While I like reading the reviews, the routing engine part leaves a lot to be desired.

I entered the first routing engine test on my Tomtom go 930 and it's certainly different from what you are reporting on the 720. Here's the instructions I have(it's basically the same as the nuvi). My map version is 815.2003

Right on Oak Tree Rd.
Bear left on Bullet Hill Rd.
Turn left on Bullet Hill Rd.
Turn right 84 WB
Continue on 84 WB.
Bear right exit 20 White Plains.
684 White Plains.
Hutchinson River Pkwy New York City.
Cross country Pkwy George Washington Br.
Saw Mill River Pkwy Southbound.
H Hudson Pkwy
Bear right on Boat Basin.
79 St W 79St
Turn right on Broadway
Left on W 74th St.
Right on Central Park W.

And by the way, it has me arriving on the right.

I find it interesting that the review is of a Nuvi 885T but the "What's Inside the Box" and other pictures are those of the Nuvi 880.

Did the reviewer think that we would not notice? I really think the reviews here are of excellent quality. I hope this faux pas does not dilute the review.

Nice review. From the Quick Start Guide, which is all that is published online so far, the 885t has the same custom detour capability as the 880, so this is NOT a con like you have mentioned.

Personally I am struggling with keeping my 880 or switching to the 885t. I like the turn arrows, lane assist, and current speed on the main page; I don't like the 7x5 version of traffic described in this review. The 880 has much better direct access to traffic than the 885t. Curious that 3D view didn't migrate with the other 7x5 features.

Fletch your review describes the traffic functions like a 765T. Just got off the phone with Garmin and they claim an 855T works as you described, but that an 885T traffic works like on an 880. The difference is going through an intermediate traffic screen with three menu choices like the 765T, or going directly to the traffic screen the way the 880 does. I don't know if the Garmin rep was fully up to speed, but I am tempted enough to give it a try.

Fletch

I think is time for you to possibly perform a side by side test with the Magellan 4350 OneTouch with the latest firmware update, the TomTom Go 740 with map share and IQ routes feature along with the Garmin Nuvi 885T.

I don't think it is a fair comparison for you to make with the older Magellan Maestro 4250 and the TomTom Go 740 Live.

The 740 will blow the other routing engines out of the water. IQ-R2 and Hi-Definition traffic are huge advantages.

Is the 885 instant on like the 880, or does it go through a boot sequence every time like the 7xx series?

How do I get my CD audio books that I own into my Garmin nuvi 885T? Do I concert them to Mp3 or M3U or M3U8 and what is the difference in these 3 formats?

Is the 885 instant on like the 880, or does it go through a boot sequence every time like the 7xx series?

Traffic on the 885 works like the 880 and not like the 765; i.e., there is no intermediate screen, it goes straight to the traffic map.

885 is instant on like the 880; does not boot each time like the 7XX series. Remove the battery to force a boot.

Most of the functions are identical to the 880, with a few 765/785 quirks thrown in. 885 does NOT have 3D building view, but otherwise seems to have every feature of the 785/880 combined.

FW 4.3 on both the 880 and 885 has some MSN Direct and other bugs. Doppler works on the 885, but not the 880.

Between the two, I would pick the 885 over the 880. 885 vs 780 is a tougher call. 780 has fewer bugs and is a lot cheaper, but the 885 has some nice additions.

I would pick a 760/780/880/885 over the 765/785 because the former has a touch screen whereas the latter has a push screen.

