Garmin nuMaps Lifetime North America Map Updates for detailed maps of U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico Review

We have a 3 year old Garmin 350. We find the unit itself is very easy to use. Our problem is we used our fee update 18 months ago and it did not include much of the new road construction around us. We also found that the changing face of our city had many new, moved and closed businesses and our Points of Interest were also out of date.An update was imminent and it was going to cost us this time.I saw on the lifetime map updates on the Garmin site and thought I might find a bit better deal and that brought me here where one of the vendors had a great deal.
If you are unsure whether an update has the new features you are looking for you can preview the detailed US map on the Garmin shopping site.Be careful there are lists of "supported Nuvi units" on some of the vendors sites that are woefully incomplete.For instance our 350 was not on the vendor list, but after a search I was able to find a list on the Garmin shopping site that seems to list all the Nuvi and other units. The product page has a ton of information but you may have to dig around a bit to find it.
What you get in the mail is essentially a reward card size card with a scratch off code.My one gripe for all this is the shipping cost for this is almost unnecessary except the card is in a store theft control hard shell wrapper. If you upgrade at Garmin you will get the code immediately and therefore no shipping so be sure to factor this in the price.
The upgrade was pretty straight forward but took me about 3 hours.The download is almost 2GB so a good internet connection is very helpful, I am pretty sure though you can get it on DVD for shipping cost.
Bottom line, I really like the Garmin unit and the update will have paid for itself the next time I do it.It seems like a good investment to me.
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