Garmin 010-00577-23 Reviews, Best Prices, Compare
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Garmin 010-00577-23 Reviews, Best Prices, Compare.
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I recently bought a Nuvi 850. Here's my advice for what it's worth.
The precise value of a Nav system comes from the fundamentals.
* Receiver
* Maps
* Routing Engine
* Display
* User Interface
Garmin does a solid job in all these areas. But that's not why you're paying a premium for an 800 series Nuvi.
This model has a couple of "nice to have" features that were introduced on the 700 series of Nuvi's.
* Where Am I
* Where's My Car
Both are very well implemented and can be very handy. But again, all of the stuff I mentioned so far can be found in a Nuvi costing $300 less.
So what are you paying a premium for?
* Command Recognition
* User Replaceable Battery
* Front Mounted Speakers
Well, the front mounted speakers are unruffled drowned out by moderate road noise. So, I wouldn't pay a nickel for that. The only proper sound solution remains the FM transmitter that everyone complains about. It works OK for me, in my car, in my station. Your mileage may vary.
The user replaceable battery is suitable. For $30 you can carry a spare battery and go totally wireless in the car or consume the Nuvi for 8 hours of walking around a city. I'd pay for that. In fact, every portable procedure should have user replaceable batteries.
OK, that leaves the "Gargantuan Kahuna" feature, deny recognition. Don't occupy the hype from the professional reviews or some of the hosanna's being thrown around in Amazon reviews.
Does it work? Yes, it works amazingly well. In a dull restful environment.
With moderate road noise or even indoors with a TV at gross volume 15 feet away the thing to gets confused about what it's "hearing". It should have a microphone with outrageous sensitivity and high directionality to shroud out fake noise. A shrimp DSP noise filtering wouldn't injure either. Unfortunately, the standard piezo mic that Garmin also uses for bluetooth phone calls will select up any sound coming from any direction. The result is that sing recognition becomes an excercise in frustration.
Still, I'm gonna hold the darned thing. I'll simply enter destinations in the mild of my home, office, hotel room, or a restaurant before heading out on the road. The remote will live in my briefcase. It does put you from a lot of boring keyboard entry. But, it is not the mobile safety feature that reviews would have you absorb since whine commands are all but useless in a car. You can derive essentially the same features in a Nuvi 760 and build yourself $300.
Your decision.
EDIT: Update.....OK maybe I was a bit harsh first time round. I have found that the unit will reply with moderate background noise.....some of the time.....if you sob at it. It appears to have the ability to lock in on the loudest sound it "hears". So, if you are relatively finish to the microphone and inform really loud (wail), it does reply some of the time.
On the upside, connecting to the Garmin website was very easy. I registered the 850, downloaded the newest firmware, and downloaded/installed the latest maps (2009), all in about ten mintues without a glitch.
I am a Realtor and have been using my Garmin GPS for almost four years. (It was the 2720 and had cost $999 when I bought it.) It's invaluable to me in my business. Today it died as I was previewing a dozen homes and I went relieve to where I bought it originally and picked up an 850. Boy, am I disappointed!
The unusual graphics will remove some getting conventional to, but that's not the pickle. With the newer technology and all the bells and whistles, I had expected this unit to be MORE intuitive than my former one. Turns out it's not. Twice it told me it could not come by addresses in older neighborhoods where my venerable Garmin never had a jam. I had to guess my method across unusual areas to procure them and, clear enough, once I got there, the street names registered on my mask. I immediately saw what happened but was shy that Garmin hadn't picked up the small differences.
One street is named McLain Road. I typed in Mclain (runt "l") and it couldn't earn it. The worn Garmin extinct all upper-case letters, so it found every address regardless of upper or lower case. This one obviously needs you to know which to spend -- very frustrating. The second one is spelled Hollowbrooke Lane. I typed in in every which intention I could consider of -- Hollow Brooke Lane, Hollow Brook Lane, Hollowbrook Lane, etc. Now that I'm home and could play with it a minute, positive enough, it found it. I should have typed in "Ln" instead of Lane and it had Hollowbrooke without the "e." When I had typed in Hollowbrook Lane, it couldn't catch it because I spelled out the word Lane. Again, the dilapidated Garmin knew that Lane and Ln were the same thing.
Another very annoying thing I found missing on this fresh one which was on my frail Garmin was the exhibit of streets. Typically, each street will present up as I catch reach it, whether I'm turning onto it or not. With the 850 it doesn't exhibit streets unless they are major thoroughfares. I finally clicked on the "plus" button twice in succession and it started to give me lines (which represented streets), but it rarely showed the name of the street. Again, the worn Garmin showed every street you came up to.
The yelp prompts are also unreliable. Several times the yell prompt did not match up with the conceal and if I tried to reply based on what I saw on the hide (for example, a city was on the shroud and the order was asking for a street address), I could not accumulate it to sync and had to originate all over or (more often than not) honest gave up and tapped the information into the GPS. Again, a nice notion but frustrating if it's not working properly!
I can't figure out why this newer model would be LESS intuitive than the used system. I'll play with it for a few days, but at the impress I paid, I won't be keeping it very long if I can't figure out how to design this work better.
And, not to beat a dumb horse here, but I'm shrinking that the unit doesn't advance with a carrying case. I fair bought my daughter a nuvi 350 last week for her birthday and it cost a share of what the 850 cost -- and it had a carrying case! SHAME on you, Garmin!
This unit functions perfectly as it is described. The voice-activation is nearly perfect. Probably one of the best implementations to date that I can remember. The plot is a bit under-detailed for the note but it gets you where you need to go. Lisp commands from the unit are very easy to understand. Controls are easy to navigate as are the menu options. One thing that I believe is a bit ridiculous is the absence of Bluetooth Hands-Free calling. For $800 they could have included that and it is the reason that I gave it four stars instead of 5. Many of the options included with the contrivance are useless to me to be just. Games? Report viewer? MP3 player? I don't need any of these but the voice-commands for unit control are awesome.
If you have the money to consume this unit, come by it... if not spy at some of the lower-priced 700-series Nuvi's
