Well Fletch, as much as I think Garmin is top notch, they have released products that is not ready.

I think you need to perform a GPS performance test, check the (Time to First Fix) TTFF and perform these test in different area and conditions to see how the different GPS antenna and receiver is comparing to the mighty SiRF receiver in the Nuvi 3xx or 6xx.

The Antenna is located or I should say facing backwards on the unit and only allowing the receiver to see what's in the horizon instead of the sky.
Magellan Maestro units GPS antenna is situated on top of the unit which allows a better view of the sky and superior GPS reception. And they continue to use SiRF receiver.

POI search feature is terrible with the new Nuvi products.

Try this one, select near a Differernt City and put in Foster City, California. Search for ABC Chinese restaurant by spelling the name only and you will find it pops up immediately as ABC Seafood Restaurant on 973 Hillsdale Blvd. This is a Chinese restaurant by the way.
You have to make sure you are putting yourself in Foster City, California when searching for this restaurant.

Now go select Food category and select Chinese as sub category to make the search faster and narrowing the search and you will not be able to find ABC sea food restaurant under Chinese restaurant catagory.

You will however find it under seafood category.

OK, so they don't have it under Chinese restaurant even if it is only a Chinese restaurant.

So try another one, in the City of San Mateo, California type in Joy Luck place on and if you chose to spell the name Joy Luck Place 98 E 4th Ave pops up and it is also a Chinese restaurant. Now select category under food and sub category to pinpoint and narrow the search under Chinese restaurant and select spell name and type in Joy Luck Place and you will not be able to locate this restaurant even if you can spell the name of the restaurant and what city is in. It will show no Match found.

How I found this to be true is I was unable to route to this well known restaurant so when I got to the restaurant Joy Luck Place physical address I select Food and select where I am NOW and Joy Luck Place popped up.

I was confused as to why a POI is clearly available at the location but not be able to be searchable when we attempt to route to it from a different city.

I have selected a Different City option and type in San Mateo which is the City the restaurant is in. Garmin should look into this type of issues and come up with a quick fix.

No excuse for this restaurant not being able to be located.

So POI search feature with the new Garmin products is a hit and miss at best.

I think every GPS manufacturers are being pressure to spit out these cheap products at an alarming rate, the merchants and consumers can't keep up with the new products that is available every week and it is not doing the PND industry any good.

I feel this year would really be a good test for the PND industry as to how many units we will actually sell since we can wait a week and watch the price drop 50%, what sane person would want to buy a unit now when by the end of the year they will be able to buy a unit that is 10 times better at 1/4 the price?

To bad!

Why do not Garmin have speedinformation in the display when navigating?
I miss that very useful funktion. You can't relay on the speedometer in the car and want to see the speed in every mode.
- I think that almost every brand has this, at least as a choise. But not Garmin in the Nuvi series!
I use an old Garmin StreetPilot 2610 and in that one you almost can design all of the information you want to see in both modes.

It does show speed information if you tap on the trip computer (Tap on the arrival time to see it).

Unbelieveable,

You deleted my posts because I pointed out the deficiencies of your review.

Very unprofessional.

GPS4ME,

Dude, It IS a sirf receiver in the 700's. On top of that, they use sirf QuickfixII. Lock as fast or faster than any of it's competitors.

Fletch, it appears much of this review is a rehash of your previous review of the 760. Somewhat understandable sinced both have many of the same features. You should make it clear tho, that that is the case. (Did I catch a mention of Bluetooth in here somewhere?) As to the routing test, it really doesn't demonstrate anything, as you are relying on the REPORTED travel time. TT generally has been off, sometimes overestimating quite a bit, in the estimated times to arrival (the latest map from them may make it a bit more accurate, as they now have embedded speed limits in some areas). Only true test would be to drive the route and time it, more than once I might add to account for time of day/traffic issues. Suggest that if you're going to do a routing test, REALLY do a routing test. As done, it doesn't show anything.

Just got my 750 a few weeks ago....love it, and it does have a Sirf receiver...great signal, even inside...as for the time estimates to destination, I had a TomTom before this and it was actually more accurate in that it seems to assume that you might hit a few red lights along the way...every time I hit a stop light the 750 will add another minute to the estimate....it seems to assume you will never hit a red light on the original time estimate....but still love the 750 over TomTom anyday....

