Garmin Drive 52, GPS Navigator with 5” Display, Simple On-Screen Menus and Easy-to-See Maps

The Garmin DriveSmart 65 has been an excellent GPS. The large 6.95" screen is clear and easy to read, and the directions are accurate and reliable. I really like the voice-control feature, which makes it convenient to use while driving. It updates quickly, finds routes fast, and overall works smoothly every time. A great GPS that does exactly what it should.

Really excellent piece of kit that proved totally invaluable for our trip from the UK to Canada. After years of working from paper maps and internet screen shots - we rented a vehicle in Florida (back in 2019) that came with a dash mounted Garmin as a free upgrade and immediately realised it was taking a huge amount of stress and pre-planning away from us. Post pandemic and travelling again I decided to buy this unit to make life much easier. Living in the UK - I was able to order this GPS (SatNav) on Amazon.com (rather than Amazon.co.uk) and have it delivered to me in the UK direct from the USA. It is a great sized unit that is very very easy and intuitive to use and for the driver to see and read as you are driving. Like all GPS (SatNav) units it can very occasionally get small things wrong - but 99.999% it was very accurate. Anyone travelling to Canada - be warned that mobile/cell phone costs in Canada are unbelievably high - therefore EVEN with a USA/Canadian sim card in our phone - it would have cost a fortune to buy enough data in Canada (not necessarily the same in the USA which had much cheaper mobile/cell phone charges) to use a smart phone as a GPS/SatNav. Therefore we found it much more cost effective to buy the GPS/SatNav outright and it will work for years for future visits. One last thing about this model - after doing loads of research online - it tells you that this model is designed to work in tandem with a connected mobile/cell phone in order to receive traffic updates. It tells you this model works perfectly well as a GPS/SatNav on its own - but will not give live traffic updates without a connected mobile/cell phone - I considered this before buying - but decided that route guidance was enough and more important to me that anything else. HOWEVERE - after arriving in Canada - this device WAS giving us live traffic reports and rerouting to take the least congested routes - and we did NOT pair it with a mobile/cell phone - but still received live traffic reports. Great unit - Highly Recommended

This improved GARMIN GPS is awesome! the screen is nice and large with great features. I love that it will synch and save our favorite places too. What I didn’t like but we finally found how to turn it off, it will communicate with your cell phone in blue tooth and tell you if you have someone at the door or a phone call coming in to your phone. I think that’s not a good for a GPS and I think it’d be distracting for driver. It kept popping up and we finally solved how to stop that. I also thought it’s not good for privacy if someone is riding with us. It’s different from our previous GARMIN —clearer, larger screen with more features. It communicates well with the backup camera on license tag (sold separately) but the backup camera doesn’t come on when backing up, have to touch something on screen. I liked it better to automatically come on when backing up, for safety purposes. It does come on for a few moments when first turning on the GPS though. Now the voice recognition, it depends on where you are from and if you have an accent. If you are from the Northern or Midwestern states it recognizes your voice better. If you have an accent from the South, it’ll make you want to take your hammer to it. You may as well be speaking Cajun or French or Greek, it’ll scramble your intentions greatly! So it understands one of us but not the other one. It has great options for saving places and labeling them, assigning the icons, etc. I don’t think it helps avoid construction or if it’s supposed to. Same for toll roads on that. Best of all, you can save your favorite locations and back them up, can sync them with other devices if you so wish. So go ahead grab one and enjoy driving more, it’ll tell you when to turn and map out your route, no more printing maps and missing your turn and squinting at signs while estimating how much longer before turning off! It’s a GARMIN, yes, I recommend it! Oh while you are at it, grab a “garmin gps” dashboard mount. It took us some time to realize they are on Amazon; we didn’t like the ones the local store sold and the options are better on Amazon for those. which one works for you is according to the shape of your dashboard or if you plan to mount it on a window. You can even purchase a wire for hardwiring it in your vehicle. Then save the wire which came with for when you are traveling/flying and using a car at your destination, etc. In the past we had a camera which was hardwired by the bumper. The new ones go over the license tag and so much easier, they communicate wirelessly. I was concerned about it getting stolen but it is screwed on good and so far no issues. Husband was hauling something on his truck and couldn’t see to back up but that backup camera, you can now push to see what is behind you, even when driving! Pretty neat technology and great pairing between the two.

