Garmin 010-02038-02 DriveSmart 65, Built-in Voice-Controlled GPS Navigator with 6.95” High-Res Display, Black

Really excellent piece of kit that proved totally invaluable for our trip from the UK to Canada. After years of working from paper maps and internet screen shots - we rented a vehicle in Florida (back in 2019) that came with a dash mounted Garmin as a free upgrade and immediately realised it was taking a huge amount of stress and pre-planning away from us. Post pandemic and travelling again I decided to buy this unit to make life much easier. Living in the UK - I was able to order this GPS (SatNav) on Amazon.com (rather than Amazon.co.uk) and have it delivered to me in the UK direct from the USA. It is a great sized unit that is very very easy and intuitive to use and for the driver to see and read as you are driving. Like all GPS (SatNav) units it can very occasionally get small things wrong - but 99.999% it was very accurate. Anyone travelling to Canada - be warned that mobile/cell phone costs in Canada are unbelievably high - therefore EVEN with a USA/Canadian sim card in our phone - it would have cost a fortune to buy enough data in Canada (not necessarily the same in the USA which had much cheaper mobile/cell phone charges) to use a smart phone as a GPS/SatNav. Therefore we found it much more cost effective to buy the GPS/SatNav outright and it will work for years for future visits. One last thing about this model - after doing loads of research online - it tells you that this model is designed to work in tandem with a connected mobile/cell phone in order to receive traffic updates. It tells you this model works perfectly well as a GPS/SatNav on its own - but will not give live traffic updates without a connected mobile/cell phone - I considered this before buying - but decided that route guidance was enough and more important to me that anything else. HOWEVERE - after arriving in Canada - this device WAS giving us live traffic reports and rerouting to take the least congested routes - and we did NOT pair it with a mobile/cell phone - but still received live traffic reports. Great unit - Highly Recommended

I got this when I started a pizza delivery job. I drive 75% in the city and 25% in the country (Southern Illinois). I LOVE the subtle-ding the Garmin gives me when I hit 5mph over the speed limit (optional feature I enabled). It also displays the speed limit in most cases. The Voice Recognition is roughly what I expected. If I could rate the voice recognition on a 1-100 scale, I'd give it a 87. It recognizes well used streets well...but not quite as accurate on lesser known or said streets (or streets that could easily sound like something else). I always turn off the radio when I speak to allow it to hear me better. (But in most cases it can recognize with the radio on low). The SPEED at which I speak to the Garmin is Roughly 10-15% SLOWER than the Normal/Natural rate I would use if I were talking clearly to a Person. This seems to make it easier for the Garmin to read...But it could be slightly irritating to the impatient. Also the SPEED at which the Garmin Speaks to me (after I speak to it) will say something like, "Did you say, '123 Park Street".....Then I'll reply, 'Yes'....then then Garmin will say to me, 'WIll you like to begin Navigation', then I'll say, 'Yes' then it'll Beep/Chirp and say, 'Please Drive to the Highlighted Route'.... The conversation of the paragraph above could be better....and could be worse....Once again (I only use the voice activation if I sense that it's an, "Easy' Street for it to recognize like Main Street or Park Street...not 'Chataqueaua Street' (That it mistakenly thinks I said, 'Choctaw Street' as an example) It finds roughly 98% of the addresses I look for. Usually is it doesn't find it...its because it's a new subdivision or street. It also occasionally happens when when it's WAY out in the country. Despite me griping about a few things...I only do so to highlght what I've noticed. Overall it not only have achieved my expectations...but it slightly exceeds it (Minus the voice activated aspect/Which I'd say it only reached my expectations) The other thing I'll say I love...Is How/When the Garmin decides to zoom in on the screen/Zig Zag Pattern of the Road as you get CLOSER to the destination. AS you get closer to the destination the Garmin Zooms in on the REMAINING portion of the route which REALLY helps out on knowing what to expect further down the road. My lights are about to be replaced (Older Mini-Van) BUT...If I were driving in the country (Little to No Street Lights)...It is a LIfesaver to be able to SEE/KNOW sharp curves ahead of time by looking at the Garmin. Also...if you're in an older part of town (With a lot of one way streets)...It's nice to have an audible voice Warn you as a backup, "You are going the WRONG way down the Steet"...Haha Things that could be better...And it could be worse: The ability of the Garmin to find the exact apartment number (In an apartment complex/Mobile Home Community). If I could rate that on a 1-100...I'd give it only a 35. (Granted it's not something they claim to have) Small gripe I have. I drive a GM vehicle and I have to sometimes turn the headlights on/off twice before my headlights go off...Sometimes when I do this the Garmin will say, "Say a Command" and while it's speaking it sounds like somebody pulled the plug on it WHILE it was speaking...it sounds a little harsh WHEN this happens (Which isn't ALL the time/But it DOES happen occasionally). It's not something that can't be dealt with (and isn't Too loud...but it's slightly irritating when it happens) If Garmin could eventually master knowing all the apartment numbers/mobile home communities and on which face/side of the building they're located on...it'd make things MUCH easier though (Delivering Pizza's). Believe it or not....Sometimes it takes less time to get to an apartment complex vs finding the right building. Less people have addresses well lit/Visible on their homes/mailboxes than you'd think. Overall I'm VERY happy with the purchase. On the rare 2% of the time I couldn't find an address....my cellphone would always get me there. **Also, I bought the Backup Camera from Garmin** It's DIRT-Simple to install (A child/elderly person) could install it themselves unassisted. The 2 Lithium AA batteries I purchased (**NOT**-Included-by-the-Way)...lasted Roughly a month (Jan-Feb 2020).

