Description

Packed with features at a price that fits any budget, nüvi 265T takes you there with preloaded maps and turn-by-turn directions that call out streets by name. It adds lifetime traffic and hands-free calling to the popular nüvi 255, simplifying life on the go. Like the rest of the nüvi 205-series, this portable navigator is priced right and ultra-easy to use.

Get Turn-by-Turn Directions
nüvi 265T's intuitive interface greets you with two simple questions: "Where to?" and "View Map." Touch the color screen to easily look up addresses and services and get voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions that speak street names to your destination. It comes preloaded with detailed City Navigator® NT street maps, over 6 million points of interest (POIs), 2-D or 3-D maps and smooth map updates as you navigate. Its digital elevation maps show you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain. In addition, nüvi 265T accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. With HotFix™ satellite prediction, nüvi calculates your position faster to get you there quicker.

Make Hands-free Calls
For hands-free calling, nüvi 265T integrates Bluetooth® wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker. Just pair it with your compatible Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free through the 265T while staying focused on the road. Simply dial numbers with nüvi's touchscreen keypad to make a call. To answer calls, just tap the screen and speak into its built-in microphone. Enjoy convenient one-touch dialing for contacts and points of interest.

Avoid Traffic Tie-ups
Steer clear of traffic with nüvi 265T's integrated FM traffic receiver. Receive alerts about traffic delays and road construction that lie ahead on your route. Next, simply touch nüvi's

Customer Reviews

 I love this Garmin GPS - Sep 02, 2010

This is an excellent product for the price. I feared the screen was too small, but it's fine. The voice commands tell me the street name, give me the distance to the next turn, and repeat itself just before the turn. Excellent product, I highly recommend it!

 Excellent!! - Sep 01, 2010

A great GPS at a great price. I paid $118 and a week later it was over $150!(probably because it's discontinued). Small & light with good window suction. Anyone who has used a GPS knows they are not perfect, and this one is no different. I think Garmin is a top brand and would recommend it. I use mine primarily in a truck and the only complaint I have is that the volume could be louder. No problems otherwise.

 slow in finding satellite and route; inconvenient UI - Sep 01, 2010

I had a Garmin 3600 as my first GPS and had major complaints about being slow in finding satellite and calculating the routes. Three years ago I bought a Mio c220 and was quite happy about the speed. A couple months ago, the Mio died and I had to get a new one. After reading the review, I bought Garmin 265t - a big mistake. (Even worse, I didn't use it much until recently and it already passed the return period.)

This Garmin unit may look pretty, loaded with fancy features, but it doesn't do its job well. The most critical job for a gps is to find your location, and give directions. This Garmin is even worse than the Mio I got 3 years ago. Generally it took the Mio c220 a few seconds to find the satellite, but Garmin Nuvi 265t needs about half a minute, some time more than a minute. It takes even longer if you start driving while it's looking for signal. It's better than 3600, which took quite a few minutes, but I guess as a tradition Garmin is weak in general finding satellite signals, though they are very good are marketing. I used a Tomtom and a Magellon from friends, and both were much faster in finding signals.

The calculation of route is slow, too. Though once it find the route, recalculating is not bad.

Start-up time is long, too.

You would guess with traffic info, Garmin should improve the estimate of arrival time, and thus make a better choice when looking for fastest route, but that's not the case. It's as worse as the Garmin 3600 from 2004. Not even taking the lights into account. How hard is it to add an average wait time for each light?

The UI is terribly designed. No easy way to look at the full route, not to mention switching between the full route and the next-turn view. (Mio did an OK job on this)

When showing traffic, it makes the route hard to see.

One unbearable thing is the keyboard. They don't even provide an option to use the qwert layout. The average person today like me are used to the qwert layout and it's really annoying to look for letters in the abcd arrangement.

When searching for an address, you have to type it exactly correct. Otherwise, you won't find the street. How hard is it to use fuzzy matching? Mio did a much better job on this - it was a great pleasure entering address in Mio after the suffering Garmin experience.

Garmin just doesn't put much thought in the UI design. It's probably designed by a college intern and received no review or user feedback.

I will probably never buy a Garmin again.

 Good but not great - Aug 30, 2010

We owned one of these devices previously, but it was stolen so we decided to replace it, and chose the same model we had before. The only real problem came during installation/setup. Garmin gives a free map upgrade (which is great, they didn't use to, and you got a navigator maps a few years old - out of the box) but the upgrade didn't work on our Vista 64bit machine. I had to take the device down to my work pc which runs XP 32bit to get the maps to install correctly.

The accuracy is always been a bit soft, sometimes it says something is on the right side of the street, when its on the left, etc. But nothing too bad. It almost got us lost up on the mountains once with us low on gas, but we were able to change our destination from some obscure location in the mountains, to a small town near by to get gas and to ask for directions from a local.

