GarminDriveSmart 55 and Traffic, GPS Navigator, 5.5” Display, Simple On-Screen Menus, Easy-to-See Maps

Really excellent piece of kit that proved totally invaluable for our trip from the UK to Canada. After years of working from paper maps and internet screen shots - we rented a vehicle in Florida (back in 2019) that came with a dash mounted Garmin as a free upgrade and immediately realised it was taking a huge amount of stress and pre-planning away from us. Post pandemic and travelling again I decided to buy this unit to make life much easier. Living in the UK - I was able to order this GPS (SatNav) on Amazon.com (rather than Amazon.co.uk) and have it delivered to me in the UK direct from the USA. It is a great sized unit that is very very easy and intuitive to use and for the driver to see and read as you are driving. Like all GPS (SatNav) units it can very occasionally get small things wrong - but 99.999% it was very accurate. Anyone travelling to Canada - be warned that mobile/cell phone costs in Canada are unbelievably high - therefore EVEN with a USA/Canadian sim card in our phone - it would have cost a fortune to buy enough data in Canada (not necessarily the same in the USA which had much cheaper mobile/cell phone charges) to use a smart phone as a GPS/SatNav. Therefore we found it much more cost effective to buy the GPS/SatNav outright and it will work for years for future visits.One last thing about this model - after doing loads of research online - it tells you that this model is designed to work in tandem with a connected mobile/cell phone in order to receive traffic updates. It tells you this model works perfectly well as a GPS/SatNav on its own - but will not give live traffic updates without a connected mobile/cell phone - I considered this before buying - but decided that route guidance was enough and more important to me that anything else. HOWEVERE - after arriving in Canada - this device WAS giving us live traffic reports and rerouting to take the least congested routes - and we did NOT pair it with a mobile/cell phone - but still received live traffic reports.Great unit - Highly Recommended

I knew nothing about Garmin till I used this Garmin Drive 52 for the past two weeks. To be clear, I suspect they offer more advanced features on the upgraded devices. I still need to explore the settings where I can tweak the routes results, I suspect. In regard only to my experience so far with this entry level Drive 52, I find it kind of like running an old Atari video game. I'd almost consider this a good toy for a preschooler these days. I guess that means it's easy to use. Having said that, this Garmin Drive 52 has gotten me out of a couple of jams, and for that it deserves 5 stars. There are too many new roads, highways and addresses being built in Florida for the Garmin updates to keep up. With completely updated maps, this device does not know where to go, a lot. It will take you to construction zones and closed roads where the Google option is smarter. But, again due to the growth, there are certain areas I just can't get connected to a cell tower to start the GPS signal on my smartphone. So, moral of the story, no brainer to carry this inexpensive navigation device as it will help you out of a jam once in a while. Overall, I like it a lot. It compliments and provides certain helpful tidbits and features. But the voice instruction is sometimes slow to evolve and adapt and does not give enough heads up to make a turn on occasion. Bottom line is, if driving professionally, you need multiple options on board because when you don't know where you are and the navigation shuts down, better have a map downloaded to your device and a compass. When the data runs out on this Garmin it's like the whole world melts away, like when I drove to the northern newest ends of one of our ever-expanding highways down here. Updating the maps with the most current data is easy enough through an app on your computer with the provided cable for the purpose. I have more peace of mind, hundreds of miles away from home, with this Garmin Drive 52 onboard than without, so I definitely recommend.