This is my 6th dash top Garmin gps. I have used Garmin Nuvi's for a long time. I like this one better than all the past ones. It is very easy to use and I really like the large size. It is easy to see even in bright sunlight, way better than any of my past models. I do not use the bluetooth function for the phone or the voice command so I cannot comment on them. It has built in wifi so once you connect it to your home network, it will automatically download upgrades without connecting to your computer. If you have purchased custom "voice" files, like Dr. Nightmare, they provide no way to install them...at least it is not documented. You can download them to your computer and then copy them manually to the proper folder in the GPS and they will work fine. I would recommend this GPS for anyone who wants to get from here to there with ease. It works great!! Dislikes! I do have a few.... 1. I do not like the way this model attaches to the ball mount. It take two hands to release it whereas all of my other models could be easily released with one hand and they were still very secure in their attachment. 2. I am an avid geocacher, since 2003. ALL of my past models could easily display geocaches on the screen. All you had to do was put them in a .gpx file and copy them to the proper folder in the GPS. THIS model does not do that very well. You can follow the same procedure but instead of getting the neat little geocaching icons on the screen you get these big ugly icons that look like tabs or signs. I do not like this at all...big downer. But the overall good outweighs this downer. There is a "workaround". You can export your caches to a POI file and copy it to the POI folder in the GPS. All of the caches will then display on the screen using a much smaller, and less ugly icon. You can then select one and navigate to it. The upside to using POI is that you can have more of them. I easily put in over 3000. The name of each one will NOT display on the screen, but at least you can see them. If you touch one, you can navigate to it, or you can quickly find them in the menu. So.... it works well for geocaching but not quite as well as any of my older, smaller models. 3. I use LINUX on my computer, not Windows. I also have a MacBook laptop. ALL of my older model Gamins would plug into Linux or Mac and display on the screen like a disk drive. You could then drag and drop your .gpx or .poi files over to the proper folder. THIS model GPS will NOT do that.... not on a Mac and not using Linux. You MUST have WINDOWS to transfer your files. This really sucks... I had to install Windows on my desktop using dual boot just to retain my sanity. I admit I am a Windows hater. I could give you reasons but I'll spare you. So if you are a Windows hater like me, plan on being disappointed. Again, the good of this GPS outweighs ever this. It is a keeper. 4. Although this GPS is very very easy to use and easy to figure out, the documentation is poor. You might even say it sucks but not quite that bad. If you are a basic user, new to GPS, then the documentation is OK but if you want to do more complicated stuff, you just have to figure it out for yourself.

Great GPS for your automobile! Beats anything the automobile manufacturers put in their cars. Really beats using your cell phone as a GPS! Excellent detail with turn by turn verbal instrations. Plug in and go. Plus it has lifetime updates with the absolute most accurate information.

I bought this Garmin 010-02038-02 DriveSmart 65, Built-In Voice-Controlled GPS Navigator with 6.95” screen to replace a smaller Garmin DriveSmart that was about 6 years old. All the features look and work similar to the old one so there wasn't much of a learning curve for me. The bigger screen makes this unit much more pleasant and easy to use. It is faster than the older one. It's also more intuitive and narrows down the possible choices and presents more options for the address or places as you are entering the information. It has a lot of choices for map layout so you can customize to your preference. Voice command is also better than the older unit, but not perfect. With the old one the more I used the voice feature the better it got, to a point. This one is better out of the box and it may get even better with use. It is easy to update the maps and firmware through wifi sitting in the driveway, and quicker at it than the older unit. I have found these dedicated GPS units to be much better than the factory entertainment/GPS systems when it comes to directing you, and giving you options for routes. You can also link it with the cell phone app and have instant traffic updates and options for avoiding congested areas. The price seems more than fair for a GPS with so many features. I like the Garmin interface better than others I have used so it was a no brainer for me to buy it.

I knew nothing about Garmin till I used this Garmin Drive 52 for the past two weeks. To be clear, I suspect they offer more advanced features on the upgraded devices. I still need to explore the settings where I can tweak the routes results, I suspect. In regard only to my experience so far with this entry level Drive 52, I find it kind of like running an old Atari video game. I'd almost consider this a good toy for a preschooler these days. I guess that means it's easy to use. Having said that, this Garmin Drive 52 has gotten me out of a couple of jams, and for that it deserves 5 stars. There are too many new roads, highways and addresses being built in Florida for the Garmin updates to keep up. With completely updated maps, this device does not know where to go, a lot. It will take you to construction zones and closed roads where the Google option is smarter. But, again due to the growth, there are certain areas I just can't get connected to a cell tower to start the GPS signal on my smartphone. So, moral of the story, no brainer to carry this inexpensive navigation device as it will help you out of a jam once in a while. Overall, I like it a lot. It compliments and provides certain helpful tidbits and features. But the voice instruction is sometimes slow to evolve and adapt and does not give enough heads up to make a turn on occasion. Bottom line is, if driving professionally, you need multiple options on board because when you don't know where you are and the navigation shuts down, better have a map downloaded to your device and a compass. When the data runs out on this Garmin it's like the whole world melts away, like when I drove to the northern newest ends of one of our ever-expanding highways down here. Updating the maps with the most current data is easy enough through an app on your computer with the provided cable for the purpose. I have more peace of mind, hundreds of miles away from home, with this Garmin Drive 52 onboard than without, so I definitely recommend.