Infama - I deleted your post because I had already corrected the issue you pointed out, and the comment wouldn't have made sense after that. Thank you for pointing out the error in the review. It has been corrected.

In the section "Routing Engine Performance" could you please fix the table column widths to be equal and the start starts in the 5th row rather than the 6th row for the Megellan and the TomTom.

Thanks

In response to Warren in the 750 HSN price alert written by Fletch.

With all due respect, I'm not understanding your applauding Garmin for the SiRFInstantFix (or "quickfix as you call it); a technology developed by SiRF and not Garmin. Especially when considering that this SOMEWHAT addresses an atrocious problem acquiring sats on the newer (no flip up antenna) nuvi. This is a problem with Garmin's design and placement of the antenna on these nuvis. For this you give Garmin kudos?

Also, you obviously haven't owned or tried a Magellan Maestro or TomTom, where sat acquisition and locks are almost instantaneous. Especially the Maestro, where you acquire sats the moment the unit is turned on.

You obviously never owned or used a Garmin Streetpilot or nuvi 3xx or 6xx either. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so thrilled that Garmin eliminated features that once existed in many Streetpilot units and are slowly being back slowly as the nuvi line keeps getting milked to ridiculous proportions.

You minimize the importance of road excludes and custom avoidances that existed in the Streetpilot (27xx, 2830, 7200, 7500) and are featured in the least expensive units of Garmin's competitors. Those features can make biggest difference in a satisfactory route, yet you brush it aside as insignificant while trumping the useless MSN and FM transmitter features. What gives?

If you had owned a Streepilot or nuvi 3xx or 6xx, you also wouldn't be so giddy about the newer nuvis performance. Searching POI's in the newer nuvis, including the 750, is painstakingly slow, producing the dreaded Windows-type hourglass for unacceptable amounts of times, whereas the older Garmins didn't have this issue. Ditto the map redraws of the newer Garmins, indicating lessened performance.

The only thing Garmin does have going for them is their superior support when compared to the competition. And if you ever read some of my writing you would know that I was one of Garmin's biggest supporters in the past, but I won't sit back and blindly root for them and be a Garmin fanboy.

I suppose that I cannot tell you what should make you happy, but I sure as heck can tell you that I'm not alone in my disappointment with Garmin, their unimpressive newer units, their milking of the nuvi line, seemingly poorer quality control, and the overall direction they seem to be headed.

By the way, I meant "trumpeting" not "trumping" the useless MSN and FM transmitter features in my above post.

Fletch,
In your chart at the end instead of saying No to traffic on the 750 maybe you should say "cable not included. Also the same on the MSN? People would think the units don't have MSN if they just looked at your chart. Jerry

" Dude, It IS a sirf receiver in the 700's. On top of that, they use sirf QuickfixII. Lock as fast or faster than any of it's competitors."

Warren

That was my bad, I assumed they are using the same chip set for the Nuvi 5009 at the $700 price as the Nuvi 7xx. I stand corrected.

Sorry to say that NOT all Garmin Nuvi products is including the SiRF receiver, and this is the very reason why they went with the phrase "High sensitivity receiver" instead of SiRF GPS Receiver.

With that said, they are also having issues with their software causing SOME Garmin Nuvi lines to take as long as 30 minutes to lock on to GPS satellites signal at times, they are trying to fix this with a software update.

They could be using the Centrality now consider as a SiRF receiver which is a lower quality cheaper receiver but now using the SiRF good name.

They use a Bravo GPS receiver in their Nuvi 5000 and that was the one I was testing when I read this article on the Nuvi 7xx, so I will check to see if they are using the SiRF Instafix II in their Nuvi 7xx line today.

With TomTom offering Enhanced Positioning Technology in their unit that can be had for $499, I am surprised why Garmin is not going with the SiRF DiRect that will enable their high end product to navigate in tunnels or garages when no GPS signal is available, this would be particularly useful when using the PND unit in Pedestrian mode since most will be used inside buidlings?

No longer will be be navigating only on streets but to the front door of a store in a mall with what new software information that will be offered soon.