Figure 91 in section 10 of this article is NOT accurate. This screen (figure 91) is used on the 765T, but NOT the 885T. I have used both Garmin units and am certain of this. Going from an 880 I definitely did not like the intermediate traffic screen on the 765T, and am glad the 885T traffic works like the 880.

my first unit was a 780 had to send it back because the txt speech was choppy.....had to send the second one back for the same problem.....got a 765t.hate the push screen but when driving the little car glides along very smoothly...on the 780 the 3d map screen was very jittery and got on my nerves so bad i had to keep it on 2d............Is the 885t smooth as the 765t in 3d while driving.
thanks

The 765 has a faster refresh rate than the 780, 880, or 885, plus has 3D building view the other three mentioned do not. The ability to rotate your view on the 765 is pretty neat too. Still, I do not like the push screen nor the intermediate traffic screen on the 765, so I am sticking with the 885. For $500 on Amazon, I think the voice command capability is worth it, especially in heavy traffic as it prevents having to take your eyes off the road to enter touch screen commands.

Hallo,
I'm writing from Italy and I've a 865T unit.
In the "25. Cons" section the statement:
"No way to exclude a specific road from the route" is wrong.
Make these steps:
Tools -> navigation -> prompted detour -> ON

Now, during the navigation, figure 111, tapping on detour button, a screen will appears with 4 options:
1 kilometr
5 km
10 km
detour by road(s) in Route.

Choosing the last option you can choose a specified route to exclude. Useful, right?

Also: figure 91 doesn't exist in 8x5 models.

Should I get the 855 or the 765T? The 855 will be at $299 on May 1 with Costco.

Does the 765T has a different screen than the 855? Which one has a better screen?

Thanks,

Khanh

Is anybody else having a hard time hereing the voice prompts on the internal speakers on there 885T like I am? Even with the volume turned up to 100% I have a hard time hereing it. Can't drive with the window down even the slightist bit and can't listen to the radio even at a nice low volume level.

I know the 885t can access the car's speakers by means of the FM radio but if there are a lot of FM stations in range this becomes difficult. I've heard that the unit can be plugged into the MP3 slot to solve the FM reception problems and still use the car radio. Is this true? I'm hard of hearing and want to make sure I can hear the prompts.

I have 885T it sucks it is under power I subscribed to map I instaled it GPS reboot itself (crashed over 25 times I am traveling have not come back from trip I will take legal action against Garmin they shoud retrofit or add internal memory or other hardware or go to smaller map version I used it in New York city lower Manhatan area does not work GPS can not process data fast enough Garmin need ovehaul 885T
I drove I over 14000 mile in north east and Midwest it is under powered they waste Harare for mp3 player or other useless feature does not apply to GPS voice recognition is the best and blue tooth to your phone if you give a task from start to finish and require all of caculation and you also ask to look for food or places it Crashes Crashes do you hear Garmi

okay just recvd the 855 from Costco. to my surprise just noticed the 855 does not support hands free??? The 855T does! Why O why GARMIN?!?! Fletch can you explain this?? Why would Garmin make the traffic dongle a necessary unit for hands free capability on the 855?? again WHY Garmin WHY??

Hi,
Can someone tell me if my 885T is defective?

When I choose "where to" and enter the address, when it comes to the street name, the device does not give me any choices at all. I just type the street name and hit ok and then have to hope that what I typed matches up with the nuvi database.
M older model 2 year old nuvi would automatically find the names that matched whatever it is that I was starting to type.
Example:
-with the older for say "main street" I will just type M-A and then "main street" would be an option along with "maple" etc...
-with the 885T I type M-A and I amnot given any options at all, so I have to finish typing and hope that the device will recognize what I typed.

Is this unit defective or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!

I am traveling to Spain and Portugal. What GPS device do you recommend? I tavel internationally a lot.

I just bought the 885T, and used it on two trips. Once it did redirect me off the Interstate and it turned ut there was huge accident, two hour delay, which I avoided. Other times, not sure if it automatically does this. My main issue: the audible directions are not loud enough. I agree with Mitch's post re: the volume: even at 100% not very loud. Without doing a lot of fancy electronic things (I have no MP3 jcak in my SUV), how can this be ovefcome? I know there is an external mike sold for the Garmin885T....is this only for bluetooth or os it also for the audible directions? Do you have to wear it in your ear? The bluetooth voice quality is also better with my own in-esr bluetooth, but I like the convenience of the GPS bluetooth. Main problem: not loud enough. Advice?

