Garmin nüvi 1340 sat-nav

September 2009

The huge range of sat-navs on sale makes choosing difficult. But Garmin’s nüvi 1340 stands out – as it works just as well away from your car as inside it.

A two-piece mount allowed the unit to be suckered on to our test vehicle’s windscreen with the minimum of fuss. The simple navigation software plotted a course for us, and then we used the ecoRoute function to find out exactly how efficient our journey was.

Once we’d arrived, we simply changed to City Xplorer mode – which activated the pedestrian maps. We walked from a city centre car park, and the nüvi guided us successfully to a shop nearby.

We also tested its points of interest by making a quick restaurant stop.

The unit then directed us back to where we had parked our car. As a guide to unfamiliar towns on foot, the Garmin is very useful. But it’s not perfect.

For starters, the screen didn’t self-update or rotate – so we had to hold it upside down to walk the right way. Bluetooth hands-free connectivity would have been really useful, too. Yet overall, this is still a good buy.

 * Contact: www.garmin.com

 * Problems: No Bluetooth hands-free, can only access advanced planning in pedestrian mode.

 * So why buy? Sleek design, raft of features, secure two-part mount, wide selection of preferences.

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