I had recently purchased a Garmin Nuvi 205W mainly for my business trips to KL. I’m not too familiar with the roads in KL and this GPS unit comes in mighty handy. I have also used it in Putrajaya and Cyberjaya and it worked pretty well in getting me to the destination safe and sound. Even though I have an iPhone 3G I wanted to get a dedicated GPS unit because of the screen size and also for the turn by turn navigation. My choice was a Garmin Nuvi 205W for 2 reasons – screen size and price. The unit sports a decent screen size for an affordable price of RM 899 in Malaysia.

What impressed me is the accuracy of Malaysian roads in the unit. I have used Google Maps on my iPhone 3G before and I must say that more often than not, I was pretty disappointed. But thanks to Malsingmaps, this unit has a pretty updated road map of Malaysia. The TTFF (Time To First Fix) is also pretty decent and typically takes under a minute from a cold start to lock into the satellites. Of course that also depends on the weather conditions and proximity to tall buildings as well.

Here are some of the specifications of the Garmin 205W GPS unit:

The unit is easy to mount on the windscreen of your car. But being in Malaysia I don’t leave the GPS unit on the windscreen while my car is parked. So I just clip it out of the holder and put it away in my glove compartment. Its easy to snap it in and out of the mount.

I took this trusty GPS device with me for a holiday in Taiping. I had booked a room at the Taiping Resort and had no idea where it was. But this GPS unit made sure that I found the place without any hassle at all. In fact I didn’t even make a single wrong turning. That’s really an achievement considering that this is the first time I’m going to Taiping Resort. Here are the places I visited using my trust GPS:

- Taiping Resort (Where I stayed)
- Taiping Lake Gardens
- Taiping Zoo
- Kuay Teoh Soup Shop (Yes its true!)
- Foodcourt (I’m not kidding you)
- Dim Sum Place (Again…)
- Tesco
- Taiping Sentral

It was pretty amazing for me to be able to choose my favorite restaurant from the device’s menu. Only thing to note that its easier to search for a place using the “Points of Interest” option rather than keying in the address. I couldn’t find a lot of places when I used the latter option. You could choose different options when you get to the “Points of Interest” and I usually use the “Spell” option. Just play around with the menu and you will get familiarized with it in no time.

My verdict is that the Garmin Nuvi 205W is a pretty decent GPS unit to own in Malaysia. You could always upgrade your GPS unit with the latest maps for a small nominal fee in Malsingmaps as well. So go ahead and get one for yourself, you wouldn’t be disappointed.