If you still use a stand alone car GPS, Garmin remains the last strong hold making stand alone units, thus I bought another as my older one is acting up, but I will repair my older one to use as backup as this new one is a step back in some respect. They are also good for domestic rentals, as you can bring presets and customs with you rather than relearning the nav unit in a rental. Garmin also pioneered car GPS, so the UI and design are optimal for drivers compared to free Google maps navigators; I use both when driving. For under $100, Garmins are still a steal. This review is after 1 week of daily road use. Pros Coming from a Garmin nuvi since 2010 and 2013, you can functionally do all older unit do and its overall like a slightly bigger and faster version of the nuvi, otherwise the same. However, moving from a 2010 unit to a 2013 nuvi, there were all improvements. But moving from 2013, to 2022 is a step back in some functions Build quality is the same, high, since 2010, no longer rubber coated to make it easier to grip, but still works the LCD screen has a tighter dot pitch and is clearer, and this unit is larger than my nuvi the touch seems more responsive the directions are spoken clearly and enunciated with emphasis in critical areas, like when a turn is about to happen updates online are faster download and install, but work similarly as older units Garmin Express is simple and easy to use, and offers more functions now than older versions, see photo able to carry forward my custom POI and locations, moving them from my nuvi to the 52 max volume is very loud, and so is brightness to see in full sunlight, I had to tone both down, a good thing, using Google maps to navigate on my phone, the phone is neither loud enough and would be useless if not being able to send the audio the car infotainment the newer design mounting clip uses the standard suction cup base, and takes getting used too but it allows me to use other Garmin accessory mounts Garmin has never gotten me lost in 1000mi+ trips, but some detours in backcountry, had some odd round abouts, for a country ride during the day it can be entertaining, at night it can be scary. However, Google Maps has taken me to bad detour routes, so I don't trust it for detours but it great for speed traps, alerts, and real time traffic. Cons custom POI do not migrate automatically, and there are no instructions. Open the POI folder in your older Garmin once the Garmin is attached to the PC, copy the POI to your PC, and remove the old Garmin, attach the new Garmin and drag that POI to the same folder in the new Garmin The color scheme for speed and limit is more bland and less alerting, and there is only one trip setting appearing on the right border, in the older units you could customize it in many ways to maximize the delivery of data on the small screen .. see photo on the fly detour requires up to 4 clicks, compared to one in the nuvi. One to hide the current trip setting, one to bring up the menu, one to select 'route', which is what detour is now called, then clicks again to select how far to detour. Luckily it does do the same thing, but getting to it is very annoying, being able to reroute on the fly when an accident or issue appears ahead of you is a key value a Garmin is for me, and they made it harder to use. The amount of custom voices is reduced, the voice sounds more mechanical and less natural, and is not as smoothly generated, there is a harshness to the voice synthesis, compared to older Garmins The killer to this model is the battery is only 1 hour, if at all, and mine barely got 15 minutes. Older garmins were are least 2 hours. Even after 1-2 recharges, I couldn't get it to last over 15 minutes, and later returned my unit as defective, and I already reduced the brightness and volume to under 50%. This means if you try adjusting it without the car adapter power, it will rapidly eat the battery down, and it also slowly eats the battery when the unit is off. You can conserve battery power by holding the Power button down until the TURN OFF dialog appears, cutting standby power to minimum. I often started the trip with the unit dead, and it wouldn't start until a minute or two for the battery to charge from zero. I bought another unit and returned my first, and it got 1 hour, but again, its barely enough. Garmin 52 with Traffic If you live in a well populated place, OTA Traffic has more options than older Garmins and is free and will save you a lot of time in wasted traffic. It uses the same cable as older Garmins that have Traffic. Its plug and play and what I changed my 52 too, and the ads don't say, upgrade maps are lifetime of the unit. It uses as much of the onboard memory as it can, then offloads stuff to the SD Card. For over 10 yrs, Garmins still have a max of 32GB SD cards, and been more than enough for decades. The OTA Traffic has less data than the upgraded model Garmins with bluetooth connect to your phone, to use its data for traffic updates, but reliability of the connection varies with your phone model, while the OTA is trouble free out of box.

