Garmin nuvi 785T Review (GPSmagazine.com)

23. Media Player

Garmin nuvi's Media Player
Figure 147: Media Player

The nüvi 785T's Media Player supports MP3 music files, and M3U playlist files. You can create playlists directly on the nüvi using the Media Player, or copy playlists over from a PC/Mac.

To access the Media Player, tap Tools > 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 nüvi's internal storage and the SD card slot

Figure 148: 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 149: 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 150: Music Playback While Navigating

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

Figure 151: Listening to Audiobooks

When listening to Audible purchased audiobooks, the media player supports bookmarks

24. Pros

Significant set of new features make upgrading from older model worth considering
Easy to use, well designed, user interface
Best looking 3-D lane guidance of any GPS to date
Speed limit information
Improved traffic reporting options now include traffic map, traffic search, and traffic on route)
Ability to customize the data field on the map to show distance, remaining time, direction of travel, elevation, or time of day
Fast frame rate makes for an ultra smooth scrolling map when navigating
Automatic map zooming adjusts the map zoom level based on your speed and the current maneuver
New upcoming turn indicator displays direction of next turn, and/or lane guidance
Best designed map screen of any GPS to date
Transparent 3-D buildings and landmarks on map makes navigating cities easier
Large POI database of 6 million entries
MSN Direct provides traffic, weather, gas prices, movie times, local events, news, and web favorites
Rubber-like protective coating around the plastic case offers some protection, and reduces fingerprints and scratches
Excellent windshield mount
Stores the last 50 recently found places in the Recently Found menu
Ability to connect a phone and a headset at the same time via Bluetooth
"Where Am I" feature provides one-touch access to your current location, as well as nearby hospitals, police, and gas stations
Easy Bluetooth pairing process
MP3 playlist support
Ability to listen to MP3s or Audio Books while navigating
When listening to a song while navigating to a destination, nüvi pauses the song playback to announce navigation prompts, then resumes playback
When using hands-free calling while navigating to a destination, nüvi suppresses all audio navigation prompts
Track log recording
Supports multi-destination routing with route optimization (ability to sort the locations by distance)
Automatically stores the position where the nüvi was last undocked from the mount, creating a "where did I park the car?" waypoint you can use to walk back to your car
Menu items only appear when needed. For example, the telephone button only appears on the Main Menu if the nüvi is paired with a cell phone
High sensitivity GPS receiver even stronger than the reference (SiRF StarIII equipped) nüvi 660
Good text-to-speech quality
Good routing engine
Good customer support

25. Cons

New screen transition animations add delays when navigating menus
MSN Direct traffic not as strong as TMC
$50/year MSN Direct subscription cost plus additional cost of the receiver makes the value of MSN Direct questionable
Manually panning around the map tediously slow
Searching POI database by spelling a business name is slow
Cannot sort Favorites alphabetically; saved addresses always listed in order of closeness to your current location
Can't customize the colors or layout of the map
Hopelessly underpowered FM transmitter makes an otherwise fantastic feature almost useless
Touchreen not as sensitive as it should be
Touchscreen is a fingerprint magnet
MSN Direct takes 20-30 minutes to download data
3-D Lane Assist not yet available for most highway intersections
No way to exclude a specific road or highway from the planned route
Can't customize the information displayed the left bubble on the information bar (it always displays the current speed. You CAN customize the right bubble, however)
Can't sort gas stations by fuel price
Internal speaker isn't loud enough
Limited Detour function

26. Conclusion

Garmin's nüvi 785T delivers some significant improvements over earlier nüvi models. The first thing you notice when driving around with the 785T is the incredibly fast frame rate on the map screen. Map scrolling is many times smoother than earlier models. That smoothness does suffer when driving in densely populated areas where the map is more complex to draw, but even under those conditions, the 785T was much smoother than any earlier model.

The 785T introduces several map enhancements that make it easier to navigate. An upcoming turn indicator has been added to the map page that shows the direction of the next turn, as has the ability to customize the information displayed in the information bar. Arrival time, remaining drive time, remaining distance, direction of travel, or the current time can now be displayed.

Also new are lane guidance and 3-D Lane Assist. Lane Guidance tells you which highway lane you'll need to be driving in at the next maneuver, and Garmin's 3-D Lane Assist feature is the best looking 3-D lane guidance implementation I've seen to date.

Transparent 3-D buildings and photorealistic landmarks bring a new level of realism to the map screen, and speed limit information is a nice addition to an already strong interface.

Traffic alerts are displayed in a more intuitive way, and it's now possible to view traffic along the planned route, as well as in surrounding areas.

Like its predecessors, the nüvi 785T benefits from Garmin's high quality windshield mount, large POI database, and overall ease of use. Thankfully, the new features haven't detracted from the nüvi's intuitive and straight forward user interface.

Anticipation is always high when Garmin releases a new GPS unit, and the company's baseline of excellence has resulted in higher-than-average consumer expectations. Make no mistake about it, this is an outstanding GPS and I highly recommend it, but I did find myself mentally noting a short list of grievances the more I used the 785T.

The new map screen is ultra-smooth and refreshes at a much higher rate than earlier nüvis, yet the rest of the interface feels slightly slower. New menu transition animations add to the sensation that things are taking longer than they used to, and manually panning around on the map is tediously slow. Searching the POI database for a specific business name is also slow.

The new 3-D Lane Assist looks gorgeous, and it does make complex highway intersections much easier to negotiate, but it isn't yet available for most highway intersections.

Compared to other GPS device on the market, Garmin allows relatively little customization. For example, you can't change the map colors (other than the default Daytime and Nighttime modes), turn off speed limit information, or automatic map zooming, nor can you exclude specific roads from the planned route.

I also found the nüvi 785T's touchscreen less sensitive than earlier models, requiring a firmer touch to register my commands. The internal speaker isn't loud enough, and the FM transmitter is hopelessly underpowered.

The nüvi 785T leverages MSN Direct for real-time traffic alerts. In my testing, I found the TMC traffic service, included for free on other "T" series nüvis, more accurate than MSN's traffic service. MSN Direct data also took a considerable amount of time to download.

All in all, the nüvi 785T brings a host of important new features that do actually improve the overall navigation experience, and warrant upgrading from earlier models. Garmin's new 7x5T series is peerless in terms of ease of use, feature set, reliability, and hardware quality. If you're not planning to take advantage of all MSN Direct has to offer, and are mostly interested in traffic, Garmin's nüvi 765T, which includes lifetime TMC traffic for free, and is otherwise identical to the 785T, is likely a smarter purchase.