Garmin Thailand decreased prices for:

1. nuvi 1250 (slimmer than nuvi 205 ) - now 5.900 THB

2. nuvi 1460 (5-inch screen, Bluetooth...) - now 11.900 THB

Prices include VAT and the latest Thai Map.

Can anyone give me any information about these two Nuvi models? I am looking for the best buy for the money and the nuvi 1250 seems to be well within my budget. Thanks for any help you can give.

Can anyone give me any information about these two Nuvi models? I am looking for the best buy for the money and the nuvi 1250 seems to be well within my budget. Thanks for any help you can give.

The Garmin nuvi 1250 is a good basic GPS that will keep you from getting lost while driving in Thailand. If driving in Bangkok frequently I'd consider the 1460 with larger screen, junction view and lane assist to help you sort out all the multilane highways. They both have the same map so there is no difference in road coverage.

Can anyone give me any information about these two Nuvi models? I am looking for the best buy for the money and the nuvi 1250 seems to be well within my budget. Thanks for any help you can give.

The Garmin nuvi 1250 is a good basic GPS that will keep you from getting lost while driving in Thailand. If driving in Bangkok frequently I'd consider the 1460 with larger screen, junction view and lane assist to help you sort out all the multilane highways. They both have the same map so there is no difference in road coverage.

Once you buy one is it plug in and go,or do you get sneaky extras.Thaksins Mob made you pay for new maps i recall, and blocked internet D/Loads.

Can anyone give me any information about these two Nuvi models? I am looking for the best buy for the money and the nuvi 1250 seems to be well within my budget. Thanks for any help you can give.

The Garmin nuvi 1250 is a good basic GPS that will keep you from getting lost while driving in Thailand. If driving in Bangkok frequently I'd consider the 1460 with larger screen, junction view and lane assist to help you sort out all the multilane highways. They both have the same map so there is no difference in road coverage.

Once you buy one is it plug in and go,or do you get sneaky extras.Thaksins Mob made you pay for new maps i recall, and blocked internet D/Loads.

Ready to go out of the box with pre-loaded Thai road map. No need for internet access, you must be thinking about a smartphone.

Can anyone give me any information about these two Nuvi models? I am looking for the best buy for the money and the nuvi 1250 seems to be well within my budget. Thanks for any help you can give.

The Garmin nuvi 1250 is a good basic GPS that will keep you from getting lost while driving in Thailand. If driving in Bangkok frequently I'd consider the 1460 with larger screen, junction view and lane assist to help you sort out all the multilane highways. They both have the same map so there is no difference in road coverage.

Once you buy one is it plug in and go,or do you get sneaky extras.Thaksins Mob made you pay for new maps i recall, and blocked internet D/Loads.

Ready to go out of the box with pre-loaded Thai road map. No need for internet access, you must be thinking about a smartphone.

IO, I have no clue about these things. Still love paper maps, but they are mostly out of date.. But willing to be tech challenged! The 1250 interests me. Could you explain things a bit more please? e.g what does it look like? Where do you plug it in in the vehicle? How does it work etc? Much appreciated.

Also, looked on the inet. But would like some simple direction from u please.

Edited June 17, 201115 yr by thailoneus

Here is a link with pictures and descriptions. The boss there speaks English and he will be happy to provide you with any additional information you want.

http://eaglegps.org/

Garmin had slashed down their price recently, I wonder the market competing the GPS stuffs are getting more and more...so many brands coming out.

I saw a Garmin GPS sold from out IT show recently but forgetting the model, it's more or less 4000 Bht. IMHO

IO, I have no clue about these things. Still love paper maps, but they are mostly out of date.. But willing to be tech challenged! The 1250 interests me. Could you explain things a bit more please? e.g what does it look like? Where do you plug it in in the vehicle? How does it work etc? Much appreciated.

Also, looked on the inet. But would like some simple direction from u please.

I bought a Garmin 255w in Canada last year before coming to Thailand. They were marked down from close to $300 to $100 (3000 baht), but I had to pay another 2000 baht in Chiang Mai to get a licensed Thai map loaded onto it. It was worth it to me and has been invaluable when riding around Thailand on my motorbike. It is very simple to use but lacks a few features that my Magellan hand held GPS has. The Garmin 255w does NOT leave a "track" when you travel, so you can't go back and see where you've been. Unfortunately, Magellan does not believe that Asia is part of the world and they don't offer maps of Thailand. That was my reason for buying the Garmin. I found the larger screen on the 255w to be very helpful and I would advise anyone thinking of a GPS to get the biggest screen possible. I mounted mine on my motorbike and have it connected to my bike's battery. A bigger screen allows a quick glance to see where you are. Because we don't get much rain in Thailand I wasn't worried about it getting wet. I can easily remove it in a rain storm.

