GARMIN CITY NAVIGATOR NT FOR EUROPE VERSION 9
By: Garmin Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 3
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 On: 2008-06-27
After updating firmware and the built-in US maps on my Garmin Nuvi, I expected this CD-ROM to be a matter of firing up an install utility that connects to the nuvi and...ZAP...puts all the roads of Europe on it. Unfortunately, it doesnt work like that at all.
First off, the CD-ROM is Windows only. Blah. Ill forgive that, but its not even a particularly friendly Windows program. To use it, you have to go through some bologna on-line to use the code that comes in the packaging and then register on [...] and then get another code that activates a license for just one Garmin GPS. Annoying.
The next step, after surviving the copy protection and activation nonsense, is to fire up what appears to be the worlds most pathetic PC mapping software, reminiscent of a Windows 3.1 application ported from DOS: few menu options and even fewer that are truly intuitive. Apparently what you need to do here is select the regions of Europe you want to load on your Garmin and then download them, bearing in mind that there is a finite amount of free space on your GPS and, apparently, not enough free space to hold all the roads of Europe...bummer.
Selecting the regions isnt what youd expect, either. You cant just click on France and load all of its roads; there are a bunch of different regions of France, each of which must be clicked individually. You cant even just get Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport in one region. Central Paris is one region and CDG is in another. While youre at it, you probably should select a few more regions, like La Defense and all the adjacent regions to central Paris, because, heaven forbid, you decide to drive outside central Paris and not have the roads 10 miles outside of the city center loaded. Once youre done trying your best to guess every conceivable place you might drive in Europe (without choosing too many...remember, you only have so much space!) you can download all the maps to your GPS.
Once you actually *get* the maps on the GPS, it works pretty much how youd expect. In Ireland, the thing paid for itself in spades, finding these little single-lane roads up the side of the mountain youd swear was a driveway and not an honest road, but, it turns out, is the only way to get from here to there. The only operational oddity I could detect is that the already long boot time of my Nuvi appears to be even longer. Perhaps thats another reason not to load the whole continent.
For me, I love my Nuvi because I am away from home more days a year than I am home and it is handy to know I have maps to get me from anywhere to anywhere when I land in unfamiliar territory at 2 AM. I had hoped this map upgrade would give me that freedom for both North America and Europe, but, alas, that is not the case. I have North America and the subset of regions of Europe I thought I might be going to some time soon. I hope I dont get diverted to Frankfurt, though, without having preloaded the maps ahead of time.
 On: 2008-06-02
Purchased this CD for geocaching in Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar while on tour. Maps were detailed and accurate.
Caveat - can only be used on Garmin GPS units with supplimental memory chips, otherwise excellent!
On: 2007-11-23
This is a good buy since updates are relatively inexpensive (about $70). If you get the same data on flash memory instead of the CD you cant update it, it must be replaced. Uploading the data from CD to the Garmin Nuvi could use a little more explanation to ease the process initially.
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