Electronics Garmin StreetPilot i3 Portable GPS Navigator
Rating:  -
when it works (very rarely) it is fine. i have had problems with this unit within a year of purchase. it has trouble locking into satellites. yes, i tried all garmin's suggestions. been working with them for 8 months. tried everything, sent back to mfger, installed new software updates, the 3 button trick away from buildings, blah blah. garmin is stalling. let's see if they eventually DO THE RIGHT THING.
Rating:  -
I've had my Street Pilot for two years now and am surprised to see it is still selling for such a high price. While a great gps that has served me well, the scroll bar is very time consuming and inconvenient compared to touch screens and the screen is quite small. I got my money out of this machine but can now buy a new touchscreen for only $40 more so this one is no longer worth the price!
Rating:  -
I bought this GPS a few years ago prior to taking a week-long road trip. Since that time, this has become a "must have" item that is always in my car and goes with me into rental cars. I cannot count how many times I have relied on it to get me where I need to go. Using this GPS is extremely simple and the menus are very intuitive. I will be upgrading to a larger model soon and giving this one to a friend. The only gripe I have had with this GPS is the fact that it can take a fairly significant amount of time to re-compute your route if you miss a turn. I've been in a situation a number of times where I've had to pull over and let the unit "catch up" with me before I could continue, otherwise, by the time it calculated where I needed to go, I would already have gone past those turns too. All in all, a terrific product and definitely worth the money.
Rating: -
I've reviewed other Garmin GPS units; please see my other reviews for comparisons. Also, my star rating is largely dependent upon price. See the last couple paragraphs here for details.
This is one of the lowest-end GPS units available from Garmin, though at the time of this writing the Garmin "i" series (i2, i3, and i5) has been officially discontinued. (Note: When I refer to the "i3" in this review the same information applies to the i2 and i5 unless otherwise noted.) Still, this is a decent enough inexpensive GPS, particularly if you shop around for a bargain. The three "i" series Garmins are identical but for basic features. The i2 has a monochrome screen and no preloaded maps. The i3 has a color screen but is otherwise identical to the i2. The i5 is identical to the i3 but contains preloaded maps.
Included in the box is the GPS itself, a 128MB MicroSD memory card, the MapSource DVD (version 8) containing maps of the United States and surrounding areas, a suction cup mount, 12 volt power adapter cable (for your car's cigarette lighter), an adhesive dashboard disk, a USB cable (A to mini), and a reference guide and some other bits of paper.
Physically, the GPS is downright puny. Occupying about as much volume as a tennis ball, the i3 looks like a tiny original iMac computer. The face has a clickable scroll wheel, like pretty much any computer mouse today, and operates in the same way. This is your primary interface for the GPS. Flanked on either side of the scroll wheel is a "back" button on the left and the power button on the right. The right side of the unit has a mini USB port, slot for the MicroSD card, and a cover for the battery compartment (it takes two AA batteries, not included). The single speaker is on the bottom.
Initial setup is easy. Install batteries, make sure the MicroSD card is installed, and turn it on. Install the software on your PC (alas, full Macintosh support is STILL not available from Garmin) and plug in the USB cable when prompted. The first thing you'll need to do is download maps into your GPS. The 128MB card is really pathetic, but I was able to fit three or four of the smaller northeastern states into it. I found a cheap 2GB card which allowed me to put all of the maps on it, so I recommend anyone who buys an i2 or i3 to do likewise. Once the maps are installed you may also want to run Garmin's online updater which will update the system in your GPS. Mine came with the most up-to-date system but had a few other updates, mainly for the different voices, which took about 15 minutes to download and install.
Once you're done you can unplug the Garmin and start driving. Because the i3 uses batteries you can either keep using batteries and replace them (or use rechargeables) when they're dead, or you can use the included power adapter for your car's cigarette lighter. The i3 draws power through the USB port so in a pinch you could even power it off your computer's USB port. If you use rechargeable batteries, the i3 will not charge them when connected to a tethered power source.
I've previously used other Garmins (2820, c330, c550, and Nuvi 310) so I was expecting much the same interface. I was right, but I was also wrong too. The i3's biggest drawback is a lack of touchscreen; all selections go through the click wheel. You can think of it sort of like moving through an iPod. You scroll to the next menu, click to select, scroll to the item, and click to select. You use the "back" button to back up one menu, like the MENU button on an iPod. It's a simple enough navigation system which won't cause any difficulty for most people, but at times it can be laborious.