There are two map screens on the unit. One is showing you were you are as you drive. The other is an over view of the whole area and all the roads nearby. You can zoom in and out on the over vew map screen.

If you are going off the main roads then I suggest also bringing along paper maps as well, to have some idea of where you are. Some smaller roads are not shown in rural areas, but the little "vehicle" on the GPS screen will be blinking and show where you are in relationship to everything else. I make my own maps from Google Earth before I take a trip and I mark GPS co-ordinates at all the crossroads on the paper map. Then, at any time I can stop and check to make sure I'm on the right route and how much further it is to my destination. GPS units are not infallible, but they sure take the worry out of a trip. One thing I found very useful was the "Points of Interest" data on unit. It was easy to find accommodation in every town we visited.

This is mine mounted on my motorbike

The Garmin 255w does NOT leave a "track" when you travel, so you can't go back and see where you've been.

Are you certain that your 255W does not have a Trip Log?

Ready to go out of the box with pre-loaded Thai road map. No need for internet access, you must be thinking about a smartphone.

'InterestedObserver' has given me some good guidance in the past.

As he said it is loaded with the Thai Map. You get the English map on the enclosed CD. Ask the shop to change the map if you want English. I bought mine from a "Box Shifter" store, so had to do it myself.

It was good training, as I have just bought and downloaded TSM 11.1 from ESRI and updated it myself.

I am still happy with mt 205, but if I had to make a choice, I would go for the 1460 as that has BLUETOOTH and give me hands free for my mobile phone.

Ready to go out of the box with pre-loaded Thai road map. No need for internet access, you must be thinking about a smartphone.

'InterestedObserver' has given me some good guidance in the past.

As he said it is loaded with the Thai Map. You get the English map on the enclosed CD. Ask the shop to change the map if you want English. I bought mine from a "Box Shifter" store, so had to do it myself.

It was good training, as I have just bought and downloaded TSM 11.1 from ESRI and updated it myself.

I am still happy with mt 205, but if I had to make a choice, I would go for the 1460 as that has BLUETOOTH and give me hands free for my mobile phone.

Yes, I should have added to get the English language map installed by the dealer.

I wish that they would not extort so much for the handheld units.

For example the Oregon 550 is THB 27,950 but only about USD 500 (THB 15,000) full retail price in the States.

Um, we have an old Nuvi 205. It is about 3 years old now. We managed to get maps from the Prantip plaza for under 1500B. The maps are somewhat annoying as the translation from Thai to English often gets me muddled up, and the lane information is often wrong. Despite this, I have learnt that the best way to understand what direction to follow is to look at the purple line and follow that when confused.

Another problem that I have found is that the signal gets horribly confused when under a BTS station for the eternity that it takes the traffic to move, when this happens the GPS often replaces us some 50 to 100 meters from our last position and then tries to guide us back to the main road. We have learnt to deal with this too, when stuck in traffic, remember what the last instruction was and distance to the next recommended turn was and you'll be right.

The Garmin 255w does NOT leave a "track" when you travel, so you can't go back and see where you've been.

Are you certain that your 255W does not have a Trip Log?

My Garmin 255W absolutely has a tracking log. You have to go into the menu and enable it.

just looked on the web site and it is showing the 1360 at 7,900 baht, and the 1460 at 9,900 baht

[Ready to go out of the box with pre-loaded Thai road map. No need for internet access, you must be thinking about a smartphone.

Just wondering if anyone has experience of how easy it is to download maps for other countries on such a Garmin bought in Thailand .

Assuming the aim is to ultimately have coverage in more than one country, basically, how would doing that compare with buying say a Tom Tom in UK for example, and downloading an extra Thai map for that?

[Ready to go out of the box with pre-loaded Thai road map. No need for internet access, you must be thinking about a smartphone.

Just wondering if anyone has experience of how easy it is to download maps for other countries on such a Garmin bought in Thailand .

Assuming the aim is to ultimately have coverage in more than one country, basically, how would doing that compare with buying say a Tom Tom in UK for example, and downloading an extra Thai map for that?

Depending on the Garmin model one or more additional maps can be downloaded and stored on an microSD memory card. It is also possible to download maps to the internal memory but care must be taken with the location and file names used. You should consider that a Garmin GPS bought in Thailand will have the Thai OS and some of the features will not work back in the UK, for example.