Portable GPS Ratings

Garmin nüvi 775T 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

The nuvi 755T offers full coverage mapping for the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. It also comes preloaded with highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps for North America and Europe. The preloaded map data features nearly six million points of interest, including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs and attractions. The map data is provided by NAVTEQ, a world leader in premium-quality mapping. It features 3D buildings, lane assist and lifetime traffic alerts from NAVTEQ. Take advantage of Garmin’s first premium traffic service without subscription fees. 3D navigation with lane assist provides drivers a clear picture of what lies ahead on their route, including road sign detail and arrows indicating the proper lane for navigation. Some areas even offer a 3D view of buildings. Steer clear of traffic with nuvi’s integrated FM traffic receiver. Receive alerts about traffic delays and road construction that lie ahead on your route. Auto time zone will automatically adjust your time zone while navigating Garmin Connect Photos - associate your favorite images with saved locations DEM maps show you shaded terrain contours at various zoom levels High-sensitivity GPS receiver for improved performance and reception Turn-by-turn directions with voice guidance Easy-to-use, Touchscreen interface Trip computer records mileage, max speed, total time and more Simplified PC connectivity, using USB mass storage Configurable vehicle icons allows users to select a fun, and customized icons Dimensions - Width 4.8 x Height 3.0 x Depth 0.08 (12.2×7.6×2.0cm) Weight - 6.48 ounces (183.8 grams)

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Garmin nuvi 775T Review
We bought the Garmin in preparation for a trip to Portugal. The Garmin 775T comes preloaded with maps for Europe and had most of the features we were looking for in a GPS. The Garmin did not disappoint. We were able to successfully navigate the streets of Lisbon and also took some excursions outside of the city. We definitely would have had a hard time getting around in Lisbon without the GPS. The street signs in Lisbon are very hard to find or read. I will note that the Garmin pronounced the street names sometimes differently than what I expected. I like that the Garmin will let you change the voice and vehicle icon. The voice downloads off the internet are pretty fun. I have not played with the traffic news feature. The only features missing are the inability to download games like some other models and I wish it had a pedistrian mode. It would also be nice if it came with an international power adapter.

3 Stars Don’t buy features you won’t use
I decided to get a 775T when I really needed was a 265WT.

Price difference was $220 (prices on Amazon change nearly everyday as you probably know). A separate European map on SD card is approx $150. So you pay $70 for other features that you may not use. However, SD European map on memory card may not have the same features as the built-in map *shrug* I just don’t know.

The FM transmitter is useless. You must tune to an unused frequency. What’s the idea here? Do they expect you to hear static noise all the time while waiting for the GPS to give you direction? OTOH, they can’t overcome a strong FM transmission, so you may as well not have this feature.

The Bluetooth feature is a hit-and-miss. Some people get to use it, others don’t.

Multi-routing feature does not seem too useful. I will update this section when I get to play with multi-routing.

MP3 and picture storage are probably ok but there are better devices for those purposes.

The built-in dictionary is probably the only useful extra when travelling.

Traffic info requires automobile power cord plugged in. You don’t get traffic when walking or on bicycle.

I found battery life (after having fully drained and fully charged) is closer to what Garmin estimated: approximately 3 hours. While battery on the 265WT is supposed to last 4 hours. Remember to turn off Bluetooth and turn contrast down to 10% to achieve that. The feature chart on Amazon says battery for the 775T lasts “up to 5 hours”. Sure, Amazon is technically correct. Is 3 hours long enough for a walk in an European metropolitan city?

Is that all worth an extra $70 (30% of the price of a 265WT)?

Don’t buy a wall charger. I use my Blackberry USB charger. As with all electronic device chargers (laptop/digital camera/cell phone/etc), the Blackberry charger works at 110V/220V.

Do get a 010-10987-00 case.

4 Stars 775T Works Pretty Well
This is my first GPS and I am impressed with its capabilities. I just hope it lasts given that there are so many refurbished GPS units on the market. Flooding the market with refurbished units doesn’t exactly enforce good confidence in GPS units because it means that they have a high failure rate and need to be Factory reconditioned. The 775T has its moments when it is can not recognize where it is and sometimes it locates itself at a different position from where you and and gives directions from that point without correcting itself, to correct it the unit has to be turned off then turned on. Overall this is an impressive unit because of the Lane Assist, the massive POI list, the address dictionary and encyclopedia but the minor drawbacks are the time it takes to recognize where it is, the automatic zoom level while driving should be improved, the accuracy is not what I expected since it did not describe many of the off ramps properly also, the highlighted route covers over adjacent roads and ramps that make it difficult to choose the proper ramp because these roads are combined into one while on the screen.