Update: I used my phone and the Garmin at the same time on my trip to SC and for the first three hours, both gave the exact same directions, but as expected, once I got to the part of I40 that was closed, my phone knew to go around the closure and the Garmin tried to send me directly through it. I had the map up on my phone and the Garmin and I could see the Garmin wasn't routing me around the section of I40 that my phone showed was closed. Before I pulled up the maps, the Garmin was showing a shorter drive than my phone and I was hoping maybe it knew something my phone didn't (sometimes Google Maps doesn't always send you the quickest way), so I skipped the exit my phone was telling me to take, but after that exit, it was just me and one other truck on the highway - everyone else had already gotten off the highway and I started to get nervous so I looked at the maps and took the next exit my phone told me to take, even though the Garmin was still telling me to stay on the highway. Even after I exited the highway, the Garmin was telling me to turn around and get back on the highway and it kept telling me to turn around for a while. By skipping the first exit, it ended up adding time onto my drive b/c I had to get back to the detour route. If I only had the Garmin, I'm curious where it would have taken me and what the route would have looked like. I turned the Garmin off once I realized it kept wanting me to turn around and get back on the highway and I only used my phone on the way back from SC and my phone worked perfectly. I'm confident the detour my phone sent me on was the correct way to go because it was a lot of one lane (each way) back roads and there was lots of traffic on those roads. Original review: I'm enraged right now. I have a last-minute unexpected trip coming up and my phone was spotty the last two times I needed to use it for GPS so I thought I would be better off buying an actual GPS unit. I'll be driving by myself this time and can't depend on someone else's cell phone like I did the last two times. Of course, I looked at a ton of GPS units and decided on this one partially because of the brand name, partially because of the reviews (on multiple sites, not just on Amazon) and in big part, because they make a big deal of saying it's ready right out of the box. That was important to me because a lot of the other/cheaper units I looked at needed a separate SD card and needed updates right out of the box, etc. This was an unexpected expense, and I'll hardly ever use it, so I really didn't want to spend a bunch of money, but in the end, I decided it would be worth it to spend more and go for a name brand unit. I thought it would be better quality and more reliable. So anyway, the GPS arrived yesterday, and I was excited to look at it and get it setup and make sure I was good to go for my trip. Imagine my frustration and honestly, panic, when I put my sister's address into the GPS, and it couldn't find it. What the heck. The sticker on the GSP says there may be updates available online, so I hook it up to my computer and look for updates and sure enough there is an update available. Great, I start the update. OH WAIT. NOPE. You need a micro-SD card bigger than 4 GB but no bigger than 32GB in order to do the update. WTF. I specifically looked all over the listing to see if I needed an SD card b/c so many of the listings for other units needed one. I didn't see anything that said I would need an SD card. So, I had to go to Walmart the Thursday before Christmas (might as well be in actual hell) to get this stupid SD card. Got the card, did the update, which thankfully was very fast. The update says it can take a few hours, but it only took a few minutes. I have no idea what the update did. It STILL can't find my sister's address. I used my hotel address instead and it found that, but I have to drive through TN to get to SC and the GPS is trying to send me through the section of I-40 that's closed because of damage caused by Hurricane Helene in September. Google Maps says that section of I-40 is closed until 2028. It's been closed for a while now, so how is that not updated on Garmin's maps. Thankfully I've made this drive a few times before, so I know the drive is usually around 5.5 hours and when Garmin showed me a route that was 5.5 hours, I knew that was the original route, not the route detouring around the closed section of I-40. Google Maps and MapQuest show 6.5 hours, so they're both accounting for a detour. So anyway, I absolutely hate this GPS and I'm panicking about having to rely on this for my trip, but I don't have time to buy something else. Maybe my expectations are too high since I'm so used to using Google Maps and haven't had an actual GPS in a very long time. On Google Maps, I love that I can switch between the map and reading the directions so I can get an idea of what roads to be looking for, etc. Obviously, I don't do that while I'm driving, but I don't see an option to do that on this GPS so that's frustrating. Maybe you can, I need to keep digging around. Also, the other person who wrote about the cord being extremely short is absolutely correct. The cord for the car is fine, but the one you need in order to plug into the computer or into the wall is extremely short and you can't use this GPS unless it's plugged in, so I had to mess around with it and look for different addresses and try to change my route, etc., while hunched over 3 inches away from the plug in my surge protector that sits on the floor. Very frustrating. I don't even know if I'm going to take this with me on my trip. I might be better off using my phone since I'm not confident in this GPS at all. At this rate, I don't see how this GPS is better than the $60 random brands.