Battery
-------
I get the impression the battery has a short charge life. I run the 885 on battery for only a few minutes, when not driving. 99% of the time, the unit is in the cradle plugged in to the car power, or it's switched off. But it frequently reports low battery.

Temperature
-----------
Isn't it a bad idea to mount these gadgets on the windshield or on the dash, in sunlight? How hot can they get before failing? I keep mine below the dash, or on the passenger seat, to avoid baking it.

885:

Route Optimization
------------------
I tried this once. It failed. I entered three points, A->B->C, with the shorter distance A->C->B, but the 885 wouldn't change the ordering.

Points of Interest
------------------
It lists places that have been gone for years.

Voice Prompting
---------------
I couldn't get it to recognize "Dracut", pronounced Dray-cut.

Text-to-speech
--------------
Using American English, when it told me to "Turn left on Dracut Road", it said "Turn left on Draa-ct road", i.e. with a short "a" and clipped "cut" to "ct". This isn't surprising; after all, how is it supposed to know how to pronounce every street name in the country? It is puzzling to hear "route" pronounced "reet". The Australian English pronounced it "root-ee". And the Australian and American like to say "lft" for "left", and "rhg" for "right". You get used to it.

Found a small digitle fm radio and use the fm tranmiter throught it to here the voice promting It's much louder than the internal speakers and I can turn it up load enough to listen to the stareo and drive with the window down because I smoke.

Can't find this in the review or manual. I want to replace a Garmin 2610 with the 885T. The Garmin 2610 can find upcoming rest stops on interstates and turnpikes. Does the 885T have the ability to find these as well?

Can't find this in the review or manual. I want to replace a Garmin 2610 with the 885T. The Garmin 2610 can find upcoming rest stops on interstates and turnpikes. Does the 885T have the ability to find these as well?

Can anybody tell how to set the 885t to where it will tell you in miles to the next exit when traveling the interstate? Mine just says Exit 00 Ahead and does not tell me how many miles to exit 00 like my old 2610.

Fletch,

would appreciate a little advice....I am in the market for a new gps...will be my first, and was interested in the nuvi 1490t, particularly for the larger screeen. seems will not be available for a few weeks yet, and need early next week. If I buy an alternative, which nuvi or other would you recommend? Or would you wait, and just navigate the old fashion way?

Thanks

Dave

I just went to Amazon.com to buy an 885t, and I can't find it anywhere. Does anyone know if something has happened that would cause it to be pulled from their site, or how I can find it there?

Thanks!

Tyrone,

Thank you for the info, but I've purchased many time from Amazon and received brand new products at excellent prices. As of a couple of weeks ago when I last saw this Garmin there it was selling new for about $365, which is $35 cheaper than BuyDig.

I might buy from BuyDig, but I'd still like some insight from someone on why it's not on Amazon right now.

So not true. Amazon is an excellent place to buy just about anything. Yes, they sell refurbished and used items, but they clearly state the condition on all their products. Also, they usually have the lowest prices and their return process is very simple.

With regards to the pricing, BuyDig had it for $349 for a while, but it's back up to $399 now. Amazon had it down to $377, but is no longer carrying it. They probably ran out of stock or Garmin is no longer shipping new 8x5 units. Use Bountii.com to search for pricing. It's much better at finding prices for electronics than the other price comparison sites.

Thanks, Sir Todd.

I just got an e-mail response from Amazon and they are completely out of stock. The e-mail said they're working on getting more in, but gave no indication of how long it might take.

I know the 885T is fairly new, but is this model being replaced already with a newer one??