But overall it works well, the text to speech is pretty good, though it does sometimes change its pronunciation from time to time. Typically as we get closer the pronunciation becomes more accurate.

This was rated as a "best buy" by consumer reports, and I'd agree with that. For the money it is a good device.

 Disappointed in Garmin products - Aug 29, 2010

I am very dissatisfied with the Garmin products. The Nuvi 265T was my last Garmin I will every buy, I had a Nuvi 350 before that and I was unhappy with the performance of that one. Both units are very slow to receive signal, gave wrong directions numerous times.
The 265T is suppose to to have the so called Hot fix feature....I could be half way to my destination and the flashing question mark would still be flashing. Many times it did not know what its location was so I did not know if I should make a turn or go straight. The last straw was when it put me a 1/4 of a mile past my destination, into a empty weeded lot. I don't understand as to why this technology can't be perfected at this point in time. I think the mass production has something to do with overall quality and reliability of the Garmin products. As that I need one I will try a Tom Tom product for my next GPS. No more Garmin junk for me.

 For $100.00 - great deal!! - Aug 28, 2010

My wife has Garmin and she really likes it, so when I saw for $100.00, I had to get one for myself!

 Garmin Review - Aug 23, 2010

Came as promised, very easy to use, set up. Accurate directions. Garmin nüvi 265/265T 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic

 Garmin Nuvi - Aug 19, 2010

I think the Garmin Nuvi works great. It is small and attaches easy to your front window. It got me from New Jersey to North Carolina perfectly. I highly recommend everyone should have one.

 Love our nuvi - Aug 18, 2010

I wanted to find a gps for my techno-challenged husband. This one is it! The setup was so easy. The options are great--plenty, but not too many. Updates can be handled online. We opted for the 3 1/2 one instead of the larger model, because we can stick it into a pocket and carry it on walking excursions in town.
We love it!

 Great GPS - Aug 11, 2010

The normal GPS functions on the unit are excellent. It take literally 1 sec from pressing the on switch for it to power on and calibrate your current position! This is amazing after having my old Garmin that sometimes would take up to 10 min in city to calibrate. Calculating a normal in-city route is also very quick taking about 3 sec.

I also love the fact that this unit knows the speed limit on almost every road. This is useful info since a sign is not always available. I wish you could have it give you an audible or visual warning dependent upon how much you are speeding (ie: beep at you when you go more than 10 miles over the speed limit).

Typing on the unit is fairly tight and would be better on the widescreen version. The USB link to PC works well with Chrome browser and Windows Vista. Had to install a browser plug-in, but afterwards I was able to send 10 locations in a few seconds.

There is no lane assist with the unit (this is offered in the much more expensive units). However, the unit does allow you to put at least two destinations along a route contrary to what the features listed on the Garmin website.

The traffic feature is very interesting as it will tell you what speeds you can expect on the highways. Data is lagged about 10 min in my city. It may re-route you to smaller roads it does not have traffic data on that may also be clogged. Thus, I would not always trust the unit when it reroutes you in traffic to be faster. Lifetime traffic is paid by non-intrusive text-ads that only display once you have reached your destination.

A more advanced predictive algorithm is available in the much more expensive Garmin units which record past route times and will factor this data into the routing. Basically those units will "learn" by being on all the time and will give you better estimates and re-route options over time.

 Garmin nuvi 265/265T - Aug 05, 2010

Bought this for my daughter. I have, and love, a TomTom with MANY features. Bought this because it was a fraction of what I paid for same features, and was smaller to enable pocket carrying.

Very happy. Spoke street names, etc. One does not have to look at the unit to follow directions - what more can you ask for?

I recommend highly.

My only issue is the "lifetime traffic" doesn't seem to work. Can't get it back from my daughter to futz with it though.

 Much Better Than My Expectation - Aug 05, 2010

It worked in New York city! I have heard from friends that some early models don't work in big cities, not this one. There are some not so great routes as reviewed by others. However, it saved us on our recent college tour along east coast. It knows those Ivy schools well but not so for the less famous hotels. That requires real street address. It is well worth the price I paid for (gas, time and frustration would cost much more). There are too many construction going on near campus in summer. We need to constantly re-route. Thanks to this Garmin GPS, we made it to admission office on time with confidence. It is the must-have for us.

 Garmin GPS Compared - Aug 03, 2010

I recently bought two comparably priced auto GPS devices (the Garmin nuvi 265T and the Magellan Maestro 4350) to use as gifts. But before "gifting" them, I tried each of them out. THE GARMIN WAS FAR SUPERIOR IN ALMOST EVERY WAY: lighter unit with a brighter screen, easier set-up directions, clearer instructions, more up-to-date map, and longer traffic subscription.

