The first thing I noticed about the Nüvi 1240 was how light it was in my hand, just 4oz (113g). And at only 15mm thick and with a 3.5” display, it’s beautifully compact and very smart. The next thing i noticed was that there is no USB cable in the box... Taking a look around my desk, I realised this was no bad thing for me, I have an excess of them hanging out of my hub, but for someone like my Mother, this could cause a small problem, spare cables isn’t the sort of thing she’d keep hanging around. Still, checking through the small manual supplied, it seems connecting to a computer is a purely optional exercise with this device, and all its standard functions can be achieved standalone.

So, what does the Garmin offer to make it stand out from the competition?
Well, along with the usual car mode, the Nüvi 1240 offers both bicycle and pedestrian modes, and even boasts a public transport mode that will help you, amongst other things, with getting about on the tubes in London. Given the small size of the unit, using it for walking routes is certainly feasible, and when tested in London it gave very good descriptions, street by street of where to go and which tubes to catch. Out in the sticks (I tested it in several smaller towns) it gave reasonable descriptions for both walking and cycling, but occasionally didn’t seem to give the most sensible routes. I presume this is due to a lack of detail around foot & cycle paths, in the smaller towns, however this certainly wouldn’t stop it being very useful if you were trying to get around in a new place.

In all modes they have added the use of street names on turns so “in 200 yards turn right”, becomes “in 200yards turn right into Smith Street” which is so simple and yet so useful when you’re lost!

It also has what it calls ecoRoute, which allows you to put in some details of the mileage capabilities of your car, along with cost of fuel and calculates routes taking fuel usage into account. It will also monitor how economical you are being, by means of ‘at pump’ checks, and challenges you to improve your driving, leading to a reduction in your CO2 emissions and hopefully also saving you some money.

The usual ‘places of interest’ idea is here too, backed up by AA travel guides that can be downloaded & installed, along with (amongst others) the good pub guide. Transport, hospitals, petrol stations, places to eat, parks & attractions, they’re all listed, and there’s a ‘Point of Interest Feedback’ tool built in, which allows you to rate the place, or report errors on its listing, definitely a nice little addition.

The ‘Where am I’ option is also very handy, giving a one click link to co-ordinates of your current position plus nearby hospitals, police & petrol stations, along with breakdown assistance telephone numbers, and details of the nearest major road junction in case you need to pass details on to a 3rd party.

Overall this is a nice little unit, offering all the normal features (including customisable voices available to download) along with some good extras. Its windscreen mount is fairly discreet and very effective, and a dashboard mount is also available if that’s more your preference. It can be upgraded to include traffic alerts, and has daily updates of traffic camera locations available to download. There’s also an SD card slot, and a picture viewer, although I’m still to be convinced of the use of these in a sat-nav device!

I’m going to give this a full 10/10, because the added features are all so well thought out, and, for now at least, it replaces the TomTom Go as my favourite Sat Nav so far.

RRP: £159.99. Available at Amazon, and at the usual online and high street retailers.

More details can be found at www.garmin.com.uk