The unit itself works very well but the maps that were included with the unit are way out of date (at least 7 years old). Would be very happy with the purchase if it were not for this fact.

I bought this C330 for my retired parents. I chose this one because it is the same unit my wife has, and it works great. She is horrible with directions, but now is confident to venture to far away suburbs. After using it for a few months, she said, "I love that GPS". It works great when you're on the phone and someone is trying to give you directions to their house. Just say, "give me your address" and you're ready to go.

My parents are not gadget freaks; they don't even use a cell phone. They needed a GPS that was easy to use. The C330 menus are simple to follow and intuitive. Adding locations to the Favorites makes it even faster to use.

I like the long battery life. When I'm headed out of the area, I borrow the Garmin from my wife's car and don't even bring the windshield mount (charger). I've driven for more than four hours without so much as a low battery warning.

Some of the nice features include:

- Below the displayed map is the Estimated Time of Arrival and how long before you are going to need to make a turn.

- The touch screen removes confusing buttons, and only offers you options that apply to the function you're working on.

- Automatically recalculating directions if you miss a turn. In some cases I don't want to take the proposed route, so the C330 will reroute based on where I'm headed.

- The external volume control allows you to adjust the audible directions without navigating through menus.

- When approaching interchanges, the C330 gets you in the proper lane so you don't accidentally take the wrong ramp. The voice says things like "in .2 miles, keep left" or "stay right".

- The C330 looks at your speed to decide how far in advance it will give you audible directions about the next turn. The faster you're driving, the greater the distance. At residential speeds it might give you a few hundred feet. At highway speeds it gives you several tenths of a mile.

- The display automatically adjusts from day to night mode at dusk.

- You can program the unit to avoid toll roads, unpaved roads, and U turns.

- The entire US is preloaded in the C330. No need to anticipate where you're traveling and load additional maps ahead of time.

- The ability to use the C330 indoors to program your trip. I opened the one for my parents and pre-programmed their home as well as all of their relatives ahead of time. When they headed south for the winter, everything was ready to go.

- You can charge the unit from a USB cable.

My wife's C330 locked up once - completely frozen. We could not do anything in the menu or even turn it off. I searched the Internet and found instructions on how to reset the unit. After that, the unit worked just fine. It didn't even lose any of the data we had programmed in it. I suspect "locked-up" units are why so many are returned and then offered as refurbished units. I had no hesitation on buying a refurb after knowing how to reset it.

Here are the instructions to reset a frozen C330. Remove the silver trim faceplate. In the 12 o'clock position is a groove for your fingernail. Otherwise there are two hidden tabs on the right and left sides. Use a tiny screwdriver blade to gently pop out the tabs by lifting the sides. (Be careful so you don't slip and scratch the screen). After you remove the trim, there is a reset button in the 3 o'clock position. Push the button to reboot the C330 and you're as good as new. Even few months our C330 seems to begin taking a long time to acquire satellites. I'll reset the unit and things improve. I liken this condition to a Windows PC that starts acting quirky if it has not been re-booted in a long time.

Here are a few of the things I don't like, or wish the C330 would do:

- The C330 doesn't allow you to get to locations that are "off-road". This device is intended for drivings, not for hiking, geo-caching or other activities not along the road.

- Provide Latitude and Longitude coordinates for a location or allow you to enter destinations using Lat/Long.

- Sometimes the Garmin maps think locations are on the opposite side of the road. I chalk this up to it being a municipality where the odd/even addresses are on the opposite sides of the street from what Garmin is expecting. Hopefully this will be fixed in future Garmin maps.

- Speaking of maps, I don't like the fact that I have to pay big bucks for updated Garmin maps. In my opinion updates should be free for at least some period of time. Fortunately the maps are pretty good as long as you're not in an area with lots of new construction.

- The C340 is exactly the same unit, however it pronounces the street names using text to speech technology.

- The unit should have an accessible reset button. Either drill a hole in the trim plate, or relocate the button to the back of the unit.

All in all we're very pleased with the Garmin C330. In the future I'm sure I'll be looking for more Garmin products when others in the household start driving.

PRO: Easy to use, right out of the box

CON: Garmin wants $75 to update 10 month old maps

PRO: Fast route/reroute calculations, user friendly, loaded maps

CON: Not Mac OS X compatible, "faster" route not always fastest

PRO: Very easy to use.

CON: Does not have rest areas. Old Streetpilot did & expected C33

Easy to use right out of the box, no need to read anything. A great display for all driving conditions day or night. Super detail on the maps and easy to use software. The POI's are detailed and they seem to cover almost every major location you could ever possible want to drive to. I love it!

Ok, I'm not going to give a super technical breakdown of the pro's and con's. You can read the 2xx other reviews for that. I will tell this much: c330 is a great unit for one heck of a price (299 shipped!!!). You really just take it out of the box and it's ready to go. First off, I've never owned any GPS equipment. So even though higher models like the c340 speaks the street names, or the nuvi 350 is no bigger than a deck of cards, the c330 has everthing a gps newb needs to get around town, or across the country. US and Canda are already loaded. I really wanted the Nuvi 350 but it was out of my price range. I was considering the c320 to save more money, but with the $20 price difference (on Amazon) it was only logical to get the c330. It's got most major restaurants, gas stations, attractions and a bunch of other categorized POI's that I'll probably never need, but just nice to know they exist if I need them...or if I'm bored and just want to see what other POI this thing has. As far as the voice nav goes she usually tells me to turn when it's at .1 mile. I think the "turn" prompts can be a bit sooner, but as long as you're aware you will be fine. Now it would be nice if it said the actual street name, but all it takes is a quick glance to see which street she's talking about and you're on track.

