7. Finding a Restaurant

Figure 52: Searching for a Restaurant

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest" is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a pre-loaded yellow pages. Most modern GPS devices come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest database, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

Garmin's nuvi 350 ships with around 6 million POIs pre-loaded onto the unit -- Magellan's highest-end GPS' only have 4.5 millions POIs, so 6 million is a respectable number. The accuracy of the Points of Interest (POI) database has been helped by Garmin's new 2007 mapping data. I found many new POIs in my area using the nuvi 350's new mapping data that my more expensive nuvi 680 could not find (it has the older Garmin maps installed).

To search for a restaurant, tap Where to? -> Food, as shown above in figure 52.

Searching the pre-loaded POI database is a simple affair requiring a few screen taps to choose a category (i.e. Restaurant), sub-category if appropriate (i.e. Restaurant -> Chinese), and how far away you want to search (Near...).

The icons are large enough that your finger won't accidentally tap the wrong box, and the icons do a good job illustrating the POI category.

Figure 53: Choosing a POI Sub-Category

Some POI categories have sub-categories. For example, if you choose "Food" as the main category, the nuvi 350 prompts asks if you also want to enter a sub-category (in this case, a food cuisine type). If we wanted to find the closest Mexican restaurant, for example, we could choose Mexican as the sub-category, and the nuvi would limit the results to just Mexican restaurants.

If you don't want to narrow the results by cuisine, we can choose "All Food" to list all restaurants.

Figure 54: Viewing the POI Search Results

Each POI is displayed in order of closeness (by default the nuvi orders the POI lookup results by closeness to your current location. You can change the radius of the search by tapping on the "Near..." button, shown in Figure 52).

Figure 55: POI Details Page

Tapping on a POI in the search results list displays the details page for that particular POI. From here you can view the POI's exact address, phone number, view the POI on the map, or begin routing to the business by tapping on the large green "Go!" button.

Figure 56: Viewing a POI on the Map

Tapping on "Show Map" in the previous screen displays the POI on the map. In this example, "Charlie's Deli" is displayed with the food icon. Viewing the destination on the map can be useful if you want to check out what the road situation will be like at the destination address.

8. Setting the Home Address

Once set, the Home address is a special entry in the Address Book that provides quick access to the address you'll use most often: home.

Figure 57: Accessing the Address Book

Garmin's nuvi 350 differs slightly from other nuvis in the way it handles the saved addresses. The Home address is located within the "My Locations" screen, accessed by tapping on Where to -> My Locations.

Figure 58: My Locations Screen

Tapping on "My Locations" brings up the screen shown above in figure 58. From here, you can quickly start routing to the designated home address by tapping on "Go Home", access the address book of saved places (Favorites), view recently found destinations (Recent Selections), or view your current position (My Current Location).

Figure 59: Setting the Home Address

The first time you use the "Home" button, the nuvi will prompt you to input your home address, as shown above in figure 59.

Previous Garmin nuvi's had a dedicated Home icon on the main Find menu, making for one-touch Home routing. Unfortunately, the nuvi 350 has moved the "Go Home" button to the "My Locations" menu, meaning you now have an extra click (or tap) to the process. Not a big deal, but I do prefer having the Home icon right out on the main menu since it's so frequently used.

9. Routing to Longitude/Latitude Coordinates

Figure 60: Routing to A Set of Coordinates

I was pleasantly surprised to see Garmin has included the ability to input a set of longitude/latitude coordinates as a destination address. I find this more useful than you might think. For example, some destinations don't have an official street address and need to be input directly as a set of coordinates. Routing to coordinates is also useful for Geocaching.

To route to a set of coordinates, tap on "Where to?" and then scroll down to see the Coordinates option, as shown above in figure 60.

Figure 61: Entering Coordinates

Figure 62: Selecting the Format for Coordinates

Garmin supports entering coordinates in all the popular formats.

10. Adding A Stop Along the Route

Figure 63: Adding a Stop Along the Route

Search for a destination while already en route to a destination address and the nuvi 350 will ask whether you want to insert the address as a stop (Via) along the existing route.

Note that you can only insert one additional stop along a route. Garmin's nuvi series doesn't support true multi-destination routing (although they do provide a way to add a single stop along a route). If you require multi-stop routing with route optimization (the ability to sort a series of stops by distance, you should take a look at Magellan's Maestro 3140 or 4050.

11. Canceling the Route

Figure 64: Canceling the Route

Tapping on the Menu button while navigating to an address brings up the menu shown above in figure 64. From here, you can stop routing to the destination by tapping on Stop, or detour around a problem area by (such as a traffic jam or closed road) by tapping on Detour.

Including the Stop button is a nice feature. I've tested a lot of GPS devices and have found that canceling a route can be a surprisingly difficult task. For example, TomTom's GPS units don't have any way to cancel the route (you can make it appear by switching the TomTom to "Advanced" mode, but under the default menu there's no way to cancel the current route).

In my testing I found the detour function worked well - you don't get any options for how far you want to avoid the current problem, or choose from a list of alternate routes, but it does provide a quick, easy way to get off the current road if you run into a problem.