Works pretty well. I drive a semi and use this to navigate MN and WI daily. It learns my routes and on Monday morning it will ask if I want to go to the location I always go to first on Mondays, same with other days. The speed and locations are accurate. I like the size of the display, not huge, but large enough to glance at and see. It stores a lot of locations, though I have filled it up. It was not really designed for what I use it for.

I knew nothing about Garmin till I used this Garmin Drive 52 for the past two weeks. To be clear, I suspect they offer more advanced features on the upgraded devices. I still need to explore the settings where I can tweak the routes results, I suspect. In regard only to my experience so far with this entry level Drive 52, I find it kind of like running an old Atari video game. I'd almost consider this a good toy for a preschooler these days. I guess that means it's easy to use. Having said that, this Garmin Drive 52 has gotten me out of a couple of jams, and for that it deserves 5 stars. There are too many new roads, highways and addresses being built in Florida for the Garmin updates to keep up. With completely updated maps, this device does not know where to go, a lot. It will take you to construction zones and closed roads where the Google option is smarter. But, again due to the growth, there are certain areas I just can't get connected to a cell tower to start the GPS signal on my smartphone. So, moral of the story, no brainer to carry this inexpensive navigation device as it will help you out of a jam once in a while. Overall, I like it a lot. It compliments and provides certain helpful tidbits and features. But the voice instruction is sometimes slow to evolve and adapt and does not give enough heads up to make a turn on occasion. Bottom line is, if driving professionally, you need multiple options on board because when you don't know where you are and the navigation shuts down, better have a map downloaded to your device and a compass. When the data runs out on this Garmin it's like the whole world melts away, like when I drove to the northern newest ends of one of our ever-expanding highways down here. Updating the maps with the most current data is easy enough through an app on your computer with the provided cable for the purpose. I have more peace of mind, hundreds of miles away from home, with this Garmin Drive 52 onboard than without, so I definitely recommend.

I ordered this Garmin Drivesmart units last week. The truck has android auto built in, but it is always very buggy and takes quite a bit of time to connect. It also can hang up and nothing displays on the screen. I got tired of that and got this uniti instead. It has lifetime maps and traffic. It can also link to the phone for calls and texts, but I can still do that through the head unit and bluetooth. Has Wifi built in and it downloaded a map and system update when I first plugged it in. I really like this GPS so far, display is very crisp and updates while driving are fast. Traffic works well, requires you to use the Garmin Drive app on the phone, but they dont charge you for it. Not as integrated as something like Waze, but not bad for showing slowdowns, school zones or red light cameras. I'm using an aftermarket mount to stick to the windshield and move it closer which seems to work well so far. Once you are in the where to screen, all you have to do is say "Hey Garmin" and it immediately responds. All the acceptable commands are already on the screen as push buttons, so all you have to do is say find address or whatever. You don't have to remember what phrase to use, they are right there. I rambled off a few addresses from memory and it displayed the correct address as the first in the list. Once you are in a navigation mode, it always responds to hey garmin. Honesty, it is so much easier and intuitive than the phone and all the apps and much easier than the older units where you first have to enter state, then city then address.

The Garmin DriveSmart 65 has been an excellent GPS. The large 6.95" screen is clear and easy to read, and the directions are accurate and reliable. I really like the voice-control feature, which makes it convenient to use while driving. It updates quickly, finds routes fast, and overall works smoothly every time. A great GPS that does exactly what it should.