The text on the screen is clear and readable. I have mine mounted near the bottom of my windshield. Btw, that mount has very good suction. I don't know what people are talking about when they say the mount doesn't hold. Here's what some people might overlook on the mount: It's got a lever that is in the "locked" position when you get it. So what you've got to do is flip up the lever to "unlocked". Stick it to the windshield and flip the lever down to "locked" and that thing will be on there nice and tight! To take it off, just work it in reverse and off it will come.

There are a few things I noticed. Almost all routes chosen where the ones my fiance would choose (she's the Baltimore local not me). I have mine set to Fastest Route , but some destinations have me take a turn too early or go around. Case in point, I went to Costco today and was told it was right if off the highway, but the c330 told me to go right basically making one big circle. It was just a couple minutes extra so no big deal. Now if I was by myself I wouldn't have even noticed b/c I was not at all familiar with the area. So yes, there is the chance that it won't pick the most ideal route, but then again that Garmin route won't have you too far off from the route that a person familiar with the area would chose.

I haven't tested the SD slot, but I've read that it's pretty useless for loading custom POIs until you step up to the c530 models and higher. The SD slot does read maps for other countries so all hope is not lost if and when you plan to travel to areas outside the U.S. In order to load custom POIs you'd need to take the c330 in with you and use the USB to plug it directly to your computer. You'd basically load it directly onto the c330's internal memory. Garmin says its got 2mb of internal memory, though they didnt specify how much of that is actually used by the unit. So up to this point I don't know how much usuable internal memory there is. I don't plan to load tons and tons of POI so its doesn't seem to be an issue with me. What I've done in the few days I've used it is to look up where I want to go (on the internet) and get the address or just look it up on the c330. I've saved locations that I frequent in the Favorites section so they'll be there when I need them.

Another thing I want to mention is the size. Don't expect to fit this in your jeans pocket and not have people notice ;). Yes, it is small, but not Nuvi 350 small. But to get Nuvi 350 small you need to cough up about $150 more. May not seem like much more, but for those on a budget I think you can overcome the size issue. I usually keep mine in my jacket pocket where there's more space. I don't even notice it's there. I also carry a side bag, but I won't be putting it there until I get a case for it.

I haven't had the chance to use it in direct sunlight. People say the glare is killer, but I'm sure it's not anything that an antiglare screen can't fix. Amazon sells those too. They're from Boxwave if you're curious.

So there it is. Just a few minor setbacks that can easily be overlooked or overcome with a few adjustments. It doesn't have all the fancy features like an mp3 player or bluetooth, but if you just want to know how to get somewhere with confidence and at the same time have some really useful functions with a well known brand you cant go wrong with the c330...btw, did I mention it's only $299 :)

As a Private Investigator and Process Server this GPS paid for itself the first month. I have since bought 4 more for employees. Being able to locate an address is great but the feature of finding a restaurant or hotel WITH a phone number is awesome. I need to buy at least one more so my wife and daughter will stop borrowing mine when I'm not looking. My daughter has been driving less than a year and it is great when she is driving to stop her from getting lost. It is small enough to take on a plane for use in rental cars when you arrive in a strange city. All the wineries were listed in NAPA this past March, it saved so much time. This is a must have. I will never go without one again.

UPDATE: I now have five of these units, have had trouble with one and Garmin replaced it FREE in about 10 days. Very Good customer service!

Finally, a solution to my directional dyslexia! I get lost all the time!

Out of box, unit satellite indicates you are in Olath, Kansas. I live in Long Island, NY!, after several minutes, it located my location. Test drove it around the block and while sitting in my driveway, I indicated I wanted to go home, it made me drive around the block! But it is still awesome and helped navigate some dark streets in New Jersey. One drawback is that you cannot indicate preferences on routes, like we wanted to take the Verrazano bridge back home, but it stubbornly refused and kept routing us back the way it wanted us to drive home.... otherwise, it is an awesome unit, bought with rubber dashboard mount - a must have. Mount is study and portable and easily dismounted.

This is the second time that I purchased this item. Not because of problems, but because it makes a great gift. The first time I gave it, there was such a high level of excitement that I knew I nailed what would be a GREAT GIFT. So much for the reaction, what about the functioning of the device. Oh yeah - that.

Well first of all it is a compact and easy to use device. It is so small that it easily fits into the glove compartment when not in use. That is a great feature.

Out of the box, it is a simple matter of plug and play. There is such a short learning curve that it's not even funny. You need only follow the menu instructions on screen and program your locations. It's a breeze.

This product is full of location search categories that are current and convenient. This is especially helpful when travelling to unknown locations and areas.

I recommend it highly for the ease of use, wide range of data/information and the price value that it represents.