i bought a garmin drive 53

The Drive 53 is the entry level car navigator from Garmin. Even though I already own the 6" DriveSmart 66 and the 7" DriveSmart 76, I wanted the 5" Drive 53 anyway just to see if there are any real disadvantages using a smaller display.

I think a Drive 53 is worth owning, but not for the typical reasons others mention.

One typical reason might be "works where a phone doesn't". A particularly nasty gotcha is having phone app navigation suddenly stop working when crossing a country border, depending on phone plan. For example, you're happily driving in the northern United States on your way to Canada. Phone navigation is working just fine. You reach the Canadian border, cross, and uh-oh, now the phone doesn't work. Service off, data off, and that nav app that requires data to work? Yep, that's now nonfunctional too. You just learned the hard way that your phone won't work in Canada. There's your gotcha.

The Drive 53 has no gotchas like that and just keeps working, but again, I think it's worth owning for other reasons most don't think about.

There were two main reasons I wanted a 53.

First, I like that it uses the older style micro USB connector, because aside from the DS66 and DS76, all of my other Garmins use that style port.

Second, the 53 is a featherweight, weighing in less than any Seiko dive watch with metal bracelet. In fact, the 53 is more close in weight to that of an Apple Watch Ultra 3. And yet, the 53 doesn't feel cheap nor flimsy in the hand. That's pretty impressive.

The 53 is basic. It doesn't have Wi-Fi nor Bluetooth and no voice control, which is fine. I have a bunch of Garmins, and over the years it has been the advanced models that seem to start failing earlier compared to the basic ones.

What's already interesting about it is that the legibility is almost equal that of the DriveSmart 66. Some things on the 53 are smaller compared to the 66, but not significantly smaller.

Fortunately, the Drive 53 has on-map turns like the DS66 and DS76. Once a route is set, tap the bottom right, tap Turns, turns list is shown on the right, map on the left. It's a beautiful thing. You couldn't do that on the older Garmin nuvi models but can with the modern Drive/DriveSmart.

Drive 53 reminds me of what truly matters with GPS navigation

Because I don't do smartphone navigation since that's total trash, I am all-in with Garmin navigators. Even so, what I've learned over the years is that as long as the navigation is working and I can read the screen, nothing else matters.

On the first real drive I had with the 53, something that stuck out was how easy it is getting along with a basic no-traffic navigator. I just punched in a destination and started driving. No need to talk to it since it has no voice control. Nothing on screen for traffic reports happened either since it wasn't receiving any. It actually felt better not talking to the screen and not seeing any traffic stuff.

I don't know if I'll stick with the 53 for the long haul as it's too soon to tell. If I do go back to the 76, I may go ahead and turn off the voice control and traffic reporting just because that legitimately made for a better navigation experience. For me, anyway.

Published 2025 Oct 24