I think the Nuvi 5000 is a quick respond to many 5" PND device since what person in their right mind will own a PND these days without an internal battery included? What good are the games when you can't play them without being in your vehicle or carry an extra 12 volt battery?

I am not saying Garmin is inferior in anyway, they are a class act, just that you expect more out of a company that is charging premium for their products.

Hi:

I received my Nuvi 750, in early October. Initially I was displeased with the TTFF. The unit would normally take at least 5 and sometimes as much as 10 minutes to gain signal. I had downloaded all of the updates from Garmin, with no change. In early December I was using my unit near a heat source. The internal temprature sensors indicated that the unit reached 60 deg. C. Since that occured my 750 has totally changed. It now acquires a signal in less than a minute virtually everytime. In fact it is not unusual for the unit to have four bars of signal within 1 minute while in my garage with the door closed, and the unit cold (35 deg. F). I do not recommend a heat soak as a way to enhance the TTFF performance of the Nuvi 750, but i can write that it changed my unit from being lackluster at best, to being much easier to use. For what its worth.

NB

I am trying to decide between buying a Nuvi 750 and a Zumo 550.

First I will run down my list here of the positive things that out weight each unit for me.

Nuvi 750

Wider Screen
Less Weight
Smaller (Can fit in my pocket)
Higher Resolution
Built in speaker
Longer Battery Life
Shows sat. strength beyond signal bar

Zumo 550

Waterproof
Supports WAAS
Has Bluetooth direction through headset
Removable Battery
More Durable

I was told that both these units support up to 10,000 points for trip logs but then with the Zumo it will archive them into 20 files, will the 750 do this? I run a lot of canyon runs on my motorcycle and want to be able to looking at my speed through out those runs in MapSource which I know the 550 will do dropping points on my route.

I know the 750 is not really made for a motorcycle but I ride sportbikes. If it rains, I don’t ride so as far as the waterproof feature that is nice, but not so much a factor for me. The thing that worries me the most is the vibration. One of the bikes I own is a Ducati and it does vibrate a fair amount. Since either unit have moving parts, will this be a factor? Again, I am not worried about water or dirt, just vibration.

As far as Sirf Star goes I see it cleary states in the Zumo manual that it has it. Does the 750 and the 760 both have it or just one or the other? Am I going to get better sat. signal from 550, 750 or 760?

Please Help!

Thanks Guys!!

Today is my birthday and I want to treat myself. =]

Jason

The nuvi 750 isn't built to handle the vibration of a motorcycel, so the Zumo is better suited for your 2-wheeled adventures.

Good review, but I think the routing porting of your reviews leaves a lot to be desired. I noticed that you continue to use the same 3 routes in almost every review. Even in the routes you use I don't see a significant difference in the Magellan route and the Garmin route. My personal expeience with Garmin and Magellan is that they produce comparable routes in most situations and I would not rate one higher than the other. The key is having updated map information which most of the newer, high-end models have.

Even with the newest maps there are still errors. Last night my Nuvi 360, with the 2008 maps tried to send me the wrong way down a one way street. It also tried to route me through a residential area instead of staying on the 4 lane boulevard that I was already on.

At $299 the 750 is a great value but Magellan still has some superior features, in my opinion. Customer support not being one of them :).

Maybe we should have a Users "route-off" where people can submit routes from Garmin, Magellan, Tom-Tom and so forth and we'll get a broader picture of who produces the best routes on a consistent basis.

"The nuvi 750 isn't built to handle the vibration of a motorcycel, so the Zumo is better suited for your 2-wheeled adventures."

What will the vibration due to the unit consider neither has moving parts?

