[chuckinca]

Normal in car operation is that it is plugged into the cigarette lighter power outlet or other 12V outlet if you have one.

You can get an adapter to charge it from your in house 120V power (my Garmin required that I also buy a 12V receiver to plug it into.

Maps - updates are handled differently by different models. My Garmin is about 5 years old and I haven't updated the maps (I don't drive around side streets in the newer areas of TV much). If I wanted to update the maps it would cost me $100 or so for a few updates over a few years.

I haven't tried to program alternate routes - I usually check where I am going first on Yahoo Maps and then I know not to follow the Garmin directions if I don't like them. It automatically recalculates when you don't follow it's route. My wife followed its directions from one side of San Francisco to the other and it took her the shortest route - thru the neighborhoods; took her about an hour and thru some pretty seedy areas when she could have taken the freeways around the city and made it in about 30 minutes.

I don't trust it to get me around the block but it is nice to check your speed and have a live picture of when you are.


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