Garmin City Navigator Europe NT for Detailed Maps of Eastern and Western Europe

5 comments

1. 

   Traveling_Goddess on December 21, 2009 at 3:20 am

   Bought this disc, jumped hoops to install it, then finally thought I had installed it went on my trip. Could not use it in France because the nuvi 760 could not find the satellite the entire trip which was 4 days then we went to Spain… yeah, it found the satellite but then Barcelona had no streets listed… only streets that it found were 5 miles out of the main Barcelona city… ok lets move on… it was ok for Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba and Madrid… then we went to Italy… well again the city was on the map but not streets were loading… what the f_? It was a complete and utter disappointment. The other problem was the navigation unit has been starting very slowly ever since I loaded the selected cities and countries that we were going to travel. I think it would have been cheaper and more reliable to have bought a new navigation unit already set-up for Europe…. do not recommend this product at all. Oh, did I mention that the Garmin folks were not very helpful when I emailed them about the problems. The product is great for US use other than that it is not.

2. 

   MikeMikeWhiskey on December 21, 2009 at 6:18 am

   I purchased these maps for a driving trip through Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Italy. On the whole the maps themselves were excellent, finding the smallest roads, alleys etc. I purchased the CD as opposed to the SD card after reading reviews stating the card cannot be updated and some route planning software had to be purchased separately that was on the CD.
   
   Here’s where I got into trouble, As many reviewers stated assembling and downloading the regions to your unit is not very intuitive and pretty cumbersome (I’m trying not to stay stupid). Being that I had an extra 1 gig SD card around I only wanted to download the portions of Europe I needed. I made a route for my trip and made waypoints (hotels airports, sites I wanted to see etc) I zoomed in on the area of Europe for my trip. I highlighted all the oddly shaped regions that crossed borders, included portions of the Mediterranean etc, and downloaded them to my GPS. I cross checked the whole thing once downloaded. I simulated take me from point A to point B on my trip. GPS said calculating and let’s go. Wonderful I thought that wasn’t bad at all.
   
   Upon arrival all worked well until I entered Zurich and Milan. As I approached, detail would start to disappear, and then side roads, then the representation of the car on the GPS would be in a void next to the one or two roads still on the screen that didn’t seem to really exist. The GPS would keep repeating “Drive to highlighted route”. This happened to me both times we were in Zurich and Milan. We finally had to resort to good old maps. After leaving the area the GPS would slowly regain its brain.
   
   Back in the US I called Garmin tech support. They told me that they had never heard of anything like it and offered to replace my unit. After much trial and error, back home I figured it out. When I selected the regions I was going to, my zoom level on the map was to low and the tiny tiny city regions of Zurich and Milan could not be seen and I could not tell they were not highlighted. They appeared to be part of the much bigger geographical regions surrounding them.
   
   I know technically this was my doing, but who would have thought I need to select the black dots that were Zurich and Milan. With all this being said, My GPS never gave me an error stating part of my route was missing I was driving through, during creation or during the actual driving. It just said calculating 100 % and GO. No errors, it just started to loose its mind like the HAL9000 computer when Dave Poole started pulling out the memory ( Daisy Daisy how does your garden grooooooowwwwwwww………)
   
   Moral of story buy a 2 gig card and download the whole thing or zoom way in and be very careful. I’m sure there are still a few, always in a bad temper European drivers, thinking, “What was that idiot in that Peugeot doing” Thank You for that Garmin.
   

3. 

   D. Barry on December 21, 2009 at 8:05 am

   I purchased Garmin City Navigator Europe NT for a recent trip to the UK and France. It was as all Garmin disks somewhat a pain to load and unlock. Once on my computer, it was another project to transfer data to my GPS. This software has so many layers (a strength AND weakness) that loads of useless information can make a tiny GPS screen overwhelmed by “Points of Interest” of all kinds. I must have inadvertently checked (or it was defaulted) routing to avoid toll roads, the fastest way to get around in France. This left us on some wild backroad adventuring thru the countryside of Normandy. All in all, travelling in a country where ones grasp of the native language is limited (me-French), it was an invaluable tool.

4. 

   Maui Willows on December 21, 2009 at 9:45 am

   Software; mapinstall is not very intuitive. Wish there was a manuel. I could not find anywhere the memory requirements when installing to my GPS device. Wish Garmin or Mapsource would indicate that you need nearly 2gigs of space. Would like a way to turn off specific icons…unless you zoom in on the map…there can be a great deal of clutter.

5. 

   drbobo on December 21, 2009 at 11:08 am

   1. Horrible packaging. Need strong scissors or shears to open.

   2. Works with Mac OS X and Windows; archaic Garmin software is not intuitive and difficult but not impossible to use. Not a pleasurable experience (the Map App on my iPhone is much more fun.)

   3. This version (City Navigator Europe NT 2010) is up-to-date as of April, 2009. Garmin offers additional updates for only $129 (should be free), which can be done online (I did not bite on this).

   4. Make sure you get an SD card to go with this program as you’ll need a fair amount of space if you want to download a reasonable sample of maps in preparation for your travels (I would suggest a minimum of 500 mb – more is better).

   5. Be prepared to wait. It takes forever (hours) to download content, even with a fast SD card.

   6. You have to register your Garmin GPS device online and can only use this map with that device. The digital rights management on this software is onerous and dumb (especially considering what you can get online these days for free!)

   Once maps installed, unit works with additional maps transparently without problems (may revise when I get back from Europe!)