RobGPS,

I don't know why you have such an issue with Garmin. They properly respond to issues that became very apparent after model release and corrected it. Neither Magellan nor TomTom has been as quick to respond. Many of the issues those users complain about still exist, and have since the units came to market. For that I DO applaud Garmin. QuickfixII boots me to navigation as fast as any TomTom or Magellan. I'm certainly not going to complain, especially since the tech had not even been announced or released by sirf when the 700's began shipping. It wasn't available. Road exclusion needs to be implemented, I agree. I already have avoidances which cover the majority of needs, as well as route building via mapsource if I wish. You calling MSN useless makes as much sense as my calling EPT on the 920 a waste of time. You've also obviously never used it. Tell me what other nav I can use that allows me to send contact and routing info to my crew out in the field, miles away, remotely via maps.live? When it saves me money every week on redispatching, it's certainly not useless to me. If you had it, you'd trumpet it. On your POI search statement, a webmaster at another site and I TRIED to do a poi search that would take a long time to replicate an issue a userr reported. We couldn't do it. Even a "blind" open seach for "mart" took unde two seconds to pull up 57 occurances ranging from SuperMart to Martial arts. We couldn't create a single search that took more than 2 seconds. I really have no idea where you come up with some of this stuff. Is it from personal experience with the 700's, or "somebody said". No gps is perfect, that includes the 700's. Problem is, VERY few customers are willing to pay very much for a portable nav anymore. Assume Garmin releases a unit with 8 hour battery life, all the features of the 700's now, plus true voice control of all features, choice of fastest, least use of freeways, most use of freeways, shortest route, or scenic route, includes EPT, road exclusion, 8 gigs of available memory AFTER maps are loaded, free traffic for life, skyview and off-road navigation. They include menu and interface customization, free maps for a year on every unit, plus dedicated graphics with separate memory allowing fast refresh and near HD screen clarity. Then they say for all these features, we'll sell it for ONLY $1200. Where's the market? None of the current manufacturers are trying to create a market for such a device when one basicly doesn't exist. Magellan would sell 250 cheap sub-$200 units for every one that Garmin sold.
Try looking at the big picture instead of your myoppic tunnel-vision. Consumers are buying these to get from Point A to Point B. Most will never even KNOW they have a satellite screen, or altitude, or many of the features already there. They don't even care. Just want it cheap, reliable and someone speaking clear English answers the phone if there's a problem.

By the way, my first gps WAS a TomTom. I didn't like it. The map then was poor, screen was small and didn't like the look of the screen. Second unit was a Garmin 650. OK, but I didn't care for the flip-up antenna or lack of Bluetooth. I actually was ready to buy a TT720 after doing research, but the Garmin 700's came along. I regret nothing about the purchase. In 4 months of ownership, it's even been improved more, with Garmin adding quickfixII, MSN2 support, improved addy entry and even details like a map scale. What new features has your company added to your nav in that time? Garmin has treated the 700 owners right.

I recently purchased a Nuvi 750 . Is there any way to improve the signal strength (reception)?
Thanks RC

I recently purchased a Nuvi 750 . Is there any way to improve the signal strength (reception)?
Thanks RC

Definitely agree about the maps on Garmin being better than TomTom...Garmins maps are accurate about RR tracks , rivers and water features, etc...TomToms were almost abstract....And the satellite fixes on my 750 are just as fast and strong as my TomTom.

TomTom has several map version. It depends on the one you have (build number).

I recently purchased a Nuvi 750 . Is there any way to improve the signal strength (reception)?
Thanks RC

I recently purchased a Nuvi 750 . Is there any way to improve the signal strength (reception)?
Thanks RC

Ray,

Run firmware update 2.6 to get SirfInstantFix2 (autonomus pseudo-ephemeris data generation). This will enable you to get a fast signal lock.

Is there a software program that allows me to "map" my trip on a PC then upload to the 750?

Yes, Garmin mapsource

Fletch; Thanks for the heads up on the HSN one day sale on the 750. It is now in my car and it is perfect. When I bought it on the sale day HSN said they had sold 8010 units by mid afternoon. ONLY had 3000 remaining. Next morning they were sold out. Do you think these numbers are for real? Hard to believe.

^Thanks for a reply. Jack K.

Fletch, you mentioned that you can find out if your model uses SiRF by tapping Tools -> Settings -> System -> About. If it does say SiRF, does it automatically mean that it is using the SiRF StarIII receiver, or could it be the older SiRF StarII being used?

The only one ever used in the 700's, sirfIII

"Fletch; Thanks for the heads up on the HSN one day sale on the 750"

Heck, all any GPS manuacturers need to sell PND is Costco and BestBuy, and online Amazon and all the sideways distributor reseller with prices less than dealer cost. The rest of the Garmin direct authorized reserller/dealers don't even count in sales numbers.