The purpose of this detailed novel is to help others make an educated decision before considering a Garmin. Received my Garmin close to the date promised. Plan A: Turn on and follow the instructions for setting it up. Failed. The device could not connect to the newer Wi-Fi hardware at any level using the industry standard WPA2 protocol. 6 attempts, all failed. Plan B: Locate and older wireless router (if you have one). This router is over 10 years old and I just had it sitting around. Presto, it connected through WPA2. Device made it passed this point in the setup. Device states that there are updates available. OK, that makes sense let’s get them. Ran for 10 minutes and then it failed, it stated it was retrying. The only option to exit after countless retries was to CANCEL (keep this in mind). Your device is now a brick. Plan C: Go to a PC and plug device into USB port using supplied cable, launch Garmin Express that was already installed from my previous Garmin device. Attempt to find device by searching… Failed. Try another 6 times, presto the software finally finds the device without doing anything but selecting search repeatedly, for 6 times. The 6th time was a charm. Software says the device has updates click install ALL to apply them. Failed. Tried again 19 times over a period of days. Yes, read that last statement, 19. Using Garmin Express version 7.18.3.0 (keep this in mind). Plan D: Go to another PC (if you have one), install the latest Garmin Express on this PC. Connect your device using the supplied USB cable. Follow the same instructions to process the updates you have coming. Failed. Unlike the previous version of Garmin Express, 7.18.4.0 cannot download any updates at all without failing with a generic message that states “There was an error installing the update”. Since this version doesn’t even attempt a download before failing there was no timing anything. Plan E: At this point I Google the web to see if there is any light at the end of this tunnel. I get the standard, rudimentary help text on the Garmin site which supplies a lot of words but says absolutely nothing. Not a single sentence explains why the Garmin Express software fails after anywhere from immediately to a few hours\days of running, and does NOT provide a means of resuming (critical point here). Remember the 19 times from above, if not go back and read that part. Plan F: At this point no amount of Googling is going to save me, let’s try Garmin chat support. After all these folks should know their product… right? Wrong! After wasting over 10 minutes in a chat session the responses were in the form of links to their useless website. It was clear the person, if it was a person, did not read the message or couldn’t suggest anything to fix the issue. Yes, the chat message was as detailed as this. Failed. Plan G: Maybe I got a rookie that doesn’t have a clue about the product they are supporting, lets try Garmin chat again. This time I get a person that does read the message, but wait, they send me a link to their useless website. I then explained that I had been there done that and that if that is all they could suggest then we were going nowhere. I also ran the question by AI (chatGPT) and it suggested several alternatives to Garmin software. I was too aggravated to download these alternatives after days of trying to get my device to work. I asked the technician if they could suggest an alternative to the software Garmin provides and they said that the only thing that could update the device was either Wi-Fi or Garmin Express (not an option). Failed. Plan H: At no point in my research have I found anything mentioning how people actually get their Garmin devices updated. I have come across countless failed attempts, others state that they have allowed it to run for days and that it was the only option. Didn’t see that in the sales propaganda. So once again I return to Wi-Fi and attempt to process updates through the older router, it failed again and again and again over a period of a few days. I left this run for days, yes days and that is your only option. But wait, you cannot do this unless you have a power adapter (not supplied). If you have a cell phone you can use that USB power adapter, given you will need to leave the device on over a period of days. Several days later, see attached screen shot, the update completed and I finally had maps on my device, brick restored. See attached screen shot. Lastly, if you’re planning on using the traffic alerts service on this device, triple check your cell phone OS to ensure that it can support the Garmin Drive mobile app. The mobile app only runs on a few phones and it is NOT compatible with older OSs. You can do this BEFORE purchasing the device by going to the app store for your smartphone and searching for the Garmin Drive app. If you find it, then you might assume it will work. If you do not find it, then the store is telling you it is not compatible with your phone OS. This feature didn’t require a smartphone in earlier versions of these devices, but now does and only works with a handful of smartphones. If your ISP provides gigabit service to your area you may not run into some of these issues, other than the available Garmin software being useless. You may have luck with previous versions. Keep in mind that WHEN you select update, while connected via Wi-Fi, it completely wipes out the maps on your device making it a brick until that update completes – which could be days later. I did not purchase any additional memory cards given I had no idea what was involved in the update process. Hope you found some value in this review. At least you know what you are getting into BEFORE you decide to purchase a Garmin.

Se ve bien y a lo mejor funciona en usa pero aquí en Mexico no trae los mapas, lo compré por fuera y funcionó un día, pero hoy solo se ve la señal del gps pero no veo el mapa! Decepción ! Va de regreso…

Another quality Gramin unit.working exactly as described. Thank you.

I have a built in one in my car but hubby does not and just had an older one stolen (grrrrrrr). This new one is great and it got us already to at least ten locations so far without any issues. It shows red light cameras ahead, schools, construction if they are known, voice is pleasant, screen easily readable, input easy to do, shows points of interest, speed limits, car's speed, time and much more, we have not even checked out.

El mapa no está actualizado para México. No obstante funciona. Aunque para el precio deberían actualizar los mapas antes de sacarlo a la venta.

Excelente !!