Cheryl

How does the refresh rate of the 885t compare to the Nuvi 660? I understand that that the 785 is faster than the 885, but nothing is mentioned as to specifics on the 885t as the 785t gives specific estimates on refresh rates.
Regards,
Keith

hi, i assume 885 is same as 855 except 855 doesn't have BT. one of the amazon reviewers said "Custom Display of POIs: I can select which POI categories to display (or not!), and they show up at the map detail levels I like to use.". this is one of the best features i like in magellan. does anybody know how to do it in nuvi 855 or 885? thanks.

Fletch,

If you are traveling on a route and you say,

"Find nearest gas station"

Will it find gas stations nearest the current GPS location or along the current route? If it is the former, it could find gas stations that are accessed via an exit that you just passed on an interstate highway. If this is the case, could you alternately say?

"Find nearest gas station along route"

If this doesn't work, can you use the following sequence of commands to accomplish this?

"Where to?"
"Points of interest"
"Near..."
"My current route"
"OK"
"Fuel"

Thanks.

I have never tried something like this before so please excuse my noobishness.
I have a Garmin Oregon 400t and I am happy to have it but I have a silly problem with it. How do I get the map to show up as a true topo map with the contour lines??? I get a map but it is tan and looks like gulley lines (pale blue lines). I have tried the manual, I have some pretty good computer guys look at it and we can't figure out what I am sure is a simple problem. I appreciate any help---I want to hike with it and need the topo map features!!!!! Thanks

"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 the cassette adapter into
the headphone jack on the 885T's docking cradle."

I'm not sure what this means. Are we talking just using a separate FM transmitter connected to the headphone jack?

Hi
Thanks for the review,
There is one feature that I think make the use og GPS enjoyable and more useful..
That is the ability to view local point of interest and names of even small lakes and rivers as you drive along.
If you check out the garmin 660 feature it has that. I think the 255 also has it. The 700 series and suprisingly the flag ship 1490t does not have it. The latter with even a 5inch creen you sometimes only see a web of roads and no text, which does not give too much benefit to a 5inch.
It would be something you amy want to point out in future reviews as a missing feature, the tradeoff for garmin probably is to use a slower processor. But flag ship models should have this customizable feature..
Do yu know if the 885 or the 855 have the feature available on the 660 ?
Thanks
Al

Displaying city(or town) on the GPS unit (nuvi 855)

I have a nuvi 855 (similar to the 885T minus the MSN and bluetooth). I have found that the Garmin unit does not display the city/town on the map. I recently drove from Austin to Salt Lake City, going diagonally across and driving through a multitude of cities/towns. I really wished the GPS could have told me the city/town I traversed through because I had to take different roads (some state ones) when I reached a particular city/town. I had to constantly try and read the addresses on billboards or shop signs or try to derive at the city/town names.

Is there a way I get the unit to show the city/town that I am passing?

Thanks for the excellent reviews Fletch and the comments by the numerous people.

"Is there a way I get the unit to show the city/town that I am passing?"

At least two ways I know of. Changing the zoom and level of detail display varies the amount of information displayed. I usually run on "more" and find that scales between 8 and 30 miles on the highway give a good compromise between displaying town names and too much clutter. You have to experiment with what looks best to you.

The other quick way is to touch the vehicle icon on the main map, or alternately use the "Where am I" voice command. This pulls up the nearest address which includes the town name.

One feature I have not found on any Garmin since my Quest is the ability to display all the exits and attractions at those exits when traveling highways. Maybe some day Garmin will get smart and bring that feature back.

My new 885T shows an accuracy of 17 feet on a good day with as many as 11 good-strength satellites. This presents a problem when exiting a freeway onto a parallel frontage road: the GPS still thinks it’s on the freeway. Also, when accelerating from stopped, the speed indicator remains at zero until the car has moved approximately 10 feet. This presents difficulties when transitioning from a parking lot to a road: the info on which direction to turn is often wrong or very late in coming. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned in the wrong direction while attempting to follow the GPS instructions.)

