Garmin DriveSmart 61 NA LMT-S with Lifetime Maps/Traffic, Live Parking, Bluetooth,WiFi, Smart Notifications, Voice Activation, Driver Alerts, TripAdvisor, Foursquare

If you’re in the market for a GPS System then I”d highly recommend this one. At $174.00 refurbished product I thought it expensive but after checking out the new ones at $300 it seemed like a steal as long as it worked. Work it did I’ve had no problems with this refurbished product.Before settling on Garmin I borrowed different brands from my friends; Tom Tom, Magellan, and 2 other brands but I found fault with all of them. While the Tom Tom was IMO the best of what I borrowed it just wasn’t what I was looking for it seemed pretty slow and map updates were really slow plus it lacked a lot of features of this Drive Smart and the price of this refurbished GPS was only a few dollars more.What I Like about this GPS:Blue Tooth- It was super simple to pair my android phone the first time, now I get into the car and ensure my phones blue tooth is on and it connects within 15 seconds. Once connected you now have a lot of options available to you. I can call anyone in my phone book, call any commercial phone number from commercial listing that I’ve found in one of several APPS downloaded to the GPS. I’ve been told by those I call that the reception from my calls is crystal clear. This is something I can’t say for those that call me using their cars blue tooth or other GPS like Tom Tom. Blue tooth provides weather and traffic info as well as other options.Voice Control: I won’t say it works flawlessly but it is very capable. What I’ve found is if you call for it and get the volume control your phones blue tooth isn’t on or isn’t connected for some other reason. When your windows are open and wind is blowing through the car or the outside is noisy voice control frequently gets the commands wrong or doesn’t work at all. People babbling in the car will cause the same problem. These are what I’ve found that cause problems with the voice command. However once those things are corrected it seems to work 100% of the time. One other thing is that you must follow the voice commands “command structure” get out of sequence and you’ll get junk you’r not looking for. If calling from your phone book you will need to tell it to call the name you have listed in your phone book, if you have to people named the same use their last names also, if you use a nick name you must call up that nick. Things you can use voice control for: Phone calls, change route, stop route, add stop to route, find hotels, call those hotels, and the restaurants you find, weather, and traffic, the list isn’t all inclusive it’s only off the top of my head. Voice Command truly makes this GPS almost hand free.Wi-Fi: The GPS hooked up with my house wi-fi network almost instantly the first try. I used WPS but you can use your password to hook it up either way it simple and intuitive to hook up. I use it to update the maps and such and the neat part is I can do it sitting in my driveway I wasn’t even aware that my wireless was that powerful outside the house.Touch Screen: It’s not like my old Nuvi which sometimes no matter haw it was adjusted I had to hat the screen hard and for several seconds. This touch screen works flawlessly and is a joy to use if I have to.In the last 3 months I’ve used it I’ve never had a problem with the directions taking me to the wrong location, something I can’t say about my old Garmin NUVI even with updated maps, especially the last two months I used it.There is only one thing that bugs me and it’s something Garmin probably could correct in an update. If I want to hang up after a phone call I have to physically do it. If the other person hangs up first then you don’t have to do anything everything resets.There is much more to this GPS that I haven’t mentioned but to let you know they are useful and make this GPS the best I’ve tested or used.I highly recommend this product even if you don’t think you need it you’d be surprised how you will use it if you travel at all into different locations/cities. We use ours all the time when we travel to cities we’re not really familiar with.