Fletch, in October 2007 you tested the Garmin 760 vs the 600's and state " Note that the nuvi 760, like the 200-series models, has an internal GPS antenna instead of the fold-out style patch antenna used on the older 300 and 600-series nuvis. The built-in antenna means there's fewer moving parts to break, and also makes it easier/faster to dock and undock the nuvi 760 from the windshield mount.

In my testing, GPS signal performance was identical between the fold-out patch and integrated antenna used on the 760"

Yet, your article on February 2008 you state "I recently compared GPS reception on Garmin's newest nuvi 780 to the much older nuvi 680 and the results were surprising; both models have the same high-performance SiRF StarIII receiver, yet Garmin's older nuvi 680 gets about 50% better reception than the brand new nuvi 780. "

What tests did you do in October 2007 ?

Hi folks, a quick question!

Based on my reading, it looks like, aside from aesthetics, it would be a better deal for me to buy the Nuvi 750 + the MSN ("GDB 50") cable rather than buy the Nuvi 780. The combination comes with 12 months of MSN service, and is less expensive, while the 780 comes with only 3 months of service. The 780 has bluetooth, which I don't require (I already have a nice bluetooth headset) and for which it appears I'd be paying a substantial premium.

The one thing I can't easily determine is whether the MSN service as it would appear on the 750 would be identical to the 780 (full service) or whether it would be limited to the service provided with the 680 (traffic, movies, gas prices and weather only). My guess is that the 7xx models are more/less identical except for the inclusion or not of a bluetooth radio and which traffic receiver they do or don't put in the box.

Can anyone confirm?

You are correct in your reasoning. With msn firmware update (via Garmin) the MSN2 services on the 750 will be identical to the 780, even the new 800 series.

Brilliant! Thanks Warren!

Folks, please study the legal notice in the appendix of Nüvi 760 manual:
"...the allowable output power for FM transmitters is lower in the United States than it is is in those European countries that allow FM transmitters. The nüvi models sold in Europe contain the higher powered European FM transmitter and cannot be legally used in the United States..."
Emphasis on the word legally.

How well does auto sort work? I need a gps where I can enter points along a route randomly and then have the unit sort to make best use of my time and fuel economy. Can the 750 do this without backtracking?

Fletch....this may be old news but you state in your review that the last position is found in the recently found folder....not true it puts a last position file in the favorites file...

I have the nuvi 750 and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. The only short comming to the unit is not in the way it works but in the installed players. I listen to audio books instead of mp3's. With the nuvi you have to purchase your books from audible.com or they will not play. I download my books from the local library which has drm (digital rights management). I have been told by Garmin that the player cannot be changed. I think this is an attempt at trying to create a monopoly and any attempt at that sort of practice should be fought at the start. If customers started complaining to Garmin maybe they would offer a choice of players.

Cross-marketing. Audible promotes Garmin and vice-versa.

do you work for garmin warren merrill ?

I ask because you post not only here but on amazon , gps passion , everywhere there is a blog.

practically every post you patiently defend garmin or praise them.

Nope, no Garmin employee. Not connected in any manner with any GPS company. Truth be known, I own both TomTom 930 and Garmin 760, and recently returned an HP310 after "borrowing" it for a month to evaluate. Many serious users post in several forums. Most use different "handles" so you wouldn't know they are the same person. I have no problem using my real name. Nothing to hide, all my posts are honest.

By the way, you missed that I also post on ClubTomTom, pocketgps, and GPSLodge. I consider myself fairly knowledgable. I started posting because of a lot of misunderstanding of Garmin nuvi functions and "dumbed down" comments from TomTom owners. Seems there's a shortage of Garmin defenders, so I filled a gap.

Warren is cross marketing the new term for monopolys? Remember Microsoft started this way. However I purchased the unit for the purpose of listening top audio, if cross marketing is on the up and up then why not state plainly on the inof for the unit that it will only play books purchased from Audible.

