5. Navigating With The nüvi 785T

Figure 31: nüvi's Main Menu

Power on the nüvi 785T, and within a few seconds the Main Menu appears:

1. GPS satellite strength (Tip: touching and holding this icon brings up a more detailed satellite page)
2. Bluetooth status
3. Battery status
4. Current time (Tap to change time settings)
5. Where to? - Tap to begin entering a destination
6. View Map
7. Volume
8. Tools menu

Garmin's menu is clean, uncluttered, and easy to understand. The text is large enough to be easily read from the drivers seat.

Figure 32: Map Screen

Whether navigating to a destination, or simply driving around, you'll spend most of your time with the nüvi 785T looking at the Map Screen, shown above.

The nüvi 785T benefits from an updated map screen design that improves on Garmin's already excellent layout. An upcoming turn indicator has been added - a most welcome addition that now displays the direction of an upcoming turn, or lane guidance information when appropriate. Also updated are the information bar, zoom icons, traffic icon, and the ability to customize the data field in the lower right corner of the map.

Let's take a closer look at the information displayed on the map:

1. Upcoming Turn Indicator - Displays the direction of the next turn, or lane guidance information when appropriate. Touch this icon to view the Next Turn page, or the Lane Assist page (if available).
2. Text Bar - This text bar displays the current navigation instruction. Tapping on this bar opens the turn list (a list of all up-coming turns)
3. Zoom - Touch the plus or minus icon to zoom in and out on the map
4. Vehicle icon - This customizable icon represents your vehicle on the map. Tapping on the vehicle icons allows you to save your current location (even if there's not a valid street address at your location)
5. Highlighted Route - The highlighted route is "painted", or marked, in magenta color
6. Traffic - Displays traffic alerts that will impact your planned route. Touching this icon brings up the Traffic menu.
7. Speed Limit - When available, the nüvi 785T displays the speed limit for the current road you are driving on
8. Speed - Displays your current speed. Touch this icon to view the Trip Computer
9. Menu - Tap the Menu icon to return to the Menu page
10. Data Field - This customizable data field can be set to display Arrival Time, Distance to Destination, Remaining Drive Time, Direction of Travel, Elevation, or Time of Day

Figure 33: Customizing the Data Field

One of the best new additions to the nüvi 785T's Map Screen is the ability to customize what information is displayed in the information bar. Tap the right data field to choose from a list of available information.

Figure 34: Select Routing Data Display

The data field can be set to display:

• Estimated Time of Arrival
• Distance to Destination
• Estimated Time to Destination
• Direction of Travel
• Elevation
• Time of Day

I would have liked the ability to customize both the left and right data fields (the left data field can only display your current speed), but this is still a great addition to the Map screen and a level of customization that was previously not available.

Figure 35: Lane Guidance

The upcoming turn indicator (top left on the map screen) now displays lane guidance information, when available. Tapping this icon displays the Next Turn page, or Lane Assist page, shown below.

Figure 36: Lane Assist Page

New to the nüvi 7x5 models, Garmin's new Lane Assist Page automatically appears (where available) when approaching highway intersections. This view realistically displays road signs and junctions on the route, along with a large arrow that indicates the proper lane for navigation.

TomTom, Magellan, and Navigon have all released GPS units with variations of 3D Lane Guidance features, but Garmin's version is the best implementation I've seen yet. The 3-D rendering is visually appealing, and the map angle does a very good job conveying where you'll need to drive. Highway signs depicted in the Lane Assist view mirror the actual signage on the road, further enhancing the usefulness of this feature.

Garmin's Lane Assist page also knows your current lane of travel, and adjusts the 3-D rendering accordingly. So, if you're driving in the right lane, for example, the Lane Assist page might display an arrow saying to merge left and continue on the highway. But if you're already driving in the left lane, Lane Assist would instead display arrows pointing straight ahead.

Figure 37: 3-D Building View

Also unique to the new nüvi 7x5 models is Garmin's new 3D Building view, shown above.

Leveraging the preloaded digital elevation maps, the nüvi 785T displays the 3-D building view when navigating in some areas. For the most part, 3-D building view is only available in larger urban areas.

Figure 38: 3-D Building View

The nüvi 785T seems to automatically know when to display solid 3-D building structures, and when it makes more sense to use a transparent 3-D view. I noticed when driving in dense urban environments, like New York City, the nüvi automatically switched to a transparent 3-D view. But when fewer structures were present, or when the map angle permitted, the nüvi displayed solid 3-D buildings instead.

Figure 39: 3-D Building View

Figure 40: 3-D Landmarks

Some structures, such as major museums, buildings, and other landmarks, are more accurately rendered in 3-D building view, and have photo-realistic skins mapped to the 3-D building structure.

Figure 41: 2-D Map View

The 2-D map view, shown above, lets you scroll around the map using your finger to re-center the map. POIs are displayed on the map, and can be navigated to by touching the icon. 3-D landmarks also appear on the 2-D map.

Touching the arrow icon in the upper-left area on the map screen switches between 3-D and 2-D maps. Touching the circular arrow rotates the viewing angle in 3-D view.

Figure 42: Manually Scrolling Around on the Map Screen

Where available, 3-D building information is displayed on the map, both in navigation mode as well as manual panning/zooming.

Figure 43: Turn List

The Turn List is a list of all upcoming turns. The turn list can be viewed by tapping on the text bar (the horizontal green bar across the top of the Map Screen). Each turn can be selected to view a more detailed view of the turn, or the Lane Assist view if available.

Figure 44: Digital Elevation Maps

The nüvi 785T is preloaded with digital elevation maps of the US and Canada.

Figure 45: Trip Computer

Tapping on Speed data field on the Map screen (left bubble on the information bar) brings up the trip information page, shown above. This screen displays a running counter of various statistics about the "trip", or since it was last reset.

Figure 46: Map Page, While Navigating To A Destination

A well designed map is essential for any turn-by-turn navigation system. Garmin's map is easy to read, uncluttered, functional, and automatically intelligently adapts to various driving conditions. The automatic zoom feature automatically adjusts the map's zoom level based on your speed and proximity to a given turn.

One of the first things you notice when navigating with the nüvi 785T is the exceptionally fast map frame rate. Garmin says the nüvi 785T achieves 10fps. My testing confirmed frame rates up to 10fps, making the nüvi 785's maximum frame rate roughly 20 times that of the older nüvi 600 series GPS units. The refresh rate of the map page is 10hz. When viewing the map in driving mode, map scrolling can be so smooth it almost reminds one of the sweeping hand of an automatic watch movement.

However, when driving in heavily populated areas like New York and Boston, where the maps are considerably more complex to draw, and the nüvi must also contend with transparent 3-D buildings to render, the frame rate dropped to less than half. Nevertheless, even at its worst, the nüvi 785T is still many times faster at map redraws than any previous Garmin model.