Generally Excellent

USA and Europe Coverage
I bought the Nuvi 370 because of the pre-loaded European and USA maps. I travel 12-15 times per year to Europe on business, and I've found that it's often difficult to get a rental car with navigation built-in (despite having a reservation for a car with nav!). I've wanted one of these types of nav systems for several years, but couldn't stomach the $600 price. When I saw this unit on sale from buy.com at $370 before Christmas 2007, I jumped on it!

Size, Shape and Accessories
The Nuvi 370 size is just right for frequent travelers like me. It's about the size of a deck of cards; just a little thicker and wider. It fits easily in my laptop bag along with its charger, etc. It comes with a windshield mount suction cup, am alternative dash mount plate, a 12V car charger, a USB cable to interface with a computer, an FM traffic receiver antenna, and a charger that accepts the included USA, Europe and UK/Ireland plug adapters.

Controls
As the other reviewer has noted, it's a little slow to boot up; taking around 1 minute from power on until you can do anything useful. Once it's up and running, it responds quickly to inputs with only a little lag. Occasionally it beeps as it always does to confirm you've pressed a key, yet no character is displayed on the screen. This issue usually happens immediately after you've entered a new menu area and are quickly entering information. If you wait a half second or so, it doesn't seem to be an issue. The menus are well designed and intuitive; I only had to look up one item in the manual regarding a GPS performance acronym.

Display
The display is clear and just bright enough to be read in sunlight. Wearing polarizing sunglasses dims things down to the point where it's nearly illegible however. Many people blame the design of the electronic components for this visibility issue with polarized sunglasses, but it happens so often to me with gas pumps, cell phone displays, etc., I've decided my next sunglasses won't be polarized.

GPS Performance
The GPS antenna was able to get a reasonably good signal inside my house if I was standing near a large window. In my vehicle, it had absolutely no problem picking up a full-strength signal. The test will be how well it does in a city landscape with tall buildings all around. I used a Tom Tom once in a rental car in Florence, Italy and it was absolutely useless as soon as I got near the buildings in the city.

Local information, voice prompts, etc., appear to be very accurate. Nearly all of the local restaurants in my area popped up when I made a query. Indeed, even in Europe I had no problem finding hotels, etc. in the directory.

Audio
The audio is OK, but not stellar. To hear it above highway roar, I found I needed the volume at the maximum level. At that level, it is indeed loud enough, but it is unfortunately at the limit of the internal audio amplifier and clipping is audible. The clipping distorts the sound somewhat, but it's still clear enough to be understood. I really wish this unit had the built-in FM transmitter so you could use the car's audio system. I plugged in a Monster Cable FM transmitter into the headphone jack, tuned my car's audio system to the right frequency, and the sound improved considerably; both in quality and volume. Using an external FM transmitter is awkward however, as you need another 12V power jack within your vehicle, and you have that many more cords dangling from the unit and interfering with the various other controls on your instrument panel.

The various English-speaking voice prompts have generally clear pronunciations, although you can tell it's a synthesized voice. All but a few odd-ball street names in my local Michigan area were correctly pronounced. Listening to the English pronunciations of various streets while driving around in France is kind of humorous however; the pronunciations are what most English-only speaking people would say. Translation: the Nuvi pronunciation isn't even close to what the locals would say, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I can't understand the French when they say the names of streets, cities, etc., anyway! Having the Nuvi pronounce it more or less like I would is helpful.

FM Traffic Receiver
Speaking of FM, as mentioned above, the unit comes with an FM traffic receiver antenna. It plugs in to the side of the Nuvi 370 (yet another dangling cord!), and it readily picked up several traffic accidents and construction areas within my vicinity. I'm not sure how well this works in Europe. The documentation included with the unit mentions it comes with a lifetime subscription for the UK, 3 months for the USA, and apparently you have to buy a subscription to get it to work on the European continent. I plugged it in while driving in France recently and it didn't seem to have any updates based on traffic. This could simply be that there weren't any FM updates available in France, or I couldn't receive them.

Bluetooth Phone Interface
Making and receiving calls via Bluetooth is simple. I called my voice mail from my car using the Nuvi 370 so I could hear the sound for myself when I returned home. I switched back and forth between the Nuvi 370 and my mobile phone to hear the difference. I also switched back and forth between the built-in Bluetooth system in my BMW 5-series to hear the difference. While the volume level using the The Nuvi 370 made my voice a little distant, it was more natural sounding than my car's built-in system. That's not saying much as many people tell me my BMW system is pretty bad. While the Nuvi 370 audio made my voice louder and more natural than the BMW system, it was no comparison to the phone's handset itself. When I switched to the handset, my voice was at normal levels and was much clearer than either Bluetooth system.

I tested the Nuvi Bluetooth at various road speeds and in different windshield mount positions. When mounted near the rear view mirror, my voice sounded a little louder than when mounted down near the base of the windshield. The rear view mirror position also makes it much easier to access the unit without having to lean forward. Interference with a deployed sun visor can be an issue in this location however; and you have to deal with all those wires potentially obscuring your view of the road. Still, I liked this position better than low on the windshield.

One strange thing I noticed with the Bluetooth was that my phones (a BlackBerry 7130c and a Nokia 6126) kept connecting and disconnecting every few seconds when the Nuvi was operating on internal battery power. This did not seem to happen when the unit was installed in my car and running off the vehicle battery power, so I don't think it's a big deal since I don't plan to use the Bluetooth feature except when I'm driving.

Small Issues
Setting time zones and transitioning to new ones is a little awkward. When setting the time zone, you pick from various large cities on the list that are in the same time zone as your current location. To choose the right time zone, you need to know which big city is in the same time zone. For example, if you're in Detroit, you need to know it's the same time zone as New York City ... not obvious to people unfamiliar with the area. When you power up the unit, it certainly knows where you are. Why doesn't it simply ask if you'd like to change the clock to the time zone of your current location? Time zone information could easily be stored in the database along with all the other information. When in Canada or Europe, why doesn't it ask if you'd rather switch to km instead of miles? I mention these items because it's easy to forget to do this when you first arrive in a foreign location (can you say "jet lag"?) and accessing the clock and the distance settings is cumbersome (too deep in the menus), especially while driving around in a foreign area!

Summary and Conclusion
I'm impressed with this little unit so far. My main purpose for buying it is for navigation, and the nice size, display, intuitive menus, etc., make it a pleasure to use. If it had the FM transmitter included, I wouldn't hesitate to give it the highest ranking. But since it doesn't, and the internal audio amplifier is a little underpowered, I have to take it down a notch.