You have a valid point if Garmin doesn't state only Audible. I hadn't looked at how Garmin describes the service (I don't use it). What does it say exactly? No asterisks? Usually everyone hides it in the fine print.

Isn't hiding it in the small print a deceptive way of advertising? If they are going to hide what a particular function of the unit does or needs in the fine print shouldn't they hide the fact that the unit does the function in the fine print to? Companies that hide information are usually trying to pull someting over on the people purchasing the product. (To claim it is hidden on page gazilloin in print that can only be read with a magnifying glass by a person fluent in anciet aribic, in my estimate is no subistute for the size of print used to promote the feature) Sorry for the wild comparison but the basic concept is true.

I hate the small print, whether buying a new car with a "10-year Warranty", "reduced-calorie" salad dressing, or a GPS with "traffic reporting". Regretfully, it's a marketing fact-of-life for nearly any purchase nowadays.

We will not get into the rights and wrongs of advertising practices in this forum. When we stop justifing the practice and start asking for accountability is the only way we can see an improvement. To say it is allright because everyone does is the worst kind of copout for any one, let alone one with the reputation of Garmin. Is it not a strech of the limits for Garmin to say on there website, under specs PLAYS AUDIO BOOKS: YES You then have to go and fisically buy the product and read the instructions to find out that the service requires a subscription and further purchases to use the option you paid for. A person is then stuck with a product that cannot be returned. The store stands on the fact that the unit does play audio books. By the way the store says the same thing you should read the fine print. But how can you do that when it is sealed in the box in the store? Should Garmin try and improve their image by stating on their website under product features Plays Audio Books: Yes (requires subscription and further purchases to use this feature). The same can be said for traffic reporting or any other feature that requires further purchases. Using the copout that everyone is doing the same may be leagal but it isnot moral. Maybe we can discuss automobiles, etc, etc, etc and so on at another time and in another forum.

Sorry to upset you. Didn't realize you thought we WERE discussing anything else.

Regarding a pet peeve I have with my Garmin 750, does anyone find it annoying that the route number, when displayed on a freeway/tollway/county road/etc. often pops up under the car image, stays on the display for a brief moment behind the car image, then rolls off the display? Occasionally the route number will display longer if it randomly pops up higher on the display (meaning 'farther down the road'). Wouldn't it be nice if it continuously scrolled from top to bottom, hence displaying for much longer periods of time?

@Fletch- Thank you for the comprehensive review. It made my buying decision SO MUCH easier.

@Warren Merrill - Thanks for your intelligent comments. The nuvi 750 has absolutely everything I was looking for - and at the right price point for me. Few (if any?) GPS's from other manufacturers had exactly the combination I'm after. But I've read so many negative things about various aspects of Garmins that I was really skittish about whether to buy the Garmin or sacrifice one of the features I wanted and go with something else. Your responses to these criticisms have reassured me. I just ordered a 750 (killer price, too - $279!)

Thanks. Let Garmin know they need to keep me in the loop and let me have an 850 evaluation unit for a bit. LOL

My son-in-law gave me a Tom Tom 1 - 3rd edition as a gift. I tested it over the weekend - it took me to a road that made the trip longer. I tested it yesterday - it REALLY took me for a ride. Finally, I tested it this morning - talk about going around in circles!! And so I packed it up and brought it back to BestBuy - paid the difference and got a Garmin Nuvi 750. I was testing it all afternoon and fell in love with it.

I don't understand all these comments. People are complaining about the Garmin 750 not getting signals for a long time and yet they love it. I just want a system with a good voice, doesn't fade out in sunlight, is accurate from one place to another and doesn't take me down side streets that have no bearing on my final direction. Don't need bells and whistles. Please help. I am going to Quebec in a couple of weeks and would like a good reliable GPS but don't want to spend $400 Cdn. It looks like the Garmin 750 goes anywhere from $375 US to $500 in Canada. HELP.

Maxine - how about the nuvi 660? It's a great unit and costs under $300.

Maxine:
The Garmin 750 is great but it doesn't have a Canada map. It costs extra to get one for the Garmin units. I would then recommend the excellent Magellan Maestro 4250. It costs less too.

