Garmin nüvi 775/775T 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Get the best of both worlds and a new perspective on navigation with the transatlantic n?vi 775T, featuring lane assist. This feature guides you to the proper lane for navigation. Like the rest of the n?vi 705-series, this advanced navigator comes with premium features including 3-D building view, photo navigation, faster screen redraws, route planning, emergency and car locators and much more. NOTE: Model number… Product details and pricing info |
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67 Reviews for Garmin nüvi 775/775T 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
- Repeat - Don't Waste Your Money
- To add to the chorus this Garmin is unreliable. I replaced an older Garmin unit (which worked great) with this one when the North America & European maps needed to be updated. The update cost was about half of the price for a new unit.
I bought this in February in anticipation of a European trip & this unit was one of the few that included Europe maps. It also offered features like multi-stop and custom routing. Reviews already cited the extremely poor FM transmitter (for playing through the car radio). Also, when driving long distances the channel for receiving those signals changes making that a nuisance to use.
Custom Routes
When using the GPS I like to preview the route by using Mapquest or Google Maps. This helps to eliminate wrong or circuitous routing. My last Garmin did not allow for custom routes - I would have to set up intermediate points as separate destinations to achieve this. I was thrilled to have this new capability only to discover using it is extremely cumbersome and not always reliable. It is NOT as simple as using Google Maps to plot the course & then sending it to the GPS. It only works with Mapquest, the route only shows up under Custom Routes not Favorites, and could be the cause of unit malfunctions.
The Horror Story
Got to Europe and the unit worked okay for about an hour. Then it went into a 'Calculating route' and hung at 37%. I left it on for over 2 hours & it never moved. Turning it on/off did not help. I don't think it was satellite reception as it would intermittently display the current location map. My mistake on the trip was to not have purchased paper maps.
Reset the Unit to fix problems:
I did reset the unit losing all of the data I had entered for the custom routes and POIs. It did start working somewhat better after deleting all of that - if it started to hang on the 'Calculating Route' I would just perform the system reset (finger in lower right of screen while holding the 'on' slider in the left position for 8 seconds).
It is past the date that I can return this so I am sending it Garmin for warranty repair. I am NOT expecting that to fix the problem as this unit seems to be poorly designed and manufactured and has had multiple fatal problems from the beginning (see summer 2009 problem reports).
Recommendation:
Garmin does make good units, this isn't one of them. Check for favorable reviews. Spend the extra to buy a Europe map rather than buy the unit BECAUSE it includes the map. - 2010-06-09, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Buy it if you dont need support
- I bought this relying on good name from Garmin. I am completely disappointed. Here are my few points
1. It is ok when it works, although not the greatest navigation. From NYC it has a tendency to take you to LA before it brings you back to DC. Seriously not sure how it calculates the routes, but it manages to find some really weird routing to get you to your place.
2. Terrible customer service. Anytime you call "you may experience longer than normal waiting time" seems like it is like that always. And once you get someone, it is very simple support. they will ask you to go upgrade the software and nothing more they can do. it does not matter if you did it and you tried that yourself, they will ask you to do it again, even if it is the same version that you have , just reinstall it and call back if the problem persist. If it does than you can RMA it to their center, and good luck if you are abroad. No support there.
3. The device had some firmware bug. Somehow it gets updates from satellite. And one time they pushed the wrong update and messed up the unit. They wanted everyone to ship them back. I was abroad, and i took my chances, I opened the unit, removed the battery for few minutes and then started it again and got the patch that they released.
4. FM Transmitter is a joke. It is has such low power on its transmitter that you have to hold it next to the radio to receive a good signal. It is useless.
Anyway, for a garmin product this is really a bad one. I just hope that they improve their quality. Myself i will never buy another Garmin again. - 2010-05-28, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- stupid garmin
- Stupid Garmin has become my mantra unfortunately. I would return it if I had used it more often while this was still an option. Didn't discover until it was too late that the maps weren't up to date so I had to spend another 150 to update the maps. It takes you on the most cumbersome route to go anywhere. I wish I were exaggerating but it took me an HOUR to go a TEN MINUTE drive to my hotel. The garmin was completely wrong. I discovered the shorter route the next day and was very upset. If I had money for a new GPS I'd take great joy in taking out this stupid garmin Office Space Style.
- 2010-05-20, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Garbage in, Garbage out
- I received my new nuvi 775t last week. Easy to use, quick to find the signal, etc. No problems with the gadgetry, BUT the base maps for my area are atrocious. I understand Garmin subcontracts for the maps. They need to fire their map supplier.
I live near Pullman, in eastern Washington State. So, right off the bat, it becomes clear that it has major inaccuracies for the rural roads around my home. It seems to have overlaid three roads (Staley, Johnson, and Busby-Johnson), which confuses it. It thinks my own address is 1.7 mi from its true location. Okay, no problem. I totally understand that rural roads are lower priority than city roads.
I tested it by having it drive me to an address in Pullman and in Spokane. It worked great. Then, I let it give me directions to a place in Moscow, Idaho, 8 miles from Pullman. Between Moscow and Pullman, there is the old Moscow-Pullman hwy (mostly gravel) and SR 270, a 5-lane paved road. My Garmin is absolutely convinced that SR 270 is undrivable. It insists I take the old gravel road. I've tried playing with all the avoidances. If I tell it to take only paved roads, it reroutes me about 40 miles out of the way to avoid SR 270, which it apparently thinks is either gravel or impassable.
In Moscow itself, the exchange between Hwy 8 and Hwy 95 was redesigned 5-10 years ago. The Garmin does not know this and would completely confuse a traveler unfamiliar with the area by trying to give them directions according to the old design.
I can forgive the rural route issue, but I am astonished that the map suppliers don't review the major highways, at an absolute minimum of once a year. I mean, how long would it take? (By the way, I did the North Amercian map update the day the unit arrived. I have their most recent maps.)
I don't have a Magellan or a Tom-tom to compare the Garmin maps. Those two use a different map service. Maybe they are no better, but it's hard to believe they could be worse.
Garmin seems to spend a bundle making a gazillion different units, adding features, etc. But what good are all those features if the maps are garbage? The maps are the cake. Everything else is icing.
The one feature I'd really like would be the option to avoid a route that requires a left-hand turn or a street crossing from a side road to a main artery with no signal light. Of course, that's the "avoidance" Garmin does not have. - 2010-03-23, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Good unit
- I've had a 770 and got the 775 for my wife. She likes it and likes that the speed is displayed even while navigating (unlike the 770). She also likes the lane assist. It shows you which lane to be in, in plenty of time to merge. Other than that, there's not much difference between the 770 and 775.
- 2010-02-22, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
