Garmin nüvi 2360LMT 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic & Map Updates (Old Model)

This is the third GPS I have bought in about four years. It is by far the best. My last one was a Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator. It finally croaked! It had been threatening for some time. Peace be with it! Before that, I had a Garmin nüvi 660 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Naviagtor (Refurbished). Mine was new, not refurbished, but you cannot get there on Amazon anymore. That one went brain dead!I first was looking at the Garmin nüvi 3790LMT 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Map & Traffic Updates. It had a hefty price tag and I was waiting to see if the price would drop. Then I heard about the Garmin nüvi 2360LMT. It had not yet been released, so I waited. I liked what I read about it. It's was also much cheaper than the 3790 and seemed to have the same features, although not as thin. I also heard about the TomTom GO 2505TM 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic & Maps and the TomTom TomTom GO 2405TM 4.3-Inch Portable Bluetooth GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic & Maps. It came down to deciding between the Garmin nüvi 2360LMT & the TomTom GO 2405TM. I must admit that the Amazon.com reviews were the most helpful resource available to me in this process of elimination.Obviously, I bought the Garmin nüvi 2360LMT. So far, I am very glad that I did.The Voice Commands are great. I am fascinated with how this works and how accurate it has been so far. I also love the nüRoute Technology with trafficTrends and myTrends features. It began to learn some of my routes on the second trip it made. It also likes my choices of short-cuts and prefers them as I do.The Bluetooth synched quickly to my cell. It downloaded my phonebook. I am also impressed with the "handsfree" voice activated calling. You give it the command "phone" and it gives you the options: 1. Dial Number, 2. Dial Contact, 3 Dialed Recently. If a contact has more than one number, these come up on the screen so you can choose. It does have trouble with abbreviations we might use, especially if there is no standard pronunciation for them, but that's understandable. I have not received any complaints from anyone about the quality of the sound.Software & map updates worked well. There were a few glitches that I noticed and these were corrected by the new software. The Free Lifetime Map and Traffic Updates are real bonuses. It is hard to believe that this comes with all the other features for this price. The product description Amazon provides is very accurate.My advice, if you need a GPS: Take advantage of this and buy one. From what I have experienced, I do not think you will be disappointed.Update: I did not realize that this came with a trial subscription to Cyclops(TM) Safety Cameras - U.S. & Canada. Driving in metropolitan areas, soon after purchase, I saw it at work. It was notifying with a distinct "bell" when I was .1 miles from a traffic camera. The location also appeared on the map. What a fantastic feature! I had no idea how many are hidden in our cities. I immediately bought the "one-time" download for $8.49 to try this for a longer period of time. If it saves getting traffic tickets, this is a no-brainer. This is by far the best GPS I've seen!Update 2: I bought the Garmin ecoRoute HD Vehicle Diagnostics Communicator unit that works with the GPS unit via Bluetooth. The Garmin nüvi 2360LMT unit works flawlessly with this. It's a nice diagnostic device or toy depending on how you look at it. As I said in my review on its webpage, I believe the ecoRoute HD is a work in progress because future software updates by Garmin can affect the usefulness of this product and the number of features that it supports. You can read the entire review there. Regardless, the ecoRoute HD adds another piece of functionality to the nüvi 2360LMT and its overall usefulness. And, that's a plus!

This is not a review of the Garmin unit (which, for the short time it worked, was fine), nor for the vendor or manner of shipping - it is for the poor customer service from Garmin that until now I only knew by reputation. I am annoyed by reviewers who give a poor rating to a good product because of late shipping, etc., but I feel the customer service, when it relates to the product itself, is an important aspect of your buying decision.I give Garmin customer service one star because they were prompt in their response to my problem. That's it. If you have ever had the experience of speaking with an off-shore customer service rep on the phone and realize this person has no idea what they're doing, nor do they care about helping you, this is my experience with Garmin's email customer service.I will try to be short and fair with this. My Nuvi worked fine for a few days, then decided not to turn on for about 36 hours. I'm not a rocket scientist, but I'm not an idiot, so yes, battery charged, car on and 12v plug working, tried all the permutations of getting the thing to start. Random tries at turning it on and finally it does and no problems for the remaining few days I needed the unit for that trip.On returning home, I contacted Garmin to exchange this unit for a new one (had mine less than 1 month). They started the run-around routine: update the software (I did this when I first got the unit, it's been out over a year, there's going to be an update to fix non-starting units a year after launch?), do this, do that, let us know. Yes, it's still working fine now, after NOT working for a day and a half - I don't know if and when it'll conk out on me again (well, yes I do, when the warrantee runs out). Would they please send out a new unit and they can dissect my old one to find out what went wrong - no, they would have to send a refurbished unit. Are you kidding, my brand new out of the box unit goes toes up but you'll send a refurb?Let me be clear that at no time did Garmin acknowledge any of the things I told them about the performance of the unit nor what actions I had taken. It's just like other bad customer service, start at the top of the list of things to tell the customer to do, regardless of the problem. Maybe the customer will give up and leave us alone.Amazon to the rescue! Email that I'm not happy with my purchase, they send a UPS label, I send in the unit and get my refund. I will get another Nuvi (remember, I liked the unit itself, I've owned another Nuvi for 6 years without problems) and hopefully this unit won't be defective. But don't give Garmin credit for this, that goes to Amazon. Count me as another of the legion of dissatisfied Garmin customer service victims.