Review on 📱 Garmin Nüvi 2457LMT 4.3-Inch Portable Vehicle GPS with Lifetime Maps and Traffic (No Longer Produced) by Matt Morrison

I finally gave up my tom-tom. The long satellite acquisition times, even with the weekly downloading of satellite positions and the habit of resetting when approaching a target, prompted me to purchase another Garmin. The previous Garmin 1450 didn't work well, but I decided to give Garmin another try. I'm glad I did. Nuvi 2497 LMT works very well. Acquired quickly. It took less than a few minutes out of the box and with daily use is typically acquired in less than 30 seconds. It is even bought in my garage which has a window. Garmin finally got the pre-planned routes right. In apps this is called tour planning. You can have multiple routes and they are easy to set up and edit. One thing to be aware of is that if you miss a waypoint on a route, even slightly, it will try forever to get to that waypoint. Older versions will automatically advance to the next waypoint after moving a certain distance from the missed waypoint. They give you on-screen instructions to navigate to the next waypoint. When you pass a waypoint, it automatically advances to the next waypoint. I can understand why some, such as B. Couriers might find this feature useful, so I haven't downgraded my rating for it. Garmin has slightly changed the user interface from previous models. Changes have no obvious benefit; but if you use it a few times it's ok. Saving a saved location (formerly known as a favorite) is a bit trickier. It's possible to mark a saved location by tapping on the map, but it's not obvious. Tap on the information field. Garmin has also done a good job of updating maps and software. I connected the device to my computer and went to the Garmin website. No nonsense about accounts and passwords was needed. You need to download an easy-to-install application. After that, the update just worked. I haven't tried Base Camp, Garmin's route planning software. It just didn't work with my previous Garmin Base Camp. It did all the planning well, but it didn't upload the data to Garmin. I will update this review when I try Base Camp with the Nuvi 2497LMT. The reason I only give this model four stars is because I would rate the voice recognition feature a C- at most. Finding a saved location is better than finding an intersection, for example. The device does not learn. It will keep making the same mistake interpreting the command. Some things work fine. The fixed Go Home command almost always works. Another improvement would be to give you a clear audio signal when the device fails to execute a voice command. He gives an affirmative answer, but not a negative one. When you realize a command didn't work, you tend to look at the screen, which defeats much of the purpose of voice commands. The voice command feature is essentially a toy that you could probably do without. The reason I bought this model and not the one that didn't have voice commands was because the Garmin literature was very confusing about how road signs worked in the lower model. I sent a question to support about this prior to purchase but they just repeated the question in one answer and didn't actually answer the question. I spent an extra $20 for a model that clearly did what I wanted with street directions, and like I said, the voice recognition feature is sort of a fun toy with limited utility. The Nuvi 2497LMT is a well-performing GPS module at a great price. It's a good choice.