23. Playing Audio Through the Vehicle's Speakers (FM Transmitter)

If the nuvi 780 has an achilles heel it's almost certainly the underpowered FM transmitter.

The nuvi 780 has an internal FM transmitter that lets you use your vehicle stereo system by broadcasting the nuvi's audio to an unused FM radio station. Set the nuvi and your car's stereo to the same FM frequency, and the nuvi's audio is heard through your car's much better, louder speaker system rather than the single internal speaker on the nuvi 780.

The nuvi can use frequencies from 88.1 to 107.9, and steps in 0.2 increments (e.g. 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, and so on).

Note: You cannot listen to the radio, or your car's CD player while using the FM Transmitter feature on the nuvi. Your car's stereo must be set to the radio and tuned to the same FM frequency as the nuvi. If you want to listen to music as you drive, you'll need to load music onto the nuvi and use the GPS to play the music.

Figure 116: Activating the FM Transmitter

To enable the nuvi 780's FM transmitter, tap Volume > FM Trans

Figure 117: Adjusting the FM Frequency

Tap Enable FM Transmitter to activate nuvi's internal FM transmitter.

The FM frequency can then be manually set using the plus and minus buttons, or the nuvi can scan the FM dial and automatically pick the best available frequency by tapping Auto Tune.

Having an FM transmitter built-in to the nuvi is a more powerful feature than one might at first assume. Leveraging your vehicle built-in stereo, the nuvi 780 can act as a media hub, linking cell phone, navigation, and music player into a seamless combined system, controlled via the nuvi. Unfortunately, the nuvi 780's grossly underpowered FM transmitter is inadequate. Even the slightest interference causes static, and the nuvi isn't powerful enough to broadcast over other FM frequencies. The result is an endless hunt for unused FM frequencies that must be re-adjusted every 10 miles or so. Making matters more difficult is that the nuvi 780 can't broadcast below 88.1, and can only move in .2 increments.

I became so fond of using the vehicle's built-in stereo for hands-free calling, mp3 playback, and navigation prompts, that I ended up working around the poor FM transmitter and using a cassette adapter (one that's designed for use with mp3 players/iPods) instead. Plugging this cassette adapter into the input jack on the 780's docking cradle produced excellent results.

Garmin needs to boost the power on the FM transmitter and allow finer frequency tuning to make the nuvi's internal FM transmitter feature usable; the current iteration is just plain frustrating. Garmin claims the FM Transmitter power is limited due to FCC regulations. However, I've tested GPS units from Alpine and TomTom where the FM Transmitter works very well, so I feel this is an area Garmin could improve.

24. Media Player

Figure 118: Accessing the Media Player

The nuvi 780's Media Player supports MP3 music files, and M3U and M3U playlist files. You can also create playlists directly on the nuvi using the Media Player.

To access the Media Player, tap Tools > Media Player.

Figure 119: Garmin nuvi's Media Player

The Media Player itself is relatively straight forward:

• Browse - browse the available MP3s by artist, genre, song title, etc.
• Tapping forward or rewind skips to the next/previous song. Holding either of these buttons down fast forwards or rewinds.
• Pause - pauses the current song
• The repeat and shuffle icons are located above the Source button
• Source - switches between the nuvi's internal storage and the SD card slot

Figure 120: Browsing the Media Files

MP3 files can be browsed by title (All), Album, Artist, or Genre.

You can also create a new playlist by tapping Playlist > Create New Playlist, and selecting the songs you want added to the new playlist.

Figure 121: Choosing a Song or Songs for Playback

Within the browse view, you can tap on a song to select just that song, or tap Play All to play all songs.

Figure 122: Volume Adjustment Within Media Player

Garmin provides several handy options for volume control within the Media Player. For example, you can independently adjust the navigation prompts and music playback volume levels, as well as mute navigation prompts during music playback.

Figure 123: Music Playback While Navigating

When listening to music or an audio book while navigating, a shortcut to the Media Player is placed in the corner of the map screen, as shown above in figure 123.

Garmin does a good job not cluttering the map screen, but I would have liked to see basic music controls on the map view, such as pause, fast-forward, and rewind; it would be nice to jump around from song to song without having to exit the map view.

25. Garmin's New "Where Did I Park the Car?" Feature

Figure 124: Last Position

Another feature new to the 700-series nuvis is the "Last Position" feature.

Whenever the nuvi 780 is removed from the windshield mount, the nuvi automatically creates an entry in Favorites called "Last Position", and remembers the position of the GPS when it was separated from the mount. The "Last Position" entry can then be used to navigate back to the last location where the nuvi was removed from the mount.

For example, if you drive to a crowded parking lot, or park at the base of a trail and take the nuvi with you, you can use the "Last Position" entry in the Recently Found destinations to get back to your car. Depending where you parked, you could also put the nuvi into pedestrian or off-road mode.

To view the "Last Position", tap Where to? >Recently Found >Last Position

Note that the "Last Position" will only appear if the nuvi has been removed from the mount.

26. Where Am I?

Figure 125: Where Am I?

Garmin's "Where Am I?" feature is a helpful feature that can be used to tell emergency personnel your location, as well as locate nearby services. To view your current location information, tap Settings >Where Am I?, as shown above in figure 125.

Tip: A handy shortcut to view the "Where Am I?" page is to tap the vehicle icon on the map screen.

Figure 126: Where Am I / Save Current Location Screen

This is a fantastic feature that provides one-touch access to your current street address (or closest street address), nearest intersection, and exact coordinates.

Garmin's well designed location screen also provides one-touch access to nearby hospitals, police stations, and gas stations.

Saving your current location adds the current position to the nuvi's Address Book, and allows you to name the location.