Aravindh Baskaran joins Tim Keirnan for a critique of the Garmin Nuvi 2598LMTHD.
We follow our usual critique structure that includes the following:
Encounter
Decision
Purchase
Out of the Box
Initial Use
Longitudinal Use

The Garmin 2598 is an interesting mixture of excellence and frustration. On the positive side, we found that
* The map screens, both day and night versions, are very well designed.
* The voice sounds terrific because it is both pleasant stylistically and cuts through the noise of the car sonically.
* The device is fairly quick in its operation, including finding satellites (unless you are indoors, but why are you driving indoors?)

On the negative side, we found that
* The vaunted voice interface doesn’t work well at all. Very frustrating.
* The un-changeable and incessant alarm for school zones within a half mile of the car is extremely frustrating and can make us ignore alarms in general.
* The unit occasionally freezes and no amount of pressing or tapping the screen will bring it back, forcing the user to unplug power from the unit and restart it.
* Inexplicable routing can ignore oft-traveled commutes and actually send us the long way around. And sometimes Tim got a different route home if his address was in the Home saved location rather than his address being in the Recent list.
* The settings don’t encourage quickly finding what you want to adjust.

Finally, email from listener Katie was a wonderful compliment to starting a new year of episodes. Thank you for listening, Katie.

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