Garmin nuvi 650 Car GPS Receiver

Let me start by saying that GPS (any GPS) is amazing and I will always have one. I bought the Nuvi 650 about six months ago because it was supposed to be state of the art and had a lot of extra features that seemed useful. At first glance out of the box I was excited, but after using it for awhile I can say that the "old" unit I had in a 2001 Lexus worked much better as a GPS and most of the Nuvi features don't live up to expectations.

As a navigator: you can't move around on the screen while it's navigating to see what's coming up or look for alternatives and as small as the screen is you either have to be zoomed into the street level or no names appear, making it a meaningless bunch of lines in a strange town, it insists on sending you by the highway even when that is clearly not the best route and if you divert it constantly announces "recalculating" and then tries to send you back to the highway no matter how far off you have gone (Lexus' system simply took me on a new route with no fuss). The announcement of "recalculating" takes so long that it then frequently announces the turn it wanted you to make AFTER you have passed it. It gets lost when on confusing secondary roads (like in the Hollywood Hills). Entering addresses is much less intuitive than on the Lexus.

Features: I thought I could use it as an MP3 player in my car through the built in FM transmitter, but the transmitter is too weak to reach my rear mounted antenna (Audi Allroad)so music is staticky and breaks up making it pointless for playing music. Also thought it could be a handsfree phone for me through the stereo, but that won't work and when I try using it through the GPS direct no one can hear me, again making it useless...it might be okay for checking voicemail, but it's too clumsy to shift back to my phone if I get a call. Picture player is a joke. Traffic warning has yet to show me anything (I followed all instructions to set it up)and I'm driving a lot on the major freeways of LA...if it doesn't work there, where will it work? Switching volume, mute and audio output is also awkward.

All in all I think it's a nice idea but not quite there. I know I'm comparing it to a high end installed GPS (my only real point of reference) but that is a six year old unit that got things right that Garmin doesn't seem to have managed yet (it costs no more to write good software).