Garmin NUVI 760 Best Prices!
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Garmin NUVI 760 Best Prices!.
Product: Garmin NUVI 760 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
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I hold both the Nuvi 660 and the 760, I'm writing this review for people having distress deciding between the two as the designate inequity between the two products at the time of this review is about 100 dollars. I'm not going to focus on the feature differences, as that information can be easily obtained from specifications and online reviews. The 660 was a magnificent product benefit in 2005-2006, but the recent 760 outdoes the 660 in practically everything, but there are some key usability fixes that create the 760 a better hold for the frequent user.
1. 760 has mighty better fonts for street names than the 660. This may seem like a trivial update to some, but the 760's fonts greatly improve visibility. The 660 uses all capitalized text for street names on the way, and the font is incredibly cartoonish and unaligned, something like the scribbling Amusing Sans font on the PC. The 760 uses your standard Verdana-like font with street names in capitalized and lowercase letters. The fonts on the 760 are smaller, cleaner and surprisingly powerful easier to read while driving. The maps extinguish up looking professional, and not some cartoony children's video game.
2. 760 has better rendering in 3D design mode than the 660. In the 660 when you are zoomed in under 3D procedure mode, the roads conclude to your car are displayed incredibly astronomical, so sizable that they race into other roads, making the zoom function essentially kind of useless for dense roads. The 760 does not oversize your roads objective because you zoomed in to opinion smaller roads in detail. This fix is very nice for those who drive in places with dense roadways, like Current York City.
3. No antenna on the 760 makes hooking up your Nuvi to the cradle one step easier. On the 660 you need to flip up the antenna before attaching the cradle. For people who park their cars on the street overnight, removing the GPS from the cradle for storage in the console or glove compartment is a must, and it's a lot easier hooking up the 760 to the cradle than the 660. It's hard to aim the 660 to its cradle in the sunless as you have to align both the bottom edge and the charge port under the antenna. In the 760, the charge port is directly on the bottom of the unit; you can build it to the cradle with one hand in the unlit easily on the 760.
4. It takes the 660 a respectable 45 seconds on average (sometimes longer than 2 minutes) after boot up to locate the satellite on a chilly initiate. If you have firmware 2.6 installed on the 760, the satellite acquisition time after boot up is between 10-20 seconds. After the firmware update, my 760 also holds a stronger lock to the satellites than my 660, I can bag satellite lock inside my house with the 760, whereas I can't find a lock with my 660 (adjusting the antenna does very diminutive) .
5. The ability to place multiple ad hoc viapoints on the 760 means it's a lot easier creating alternate routes (very handy to avoid a specific interstate or a high traffic road) . Whereas the 660 gives you fair one viapoint.
I feel a enormous amount of sympathy for consumers shopping for a portable GPS systems or any sophisticated electronic product for that matter. There is such a dizzying array of models/brands/functions that it is both a blessing and a curse. I am very tech oriented and delight in researching and evaluating unique electronic gadgets. After a few days of reviewing GPS brands and models, I narrowed my selections down to the Garmin 760, Garmin 680, TomTom 920T and the Magellan Maestro 4250.
I am not going to dive deeply into the features and benefits of each model because many of the reviews on Amazon and other websites do a broad job of that. However, I will summarize my idea process for finally choosing the 760 as the best GPS for me. Let me originate by stating that there is no perfect GPS system and therein lies the challenge. Every model that I looked at had strengths and weaknesses and there wasn't a product that made it a definite lop decision. What I did (and recommend) is to develop a priority list of the features and functions that are most essential to you and to retract the model that best fits your requirements. This sounds like an positive come but it was a lot harder than it sounds.
The single most distinguished aspect for me was the accuracy and capability of the routing engine. That seems simple enough but when you throw in the all the other features offered in today's GPS models the decision making process becomes remarkable muddier. In staying with my unusual strategy, I positive that the Garmin 7xx series had the best routing engine for North America. My conclusion is based on consumer and professional reviews, discussion boards, and my beget testing. With that being said, the 760 is not perfect and I have experienced a few quirky directions but nothing that was of big difficulty.
How do I like the 760? For the most share, I am extremely contented with the performance and functionality of the 760. Like most people I do have a list of my personal improvement and enhancements for the system but they are not deal breakers. When I first received the unit, I tested it on a mosey to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park. The directions to and from the Park and Palm Springs were flawless and the GPS recognized all the main roads within the park. We actually encountered some road construction on one of the main highways and the traffic receiver recognized the spot but gave us a irregular recommendation. It directed us to go down the off-ramp and immediately accept on the next on-ramp. We did this twice and it actually moved us ahead in traffic. I'm not determined how effective that strategy would be in other similar situations. The speaker volume could be louder but I could easily understand the commands traveling at 80 mph. I have also tested the system on several routes throughout Southern California and the system performed very well. All of the main features worked as published with a few exceptions distinguished below. The user interface is very well designed and I was able to operate 80% of the functions without reading the manual. In addition to the 760, I also purchased the Garmin Friction Dashboard Mount which I possess is ample to the glass suction mount provided.
