Did some odd things, like getting off the NJ Turnpike (north) just before the GW Bridge, then took a roundabout way onto the bridge. Also, when I was almost at my desination, it wanted me to go a different way, but I knew that the way I was going was much faster/shorter. So I went the better way, and it kept recalculating to try to get me back to the route it wanted, it didn't get to the point of calculating that the route I was on was better until the last half mile or so. I like the display and it's definitely pretty easy to use, volume is good, too. Sometimes it does funny pronounciation, like one thing was labeled something "CT" for Connecticut, and it kept saying Court.