My first impressions are not good. The FM tune by turn instructions are useless due to weak FM signal the speaker is not of any quality and hard to understand. The 750 receiver is not very sensitive comparing with some others. On my test run I was on 4 lane highway it had me on a country road also when it had me on the right road there were crossroads on map that was not there. I get a free map update for it being new there is one for it- “Try and get it”!

I’ve purchased two Nuvi 750's and have a Nuvi 660 and StreetPilot c550. The units work great with one glitch. I have a lot of custom poi’s loaded and set my display to nearly full zoom. The navigation on the unit is not smooth and does not update timely. The location of the vehicle is sometimes a full city block or more behind the actual location. Removing the custom poi’s instantly fixes the problem. The same problem replicates on both units and oddly is even present in simulation mode. When the unit is zoomed out, the problem stops. Garmin says that it’s a processor issue with no fix currently available. I hope that Garmin will address this is the near future because my family likes using the units in near full zoom mode. Even with the glitch, I still recommend to my friends to buy the 750. At $299 (Sam’s Club price), it’s a great bargain.

Maxine, the 750 maps do include Canada

My second impression is better The FM and the speaker needs improvement however got my new map this fixed some of the problems. The receiver sensitivity is OK after understanding a few things about why the time acquiring satellites varies a lot. I could not replace the unit with a better one at the price I payed

Is there some way to see the individual satalite signal strengths on the 750 like on the older 600 series

If you press and hold for about 2 seconds the upper left edge of the screen where bars are on the “Where to? - View map” screen this will take you to a page that will show satalite information.

To Robert - In shopping for a 750 today, I found the following in product description: "Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 750 includes many “must have” entertainment and travel tools including MP3 player, audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), ..." It looks like Garmin IS very responsive to customer criticism!

Is Garmin Mapsource included with the nuvi750?

Very poor American Jill/Jack voices, sometimes like Styrofoam scratching on the glass window. And there's no choise to these two verbally impaired guys - that's sucks. Had to switch to Australian Karen, speacking with accent and pronouncing "Drive" like "Doctor" but at least without J/J metal-glass sounds.
====
The rest is very good.

I have only had my 750 for a few days, but it seems to work really well for me, and recalculates quickly. I live in the boonies.

I have a question about SD cards. Does anyone know if the 750 will take the new SDHC cards? I really would like to get an 8 gb card or at least a 4, but most of the ones I've seen online are SDHC, not plain SD.

TIA, Molly

I have only had my 750 for a few days, but it seems to work really well for me, and recalculates quickly. I live in the boonies.

I have a question about SD cards. Does anyone know if the 750 will take the new SDHC cards? I really would like to get an 8 gb card or at least a 4, but most of the ones I've seen online are SDHC, not plain SD.

TIA, Molly

My boss has a Garmin nuvi 650 that will acquire, show location etc. But when the "where to" bar is touched and the "address" option selected it asks for the state, but immediately registers "no matches found" on the entry of any letter. In other words, you can't enter a destination.

I bought the model 750 but couldn't find an adaptor to the household A/C power socket inside the box. Is it only an "optional" feature where other models include in the box ? Why, it is a high end model ? What happen if I want to charge the GPS at home buy do want to bother the computer using the USB ?
Could some one halp ? Thank you

Alex - here's a link to Amazon's page for Garmin's AC adapter: http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Power-Portable-Navigators-010-10723-00/dp/B000BMAQAQ/ref=pd_sim_e_2

I bought a nuvi 710 in July to replace an ageing Dell Axim PDA + Haicom CF GPS + Tom Tom Navigator v3 setup, and am massively impressed. It does everything I need very well: bluetooth for handsfree, FM transmitter to car radio for MP3, RDS Traffic to check how long delays are ahead, oh yes and it also does Navigation. My 2 annoyances are:
1. the Call Home loses the last digit of the number (11 digits),
2. the Picture Viewer always starts the slideshow from the same photograph after the 9 supplied by garmin- the filename is about 75% of the way through the alphabet of photos on the 4GB SD card. Pressing the down arrow on the photos index screen many times to get to later photos before pressing Slideshow has the strange fault that many photos are omitted or you get the message "image too large". Garmin support cannot yet understand the question - has anybody else noticed this.