 Easy to use and extremely helpful - Jul 30, 2010

The major reason I bought this version of Garmin's Nuvi as an upgrade over my older Nuvi was the free traffic feature (previous versions required a yearly fee). In general, I've found the traffic feature to be reasonably accurate although not all the time. Having used the unit for almost a year now, I would guess there have been less than a handful of occasions when it didn't tell me about traffic ahead of time.

One of the features I like most of the Garmin GPS units over other makers is the "text to speech". I prefer hearing the name of the street rather than just "turn left in 400 feet". There have been a few times when the unit's directions weren't an exact match for the road signs; however, those cases are few and far between. The interface is a little more user-friendly than my previous Nuvi, with better access to some features like the volume.

Another extremely useful feature included here but not in my previous unit is the ability to use it while walking around the streets (not only in the car). The small size makes for an easy fit in your pocket; however, since this didn't come with a case, I had to use the soft leather case which came with my previous unit. The estimated time to destination is fairly accurate within a few minutes. Overall, I would definitely recommend this unit to anyone looking for a GPS. I don't know how I ever got anywhere before getting these Garmin Nuvis.

 Garmin 265/T - Jul 30, 2010

Lightweight, compact and super ease of operation. Finds it's position quickly and info is right on target. I use in both my vehicle and a motorcycle. No cons that I know of....all Pros.

 Fine product, not so good support..... - Jul 29, 2010

I researched a lot before buying this GPS. I have owned 3 GPS units in the past (still have one of them) and I knew what I wanted to have. Firstly, I wanted updated maps and the Bluetooth connectivity. I also thought that having the "traffic" feature would be nice. When the unit arrived, I immediately opened it and checked out the contents. I was surprised that it did not include an owners manual but only had a quick set-up guide. I gave the contents a quick once over and saw that they had a USB cable that would fit nicely into the back of my iPhone car adapter as well as it's own car adapter that was also included.

I charged the unit as suggested using a USB power adapter that I had for the iPod/iPhone (they did not include an AC adapter). I used the before mentioned USB cable and my iPhone car charger in the car and when I turned it on it acquired the satellites pretty quickly compared with the other GPS units I've tried. Inputting the address is very easy and the setup is quite intuitive. The POI feature is quite nice too and one feature I loved is that you can actually type the name of the place you want to go to like "Fernbank" or "Callanwolde" which are special places in Atlanta and the unit found them and routed a good way to get there.

The maps appear to be fairly up-to-date and so far it has given me good directions. However, it is not perfect and like other GPS units, it will not recalculate the optimum routes if you deviate from it's instructions. Instead of taking the next logical route from the next available intersection, it wants you to turn around and go back to the original route. I guess this would work out OK but it's a little disconcerting when you are driving through areas that I know well and I know the shortcuts.

The problem I had was getting the "traffic" feature to work. I looked in the documentation that was included which was a very brief and sketchy quick start guide and later spent a lot of time surfing the net and navigating through the Garmin website trying to find information about this "traffic" feature. I had zero luck with that. I thought that the seller had sold me a unit without the "traffic" feature. so I called the retailer but they did not know the product well enough to advise me. They did offer to accept the return of it if I was not satisfied with it, but suggested I contact Garmin first. This was the biggest complaint I found with the product. Totally inferior support. I was on the phone on hold 3 different times for quite long periods of time. The Garmin website is also quite difficult to use as their support and contact links are cleverly hidden or at least very difficult to find. They just don't want to talk with you... Finally I found an email address and sent a query while waiting on the the phone through endless messages mostly saying "we are very busy and you'll be better off callings us some other time". Finally I got a human on the line and I quickly found out that the car power adapter that was included contained the FM receiver for the traffic.... OK, I guess I could have read the instructions, except there were none included. (finally the tech support guy emailed me a PDF file with the manual). Anyway, the tech support representative was courteous and knowledgeable and he did help me with my questions even if it took a long time to finally get him.

After that glitch was taken care of, the traffic featured appeared like magic once I plugged the car adapter/traffic receiver to the car. It shows the icon as green (no traffic). yellow (moderate traffic) or red (Atlanta nightmare traffic). However, I have not figured out when and if it will actually re-route you to avoid congestion.. The Bluetooth was pretty straightforward to pair up with my phone and in a few minutes it was working fine. The hands free feature works very well and my callers cannot tell that they are on the speaker phone/GPS. The only problem with the sound of the GPS is that is is not loud enough to hear over the radio when it's playing or if the road noise is too loud (like with the window open). The one feature that is missing and should be there is a mini phone outlet to hook it up to the radio and amplify the sound some more.

