Hello, and welcome to In My Bag! My name is Jenn, and this is my product review blog. 
For Christmas my husband gave me a Garmin nuvi 200W. I had been wanting a portable GPS system for quite some time, as printing out Google Maps and Mapquest directions got rather old, and somewhat inconvenient when I found out that I ran out of paper, or just downright impossible if my printer decided that it didn’t feel like printing.
So, the Garmin. I love it. It’s incredibly easy to use. The touchscreen is quite nice, and is very responsive! Setting it up was as quick as confirming my current location as the default one, and my current state as the default one. Accessing the settings to customize the look of the maps (by default, the maps change from a white background to a navy one upon dusk), addresses and voices was also simple.
I should also mention that the kit included the Garmin itself, a dashboard/windshield mount, a car charger and a USB cable.
Using the Garmin to look up directions or even confirm current locations is also easy. One feature I love is being able to see where I’m at using the “Where am I?” feature. From there I can see current altitude and exact latitude and longitude position, and I can even save the location in my address book. This works out especially well for those places that aren’t quite on a map (such as the school my brother goes to, and the hospice center that my grandfather is at).
My only complaint about the Garmin is signal strength. At home I can get 1-3 bars on my cell phone (my provider is T-Mobile), yet I get nothing on the Garmin. Ditto for the hospice center I am in right now. I have a full set of bars on my cell phone, yet only 1 on the Garmin.
Another “quirk” is if you boot up the Garmin and attempt to look up an address too quickly: it just hangs. I have to shut off the Garmin, turn it back on, give it a few moments to do its thing, and then search.
Finally, I’d love to see an option to search by zip code, rather than or in addition to searching by city. An example that I’m going to use for the third time is the hospice center that I am at right now. The city its located in would not pull up on the Garmin (for some reason it was listed as Mt [city name], rather than Mount [city name], but I knew the zip code. It would have been great to plug that it instead, and narrow my search from there!
Overall, I would recommend the Garmin nuvi 200W to anyone looking for a nice little GPS system. 
Rating: 
The reason you have problems with the signal is because a gps needs a direct line of sight to the satellites which broadcast the signal as opposed to the cell phones which are broadcasted from towers. The satellite signal doesn’t have enough power to punch through many obstacles.
Thanks for the explanation. That does make a lot of sense!