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Product Review: Page (1) of 2 - 08/29/06

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Garmin StreetPilot c550 GPS Navigation System

Portable unit gets you there near-flawlessly

By Charlie White

The Garmin StreetPilot c550 GPS Navigation System ($800 street) is one of those technological devices that can change your life. Besides showing you near-perfect directions to almost any address, it can play MP3 files. It recognizes your Bluetooth telephone, and operate as a high-quality speakerphone, too. It knows about current traffic conditions, and can also show you how to get to local establishments such as restaurants, gas stations and hotels. We took the StreetPilot c550 on a 4000-mile road trip around the Midwest, and tested it in just about every situation for which it was designed.

The c550 is about 4.5 inches wide, 3.5 inches tall and well over 2 inches thick, weighing about 9 ounces. It can be easily set on a car seat, dashboard, or mounted on the windshield using its suction cup mount or an adhesive disk. While the StreetPilot c550 isn't the smallest navigation device available, it represents a reasonable compromise between small size and a reasonably large screen. Its 3.5-inch LCD display is bright, sharp, colorful and clear, and is plainly visible even in the brightest sunlight.

You can run the unit on battery power (which Garmin says lasts eight hours but we noticed was closer to four), or you can plug it into a car's auxiliary outlet using the included adapter. That plug and its cable also function as an antenna to receive traffic information, and includes a year's subscription to the traffic information service. There is a slight problem with this setup, though, because if you're using the unit on battery power, you won't be able to receive that traffic data. That's important, because the information is enormously useful, and it interacts nicely with the StreetPilot's navigation software by routing you around traffic jams, accidents or construction.

When you power up the c550, you're presented with a user-friendly touchscreen that asks you one of two questions: "Where to?" or "View Map". Pressing View Map shows you a screen labeled Ready to Navigate, where the unit almost instantly orients itself by acquiring GPS satellites, and can even receive the signals of those satellites when you're inside a house as long as you're near a window. Overall, the c550's ability to quickly orient itself with the GPS satellites was remarkable. 

The fun really starts when you press "Where To" on the touchscreen. Here's where you can enter an address, tell the unit you want to go home, find food, hotels, or thousands of other points of interest, or go to places you've visited recently. Plus, you're able to designate certain locations as favorites, keeping them easily accessible when you'd like to return to them.

There are also point of interest (POI) files you can download from the Web with specific places you have in mind, such as Starbucks cafes or Outback Steakhouses. Although there is already a huge variety of points of interest pre-loaded into the c550, if you want to get more specialized, you'll have to download some of those POI files,  some of which are free, from the Web. For example, a downloadable POI file listing every Starbucks in North America costs $25, something that might be worth the investment since the StreetPilot wasn't aware of many Starbucks cafes on our test trip.

Entering an address to which you'd like to navigate is easy, but could be even easier still if there were a QWERTY keyboard available instead of the Alpha format (A, B, C?), it was frustrating to find there was no way to change the keyboard from Alpha to QWERTY, a capability I've used on lesser GPS navigation devices. That was the only flaw I could find in the user interface, which was otherwise a joy to use. I especially liked the ability to change the position icon to depict a car whose appearance approximates the one you're driving. If that's a bit too cartoon-y for you, you can specify a simple arrow, or go to the Garmin website and download even more vehicle files to get the one that's just right for you.

Once you've entered an address or point of interest to which you'd like to navigate, the StreetPilot goes to work, showing your choice of a 3D view or a 2D view of the roads and routes that will get you there. Zooming in and out of the map is a quick and obvious touchscreen away. Whichever mode you're in, you can also quickly press the touchscreen to get a page full of statistics showing the speeds and times you've been driving. This was a fascinating display, especially on our very long trip when we reset the display at the journey's beginning (see graphic below).

As you reach a turning point, the software dutifully warns you that a change of direction is coming, giving you clear and concise instructions using a variety of voices. There's a choice of male or female speakers with either American, British, or Australian accents, as well as numerous other languages. Plus, the mapping software knows most streets by name, however in the three-year-old subdivision where the Midwest Test Facility is located, the included maps and their associated software were stumped. Nevertheless, the c550 was still able to direct me home without fail.