The other complaint I have is that the power adapter/traffic receiver is awfully big and clumsy. Also, the connection is in the left side (as you look at it) in the back of the GPS which makes it awkward to place. The suction mount is very well designed. It sticks like superglue on the windshield of my truck or my car. It's very compact and easy to use. I have not tried using the little disk that is included to mount the suction cup in some other (presumably more convenient) place.

As a GPS I give it a 8 out of 10 points. The Bluetooth is also a 8 out of ten The reason they don't score 10 of 10 is because the lack of an audio "out" or a louder speaker. The mounting system is perfect, I give it a 10 out of 10 points. The power cord is so clunky that I give it a 5 of 10 points, worse yet is that you gotta use it in order to have the full features of the GPS.. I bought it as a reconditioned unit so the price was only about $89 dollars. For the price it is hard to beat. However, the clunky power cord with the FM traffic receiver is a big hassle and the little, quiet speaker is unforgivable.

It's not perfect but if you are willing to do with out the "traffic", it's an impressive unit with a very good Bluetooth phone connection. If you don't mind the clunky cord and the tinny voice, it's probably as good a unit as you can get, at least for a low price.

 Awsome Unit - Jul 24, 2010

I bought this unit after reading many reviews, I have to say I was not disappointed. I set this up in just a few minutes and used it for a trip I was planning with my family. The accuracy and spoken commands telling you the direction and streets is very good and accurate. I even used the bluetooth feature to connect it to my blackberry just to try it out and it worked great. I am looking forward to using this unit many times in the future on all my trips.

 265t garmin - Jul 16, 2010

the product is good but the traffic icon will drive you crazy as it was not coming up for me initially. It needs couple of re-boots and your bluetooth should be on. Somehow if you are receiving the call and the system is trying to say some direction, the spoken feature sometimes stops working and we need to reboot.

But for feature, this product has very good features, as you are covered with your traffic needs and it clearly detours you, atleast you can be aware your will be struck for a while. The presentation is very good.

Only issue is when the traffic some times never comes up for the same highways it was coming before..

I recommend this product for this price as you will know the trick the get the traffic working after you use it for couple of days.

 go garmin its GREAT !!!! - Jul 14, 2010

when I want an easy way to travel not with a paper map I went to the internet to look for a gps unit Ifound the best unit for the best price on amazon for my needs and the unit worked great!!!!! from just happy

 Garmin is the only way to go - Jul 09, 2010

Had a bottom of the line Garmin several years ago. Screen broke, Garmin replaced it no questions. It was a great, intuitive unit. It was stolen and I replaced it with a Magellan Roadmate. It was hard to use, often wrong, it cost more than my Garmin did and even a $75 map upgrade did not improve its accuracy. I was given this Garmin Nuvi for Father's day and I love it. It has live traffic info (no subscription) it is easy to use especially when looking for stores, services etc. Coming back to Garmin is like finding an Oasis in the desert. Don't think about any other brand.

 Garmin GPS - Jul 09, 2010

Great value for a GPS. Has all he features you would want in a GPS.

 Good buy, great price. - Jul 07, 2010

Got this just before a 1200 mile road trip. Performed pretty well.
Did decently quick 'recalculations' on detours. Have used it on and off for about three weeks now.

Only feature I wish it had, is for it to display the list of directions on a page, rather than have to scroll through them along with the map... or maybe I just haven't figured out how to do that yet :) Minor issue nevertheless.

 piece of crap - Jul 06, 2010

This unit never knows where I am, where it is, or what planet I am on. I live outside of Denver - it loses satellite signals constantly and gets me lost 4 out of 5 times I use the thing. Everything else is pretty nifty.

 Good but not compatible for Bluetooth with my cell phone brand. - Jul 03, 2010

I exchanged this for a 755T Nuvi. It has a wider screen and I like it better than the 265T. The 265T Nuvi wasn't compatible with my cell phone for Bluetooth.

 Great Product, No Regrets - Jul 03, 2010

I bought this product for a trip I was very nervous about so I did A LOT of research on what GPS to buy. I read the customer reviews at all the major electronics sites, as well as professional reviews and consumer reports. They seemed to indicate the 265 Garmin was the best model in this price range.

I have not been disappointed. It finds the satellites quickly, it doesn't lose them in bad weather, even several torrential downpours (I've yet to try it amongst tall buildings, though).

It is accurate, even on small roads. It speaks the street name when you turn, which I find an invaluable feature. You can program it for various navigation preferences like avoiding tolls or highways (very helpful when traffic is bad). It will also redirect you if it detects traffic, but this feature appears a bit spotty. (I don't mind, being that I didn't buy it for this feature.) It's plenty loud, even if you're listening to music while you drive.

It has one quirk: on highways it sometimes will direct you to keep left, even if there's no need for this direction (no other option, besides taking an exit or a turn). I don't have a problem with my GPS giving me too much information.