These are the pros and cons, I think there aren’t software updates to correct these glitches which is very disappointing. I am surprised and saddened because Garmin installs software and doesn’t maintain it update it to clear out the bugs.

3 Stars Good features but fundamentals need serious work
Well, this unit is loaded with features, most of which are useful. But the fundamentals are lacking:

1. Turn-on time is 45 seconds+. This is an eternity when u are trying to get quick directions and get out of a traffic snarl. And there is no standby mode, so you will wait for turn-on again, and again, and again.

2. Search is SLOW. So after you wait for turn-on, you then wait for search. By name searches can take MINUTES while you watch the hour glass. Allowing for getting one or two searches wrong (the categories arent exactly intuitive) , we’re talking 15+ minutes to get started on the way to a POI.

3. Entering a route is ok, but needs work. It doesnt even remember the last city entered, so you will be typing in the city name again and again and again. Why isnt there a “current city” button???

4. The unit forgets everything after power off. So if you pull over for a break for 15 minutes and turn it off .. its re-enter the destination again (it has a list of recent destination to make this easier, but if it can remember that, why cant it remember that it was mid journey when switched off?).

5. About 50% of the time it “forgets” that you have set a destination. So you set a destination, click GO and the unit shows a map and then sits and doesnt plan the route. So you yet again have to re-enter the route.

6. It’s routing is dubious. The unit tends to pick what it sees as the shortest route even if it involves making many many unneeded turns. So if you are going diagonally across city blocks be prepared to make lots of alternate left/right turns, instead of just one or two (as my TomTom does quite happily) on main streets.

7. It takes FOREVER for it to notice you are off-route, particularly at the start of a trip (where sometimes it just says “drive to XYZ” and then forgets its mind forever). You have to drive MANY blocks before it notices you are off route and recomputes.

This is a premium unit, with a premium price, and I would expect premium performance. Frankly, it doesnt deliver. The unit works (if you are prepared to wait) most of the time, and it WILL get you where you are going. But it needs a lot more work to justify the asking price.

5 Stars Impressive and great price
Garmin has a somewhat confusing product line, which is somewhat alleviated by a reasonably good online guide on the manufacturer’s web site (you select the features you are looking for, and it narrows down the choices to fewer and fewer models until you find what you are looking for);

I was specifically looking for a model with both North America and Europe maps, capable of supporting multiple languages for speech synthesis (so that my non-English speaking parents could use it as well), traffic information, lane assist, and pretty good UI.

I had narrowed my choices down to the Garmin nüvi 775T and the Tomtom 930T, but eventually went for the Garmin for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I am a little biased, having used their aviation panel mounted models for a few years and I knew that Garmin makes excellent units. I was also impressed by their customer support: they replied to a couple of questions I had about their products pretty quickly, even though I hadn’t bought the 775T yet.

This is a feature rich device; I haven’t had time to play with all its functions yet; it is able to get a satellite fix even in non optimal situations (such as tree coverage, tall building, even indoors if a window is nearby); the routes it picks look quite reasonable (by the way: do not try to make it compute ’silly’ routes, such as asking it to compute a driving route from some place in California to some place in Europe… the unit will get stuck and might require a hard reset). The user interface is very intuitive IMHO and presents the information in a very concise and effective manner (important while driving!)

So overall, I am very satisfied with this purchase, especially at the price that was offered on Amazon (significantly cheaper than what I had found elsewhere).

A couple of things in no particular order:

The safety lock feature is neat (you can protect the unit with a PIN, and if you dial the PIN wrong too many times, the unit can only be unlocked by returning to a ’safe location.’ Sounds neat, until you realize that it is easy to misdial the PIN (until you get used to the touch screen I suppose), which might be a snag if you do that many miles away from said ’safe location’, for instance, when on vacation. I disabled that feature as a result.

The manufacturer’s web site was not specific enough IMHO about which voices were provided ‘out of the box’ for the speech synthesis function (where it speaks the instructions and street names); it turns out that the nice customer service representative answered that question promptly. Note that not all the voices / languages provided can speak the street names (e.g., the various English, French, Spanish, etc. voices can, but the one Arabic voice cannot)

If you choose a voice of a different language than the locale, its pronunciation of the street names can be a bit puzzling at times it does however a remarkably good job most of the times (I went out of my way to try to confuse it ).

Finally, don’t forget to download your one free map update (you’ll have to choose between either the North America or European map for this free update), and the free firmware updates. There are also pretty neat applications available (which combined with some Google Maps features, e.g., possibility to overlay the contents of GPX files that the unit can export onto Google Maps, increase the possibilities.)

Buy/More Info

Filed under: Garmin GPS Systems