My old GPS (2730, WAAS enabled) displayed accuracies of 9 feet or better and the MPH would consistently come off zero after moving only 1 foot! Needless to say, exiting out of a parking lot was much easier with this unit.

I contacted Garmin customer support, and to my astonishment, I was told that Garmin no longer includes WAAS in their receivers. I was also told that a 17-foot error is a good enough average. If the GPS does, in fact, have WAAS capabilities, then my unit may be malfunctioning. Anyone else having problems in this area?

885t: Instability? I've read through every Nuvi forum I can Google. I see some references to lock-ups and freezes etc., but my 885T is positively unstable with SW 4.60. I have to pop the battery out to recover it. A lot.

Here's of bugs I've seen so far ( I have it fully updated with latest software/ TTS files, GPS chipset fix, etc. I have no custom POIs loaded)

Slowdowns. At one point it took 10 seconds to display the green voice bubble after hitting the wireless switch. Needed reset.

Sluggishness, often leading to spontaneous reboots. Reminds me of a "memory leak" where a program will run great for a length of time, but as resources get used up, the system will slow down.

Outright lockups on the dark Garmin boot screen after power up. (next step would be screen brightening and "loading maps" appearing)

Updating Bluetooth Firmware upon connecting to a PC via USB. Two different machines. Latest BT firmware was already updated via Webupdater, allowing it to reboot afterwards. When this happens, it loses pairing data with my cell phone and I have to redo it.

Today, I noticed that I wasn't receiving MSN Direct data. Service Status showed no signal, even though I was in the middle of a full service area. I had also driven through other service areas and still had no weather or traffic. Again, pop the battery out, reboot, and 3 bars of MSN Direct signal.

I have a NUVI 855. When on a route is there a voice command to get the unit to repeat the previous spoken turn instructions? I tried saying "next turn" and it displays the turn instructions but does not speak them. If you touch the turn arrow in the upper left corner it does repeat the last command but that defeats the purpose of voice commands. If this is not possible it is a serious oversight regarding spoken commands.

My NUVI 855 can not recognize the voice command "Next Turn". All other voice commands are accepted. Thereafter, I can not let my 855 repeat the next turn warning by voice, which is annoying. I do not want to touch the screen when I am driving.

I tried saying "next turn" in many different ways. It fails me. On the same map view window, the voice command "direction detail" is easily recognized like a piece of cake. But "next turn" is a nightmare for me.

Dose anybody have the similar issue?

The reviewer said that the 885T didn't have specific road Avoidance. It actually does.
He also said that one cannot detour by a specific road, and that is also incorrect.
Another thing I didn't find on major websites, the 885T IS WAAS enabled, per the Owner's Manual specifications.

I just tried to purchase the 885T unit from the GPS store and it indicates discontinued. I call them and they said there was problem with background noise with speech reconigition.Any idea if this is true and what is the replacement unit if any?

Not a single problem with voice, at least in my case. I bought mine from buydig.com for $354 brand new.

Don't wast your money on MSN traffic, it poor at best and MS says they are going to discontinue the service.

I purchased the Nuvi885T for a trip from Orlando Florida to McMinnville Tenn. The directions were great. The approaching a turn warning was extremely helpful, especially going through the east coast's nightmare city, Atlanta.

The extra I used was the headphone output along with the MP3 player and plugged it into my radio's Aux input. I had music and it lowered for directions. It is much clearer this way.

The one BIG drawback is MSN traffic. It told me about an accident after I was stuck in non-moving traffic on I75 for a half hour; then it predicted a 20 minute wait (like Vista, can't get anything right). Also, MSN only updates when you have been in a city for at least a half hour. I was constantly seeing yesterday's gas prices or the gas prices 100 miles ago.

Garmin ships the NUVI 885 with the MSN antenna, if they change and ship with a lifetime NAVTEQ traffic antenna, it would be great. Otherwise you have to purchase the NAVTEQ for about $120.