On our first long trip through three states here in the Northeast USA our audio instructions broke up at times.

We used Routes 476, 76 and 276 and on the highway it was difficult to make out what route we were to take and which to exit. I changed it from Jill to Jack but it happened on both.

Most of the time it was perfectly clear, but on occasion the audio seemed to break up at the worse times.

We drove around several major cities. If that makes a difference I don't know and by several airports. Rural areas with good roads seemed best.

Does anyone else experience this kind of problem from time to time?

Has anyone ever experienced the voice prompt has dissappeared after charging the unit with usb or an ac charger?. The field for the desired voice is blank after a recharge and has to be reselected every time.

Is it possible to download your track from the Nuvi 750 to display on maps and/or satellite photographs?

Just got the Garmin NUVI 750 as a B-Day gift. Actually I've been borrowing it so often they just said "Happy B-Day" & made it official since it's not like I was going to give it up anytime soon! But acquiring one's Garmin this way does have some drawback, like having to teach myself about all the features. So I'm hoping someone can answer a question that's been bugging me. . .

I downloaded the manual & it explains all about how to set the device to transmit to the FM so I can get directions over my truck's speakers. But what I'd really prefer is to get the directions from the Garmin's speaker so I can keep listening to the radio.

Anyone know how to do that?

Thanks!

RR

It seems to miss the mark. It doesn't answer these questions from the screen:

What compass direction am I going?

How many miles to my destination?

What road am i traveling on now?

I could find these answers but I would need to go to different screens, not something I want to do while driving.

My TomTom shows this, even tho it's really not important for navigation. But it's a problem. By attempting to show all this on the main screen, the resulting text is so small and clustered so close together that it's very distracting for me to find that certain piece of info that in all honesty I'm just curious about. Not something I want to do while driving.

Question about the Nuvi 750:

I presently have a Garmin C330, which works well, but suffers, in my opinion, because its Auto-Zoom refuses to return to the map scale I was using when it took over and zoomed in to show me an upcoming route turn. After making the turn, the C-330 zooms out to a preset zoom, either 800' if the car speed is below 60mph, or .5 miles if the speed is above 60 mph.

So, my question is: does the Nuvi 750 Auto Zoom behave this way? If you set your map scale to, say, 12 miles, and the Nuvi later zooms in to show an upcoming route turn, will it zoom back out at all, and if so, does it zoom back to where you started (ie: 12 miles) or does it zoom out to some present scale? Is there any way to shut off Auto Zoom in a Nuvi 750? Does the Nuvi 750 even show the map scale you're looking at?

Also, does the Nuvi 750 have its own speaker for voice prompts, as the C-330 does, so I don't have to rely on the built-in FM transmitter?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Dave

how do the Garmin nuvi 750 and Tomtom XL-330S compare?....or are they close in features/performance...thnx for any help

I bought my first Garmin 750 on sale at Academy for 199.95..
Worked good for about the first 2 hours then the speaker started to sound real distorted and cracking. I tried different voices and no go,,,even the menu beep would give a little cracking sound. I returned the unit for another one and all is well.
Finding the satellites takes less than a minute..and turn by turn instructions are clear..though some streets are garbled..but after updating to software revision 4.20..all is well. I didn't buy it for the Mp3 functions or any of the other bling..I just wanted a solid reliable GPS unit and I think I found it.

Nice review. Lots of good information for the novice

thanks

Your 750 review indicates that it has auto, bicycle, and pedestrian modes. However, when I go to the Garmin website, the specs for the 750 say that it is not multimode capable. Can you explain this seeming discrepancy?

Sams has these right now for $198.46. We bought one last night as an early Christmas present so we could use it on an upcoming trip. Drove around town(Lafayette, LA) with it and I noticed the one place it has problems is on private property - like a large shopping center parking lot - wasn't too accurate there, but close enough to get me where I wanted to go. And it thought my house was down the street from where it is. When I registered, it said I had v4.20, and I think this is currently the latest, so I'm not sure if this was due to our error or what. One thing we noticed tho - if a street has a route # as well as a name, it will call it by the route #. For instance, in town US 167 is known as Johnston St.; the 750 always called it "US 167". Is this the standard?