Go back just a few years and the sight of someone with a sat-nav in their car was something of a novelty. These days, it's more of a novelty to see a hapless motorist struggling with an old-fashioned paper-based map. And with the market nearing saturation point, manufacturers are being forced to dream up weird and wonderful ways to tempt people to upgrade their current model.

It's therefore something of a surprise that the Nuvi 1340T from Garmin doesn't feature anything particularly whacky in terms of features. At just 15mm thick, though, it is one of the slimmest models currently on the market. Of course, this doesn't make much difference when used in a car, but with an enhanced pedestrian mode, Garmin is expecting you to carry this sat-nav around with you when visiting major European cities.

Before we delve into the various features, we'll take a look at how it copes with basic in-car navigation.

Get the latest Dell Coupons and other computer coupons at CheapStingyBargains.com.

Street-level maps for Western Europe are included, and they're both clear and uncluttered on the 4.3-inch widescreen display. Meanwhile, audio instructions are timely and easy to understand. You can either stick with standard voice commands or have the Nuvi 1340T read out road names using text-to-speech. Opt for the latter and the voice doesn't sound particularly smooth, but it does make it that bit easier to know which road it's sending you down.

No modern sat-nav is complete without a lane assist feature for motorways, and that's exactly what you get on the Nuvi 1340T. It also performs well when you take a wrong turning, only resorting to the dreaded ‘make a U-turn' instruction when absolutely necessary.

Safety camera alerts will attempt to keep points off your licence, while traffic warnings are also included; the latter service is provided by Traffic Master, so you need to attach the FM aerial to the sat-nav. The aerial attaches to the in-car power cable and, thanks to two suction pads, can be stuck to your windscreen for optimum reception.

Sadly, the end result is an unholy tangle of cables. All in all, it doesn't compare too well to TomTom's HD traffic (as seen on the TomTom Go 540 Live), which uses the much neater solution of a built-in GPS receiver to get up-to-date traffic information. That said, Garmin's version is free, while TomTom's requires a monthly subscription.

Thanks to its use of CityExplorer maps, the 1340T is able to not only give you basic pedestrian-based directions, but also tell you what public transport services are available. Our test unit had a CityExplorer map for London loaded and, sure enough, it was able to guide us effortlessly around the underground network.

Obviously, GPS reception isn't so hot when you're on the tube, so you have to step through the instructions manually, but it was able to tell us what lines to take and where interchanges needed to be made.

The only downside to this feature is that you have to pay for each CityExplorer map, but at £7.99 they're not prohibitively expensive.

Garmin has also slipped in a feature called EcoRoute, which allows you to keep tabs on roughly how much you're spending on petrol and even the amount of carbon you're choking the planet with. You can also take Garmin's Driving Challenge. No, this doesn't involve doing time trials around housing estates on a Friday night. Instead, it keeps an eye on your acceleration, braking and overall speed in order to come up with a score out of 100. The higher the score, the more economical Garmin reckons your driving is. It's not hugely scientific, but it does give a rough indication of your driving style.

There's plenty to like about the Garmin Nuvi 1340T. It's compact, guides you from A-to-B with aplomb and is extremely easy to use. The CityExplorer tool is also useful, although it's an extra cost and there aren't a huge number of maps available. On the downside it is a little expensive and some potential buyers will be disappointed by the lack of built-in Bluetooth.