Review on 📍 Renewed Garmin 010-01681-02 DriveSmart 61 NA LMT-S GPS with Enhanced Smart Features by Brian Hazzard

Garmin has finally switched to glass screens instead of the touchscreens of the old Nuvis, like on cell phones. The thin bezel allows your fingers to touch the glass when holding it, leading to unintended parameter/menu changes. Navigation is what you buy a GPS for, and performance here is inferior to older Nuvis models. It looks like Garmin rushed to launch the product without fixing the bugs. Traffic data and rerouting aren't as good as older models. Heavy traffic doesn't show up on the route like my old block does unless it's so small that I don't notice it. You'll be prompted to accept or decline the new routing based on traffic, and you can respond by voice. If you create your own routes and skip a waypoint, the system will ask if you want to skip that waypoint. In this case, you don't have to respond with your voice. Poor integration of segmented functions. Even the normal route calculation results in a different route than my old model, which gave me more direct routes. There are bugs in the map database that lead to inefficient routing. For no apparent reason, he directs me down small streets in a residential area. Didn't save time or distance. There are fewer traffic lights in a residential area, but the speed limits are lower and you have to make more turns at four-way stops, so it actually takes longer. If there are any errors in the map data I would like to report them to Garmin so they can be corrected. Some locations have had anomalies for several years and will not be fixed in new map updates. The navigation options are different: now faster time, shorter distance and off-road. How would I move around off-road? The previous "Less fuel" option is deprecated. Garmin never explained the criteria used to calculate this route. In some cases this resulted in a faster route to my destination. The volume of the voice commands is much higher than the volume of the instructions. I can't find a menu item that can change this. I never had this problem with previous models. The route calculation algorithm seems different from older models. Strange loops around roads are added to a route that runs in a straight line for several miles. A $100 smartphone has more features than this device. Editing and finding places is very difficult because the program doesn't remember your last menu page when it expires and shuts down. You need to redefine the city you were looking at. I am traveling and would like to reserve seats until I arrive at my destination. Every time I search and find interesting places, the battery dies and the device turns off. When I turn it back on it reverts to my current location and I have to re-enter the location I was trying to find and save points of interest from. Too much time and frustration. The large screen drains the battery pretty quickly, so don't use this device for hiking. The glass screen is too sensitive and I accidentally change the settings. Will try to get a phone screen protector to see if it reduces touch sensitivity. If it weren't for the cheaper price of the refurbished product, I would have sent it back. I hope that in the future there will be updates to eliminate all operational errors.