The last of the old school Garmins
I'm writing this on the last day of 2021, Dec 31, New Year's Eve. I had some ups and downs with Garmin GPSes this year.
Yes, I bought a Drive 52. This is the very last of the old school Garmin GPSes for cars. It has a matte screen (and is in fact the very last matte screen model), still uses the mini USB plug and not the USB-C, and also uses the 17mm ball mount. What this means is that my existing mounts and charge cords will work with it, whereas with the newer DriveSmart 66 will not.
Is the 52 good? Yes. It works with the GTM36 or GTM60 to get traffic data with no phone required. Everything is legible and all the annoying alerts can be thankfully turned off. The only one remaining annoyance is that any location marked as a favorite always appears on the map whenever driving by it with no way to turn it off. The workaround is to use a POI list with a 100% transparent icon.