The real effort comes when it's time to put in an address. Imagine having to "type" your address on an iPod. Scroll to select a letter, click, scroll to the next letter, click, etc until you're done. It works but it's clunky. To Garmin's credit they did a sort of "auto-complete" with this process; as you enter letters (and numbers) the Garmin displays a list of possible matches on the side. At any time during the text entry process you can stop entering text and move to that list of matches. Then you just scroll to the one you want and select it. There's some delay involved in this process, particularly if you don't enter a lot of characters and/or if the region you've selected has a lot of similarly-named streets or cities. Even so, it's usually still faster than typing in the whole name through the scroll wheel. Users of the i3 will definitely want to make use of the "Favorites" function to store commonly-used addresses.
Once you've got the address in, the Garmin's navigation system takes over and it's quite nice. Being a low-end system you get no fancy features; you get no street name announcements, no traffic uplink, no Bluetooth, no MP3 playback, etc. It DOES give you voice prompts (e.g., "turn left in 400 feet"), automatic route recalculation in case you go off route, and route avoidance (you can tell it to avoid highways or toll roads, for example) which are all basic GPS features. Given that the i3 uses the same map data as the higher-end Garmin units, accuracy is very good.
As a test I put the i3 next to my 2820 and entered the same destination into both, and as I expected both units gave me the same directions to my destination. I did notice two things in that test though. The first was that the i3 took significantly longer to pick up the satellites than my 2820. It took about 20-30 seconds for my 2820 to pick up satellites and begin calculations for the course, but it took nearly three minutes for the i3 to do the same thing. In fairness this may have been due to motion vs non-motion; I was parked while the 2820 was calculating but once it was ready to go I started driving. The i3 was still calculating while I was driving so that may have caused an increase in calculation time with the i3.
The second thing I noticed was that the i3 got a little confused as to my current location than my 2820. While sitting at a traffic light surrounded by 5-6 story tall buildings my 2820 didn't even flinch, but the i3 would occasionally jump around and put the vehicle as much as a block and a half away from my actual location. Once I started moving, however, the i3 caught up fairly quickly. I am guessing that the satellite antenna isn't as sensitive in the i3 as the 2820 (which would also account for the longer delay in finding satellites).
The biggest downside to the i3 is the quality of its screen. Like the StreetPilot c300 series (see my previous review of the c320) the i3 tends to wash out in even mild sunlight making visibility difficult at best. Worse, the i3's screen is highly reflective; it is impossible to read in bright sunlight due to the glare. Fortunately there's a great product called GlareStomper which adds a shade to the GPS unit that cuts the glare down to nothing. The i3's viewing angle is also far narrower than the c300 series. Having the c320 on the dashboard and angled towards the driver, the passenger can easily see the screen. Not so on the i3, where the screen gains a noticable blue cast as your viewing angle increases. If you're going to use the i3, make sure you can see it "head-on" or as close to it as possible.
All that being said, let's summarize.
GOOD: Inexpensive, particularly if you check out a certain auction web site for remanufactured units (and GlareStompers). Color screen (personally, I'd avoid the i2's black and white screen altogether). Good speaker volume. Accurate maps. Solid basic feature set. Battery power to take it with you if the need arises (e.g., if your car breaks down and you have to walk to the nearest service station). Small size makes it highly portable. Uses industry standard MicroSD cards.
BAD: Terrible screen if you don't have a sun shade and/or if you're not looking at it head-on or as close to it as possible. Kludgey scroll wheel navigation system really makes you want a touch screen. Slower acquisition of satellite signals and route calculation. Batteries don't charge in the unit so you'll need to make sure you always have good batteries in it. Cheap 128MB MicroSD card is lame; Garmin should have AT LEAST a 256MB or 512MB card in there. Historically terrible customer support from Garmin, including a lack of promised Mac OS X support.
Overall, the bad things don't really overwhelm the good things so I would judge it an "okay" basic GPS. HOWEVER, I have to give it low marks simply because of the cost issue. As of this writing Amazon is selling this unit for $270. At the same time Amazon is also selling the higher-end StreetPilot c340 for $60 *LESS* and the higher-end StreetPilot c330 (refurbished) for almost half the cost of the i3. Either of those c300 series units is far superior to the i3 in every measurable way, so why would anyone buy a less-capable i3 instead?
In my case, the answer was simple: I didn't buy mine from Amazon. I bought a remanufactured unit through a very popular online auction site and paid less than $100. For that price, and likely not a penny more, the i3 is worthwhile. Otherwise, not so much. That being said, if you can buy this unit for under $100 then I give it four stars. Otherwise, I give it two stars. Therefore it balances out to three stars.
Rating:  -
This is the second garmin gps our family has bought ( for two seperate cars) They are quick to respond to everything. This was a refurb and it is totally fine.
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