So why did I only give it 4 stars? The one astronomical annoyance for me was that if you directly input the POI name, the search can select a long amount of time (greater than 5 minutes) if it goes outside of your vicinity. This is extremely uninteresting compared to our in-dash GPS system. The touch hide could be more responsive and is not that sensitive especially with the browse arrangement option. The 760 bluetooth pairs consistently and mercurial with my Motorola KRZR phone but the receiving and transmitting sound quality is very awful. The FM transmitter is unusable.
I really wanted to like the TomTom 920T especially with the yelp recognition, user updates for maps and a long list of customizations. However, the routing engine seems to beget more inconsistent performance than the Garmin and I could not win enough information on their mapping data to understand how honest it is today. The two main providers of plot data are Navteq and Tele Atlas. Garmin and Magellan spend Navteq and TomTom uses Tele Atlas. In the past, Navteq has been considered more right and complete for North America but Tele Atlas has made principal updates in unusual times. Interestingly the 760 uses Garmin's 2008 North American maps but the source data is 18 to 24 months primitive which shows there is always a enormous stagger in device information. Garmin has been very first-rate at providing updates more frequently than the other manufacturers. My impression is that TomTom is considerable stronger with the European maps than the NA maps.
Here is a fleet rundown of how I thought the models:
Magellan Maestro 4250:
Pros: multi point destination routing with optimization, grand address and text input system
Cons: questionable routing engine, outdated plot data, inconsistent articulate recognition, cumbersome POI interface, awful text to speech quality, awful customer aid in US
TomTom 920T
Pros: issue recognition, enhanced positioning technology, procedure fraction, apt customization options, multi-destination routing
Cons: questionable routing engine, outdated diagram data (although this is somewhat offset by plot part), no routing optimization, cumbersome user interface
Garmin 760
Pros: routing engine seems very respectable, multi-destination routing optimization, righteous POI database, more device updates compared to competition, large user interface
Cons: touch cloak is not very sensitive, outdated intention data, FM transmitter is useless, expensive
Garmin 680
Pros: most of the same features and functionality as the 760 but with MSN Mumble, louder speaker volume than 760, worthy better value than the 760
Cons: no multipoint destination, older peep and feel than the 760
I have only listed a dinky position of the pros and cons for each of the different models but these were the areas that stood out the most to me. When it's all said and done, I probably would have been blissful with any of these models but if you can afford the 760 and routing directions in North America is your most distinguished requirement then I would highly recommend the 760.
I have seen questions about whether the 760 comes with the SiRF Star III chip and the unit that I fair purchased from Amazon did near with that chip. The SiRF is a high performance GPS chipset that can fleet derive and bear a lock onto satellite signals for site information. It is considered the chipset of choice for the higher waste mobile GPS devices. All of the models I have described above have the SiRF chipset. I also have seen questions about how hastily the 760 can lock onto satellites. I updated my system firmware to version 2.6 and the satellite acquisition time is lightning speedy. I have found in outside environments, my 760 can consistently bag a signal in under 10 seconds even first thing in the morning.
There are a couple of other useful features that are not described in the instruction manual. If you possess down on the signal strength bar in the top left corner, you will rep the satellite acquisition hide which shows the space accuracy. If you acquire down on the battery indicator for a few seconds, this will allow access to the diagnostic veil which is where you can identify the GPS chipset among other information.
Lots of reviews here that cloak the bases. So I'll limit this to a bullet list of some items I found annoying:
1. Hands free calling is not as suited as my BlueAnt gizmo. Callers on other destroy said my sigh sounded muddy and uneven. When I tried the Garmin 670, callers on the other waste preferred it. But overall the Blue Ant was best.
2. The speaker on the 760 is tinnier than on the Garmin 670 and annoying. The 670 is a thicker model, and I exclaim they were able to fit a better speaker. If you're objective using maps and guidance this is not a spacious deal. But if you expend hands free dialing, it is dreadful.
3. I disagree with another post about the font. I assume the font on the 670 is sharper and easier to read than on the 760 model. Mighty of the time (not always) the font is larger on the 670 model.
4. The MP3 on both models is rudimentary at best. The playlist function does not work very well.
5. The supposed ability to play sound through the FM is a joke. Neither unit works well enough to employ...ever. Sometimes nothing comes through. When sound does exhibit up, it is scratchy and irritating beyond plan. If Garmin is going to list this as a feature, they need to go abet to the drawing table. As of now, the implementation of this feature is pathetic.
6. Both the 760 and the 670 lock GPS about the same run...perhaps the 760 is a touch faster...but not to the extent anyone would really examine.
7. 760 is thinner and doesn't need to begin the antenna. So it is grand easier to consume in pedestrian mode. On the 670 with the GPS antenna up, it's tough to fit the unit in your pocket. So pedestrian mode isn't realistic on the 670.
8. Garmin got ridiculously cheap on the 760 with respect to accessories. NO AC Adapter; no disk for PDF Back file; no case. All three are standard on the 670 model.
Garmin's Maps and POI are both astronomical. The guidance works very well. So bottom line, is that it is the hands free phone utilize, playing sound through FM and MP3 that I'm significant of.
