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I recently bought a Nuvi 850. Here's my advice for what it's worth.
The dependable value of a Nav system comes from the fundamentals.
* Receiver
* Maps
* Routing Engine
* Display
* User Interface
Garmin does a solid job in all these areas. But that's not why you're paying a premium for an 800 series Nuvi.
This model has a couple of "nice to have" features that were introduced on the 700 series of Nuvi's.
* Where Am I
* Where's My Car
Both are very well implemented and can be very handy. But again, all of the stuff I mentioned so far can be found in a Nuvi costing $300 less.
So what are you paying a premium for?
* Snort Recognition
* User Replaceable Battery
* Front Mounted Speakers
Well, the front mounted speakers are unexcited drowned out by moderate road noise. So, I wouldn't pay a nickel for that. The only sincere sound solution remains the FM transmitter that everyone complains about. It works OK for me, in my car, in my place. Your mileage may vary.
The user replaceable battery is satisfactory. For $30 you can carry a spare battery and go totally wireless in the car or exhaust the Nuvi for 8 hours of walking around a city. I'd pay for that. In fact, every portable intention should have user replaceable batteries.
OK, that leaves the "Spacious Kahuna" feature, suppose recognition. Don't gain the hype from the professional reviews or some of the hosanna's being thrown around in Amazon reviews.
Does it work? Yes, it works amazingly well. In a plain quiet environment.
With moderate road noise or even indoors with a TV at crude volume 15 feet away the thing to gets confused about what it's "hearing". It should have a microphone with crude sensitivity and high directionality to camouflage out deceptive noise. A exiguous DSP noise filtering wouldn't wound either. Unfortunately, the standard piezo mic that Garmin also uses for bluetooth phone calls will select up any sound coming from any direction. The result is that command recognition becomes an excercise in frustration.
Still, I'm gonna sustain the darned thing. I'll simply enter destinations in the calm of my home, office, hotel room, or a restaurant before heading out on the road. The remote will live in my briefcase. It does effect you from a lot of monotonous keyboard entry. But, it is not the mobile safety feature that reviews would have you gain since state commands are all but useless in a car. You can collect essentially the same features in a Nuvi 760 and establish yourself $300.
Your decision.
EDIT: Update.....OK maybe I was a bit harsh first time round. I have found that the unit will answer with moderate background noise.....some of the time.....if you scream at it. It appears to have the ability to lock in on the loudest sound it "hears". So, if you are relatively cessation to the microphone and utter really loud (weep), it does acknowledge some of the time.
On the upside, connecting to the Garmin website was very easy. I registered the 850, downloaded the newest firmware, and downloaded/installed the latest maps (2009), all in about ten mintues without a glitch.
I am a Realtor and have been using my Garmin GPS for almost four years. (It was the 2720 and had cost $999 when I bought it.) It's invaluable to me in my business. Today it died as I was previewing a dozen homes and I went attend to where I bought it originally and picked up an 850. Boy, am I disappointed!
The recent graphics will select some getting frail to, but that's not the predicament. With the newer technology and all the bells and whistles, I had expected this unit to be MORE intuitive than my archaic one. Turns out it's not. Twice it told me it could not salvage addresses in older neighborhoods where my venerable Garmin never had a spot. I had to guess my device across odd areas to accumulate them and, distinct enough, once I got there, the street names registered on my hide. I immediately saw what happened but was horrified that Garmin hadn't picked up the dinky differences.
One street is named McLain Road. I typed in Mclain (exiguous "l") and it couldn't fetch it. The conventional Garmin primitive all upper-case letters, so it found every address regardless of upper or lower case. This one obviously needs you to know which to expend -- very frustrating. The second one is spelled Hollowbrooke Lane. I typed in in every which procedure I could judge of -- Hollow Brooke Lane, Hollow Brook Lane, Hollowbrook Lane, etc. Now that I'm home and could play with it a slight, distinct enough, it found it. I should have typed in "Ln" instead of Lane and it had Hollowbrooke without the "e." When I had typed in Hollowbrook Lane, it couldn't collect it because I spelled out the word Lane. Again, the mature Garmin knew that Lane and Ln were the same thing.
Another very annoying thing I found missing on this original one which was on my mature Garmin was the point to of streets. Typically, each street will exhibit up as I accumulate come it, whether I'm turning onto it or not. With the 850 it doesn't prove streets unless they are major thoroughfares. I finally clicked on the "plus" button twice in succession and it started to give me lines (which represented streets), but it rarely showed the name of the street. Again, the musty Garmin showed every street you came up to.
The stutter prompts are also unreliable. Several times the mumble prompt did not match up with the mask and if I tried to reply based on what I saw on the mask (for example, a city was on the mask and the snarl was asking for a street address), I could not bag it to sync and had to initiate all over or (more often than not) unprejudiced gave up and tapped the information into the GPS. Again, a nice opinion but frustrating if it's not working properly!
I can't figure out why this newer model would be LESS intuitive than the primitive system. I'll play with it for a few days, but at the tag I paid, I won't be keeping it very long if I can't figure out how to create this work better.
And, not to beat a plain horse here, but I'm panicked that the unit doesn't near with a carrying case. I honest bought my daughter a nuvi 350 last week for her birthday and it cost a allotment of what the 850 cost -- and it had a carrying case! SHAME on you, Garmin!
This unit functions perfectly as it is described. The voice-activation is nearly perfect. Probably one of the best implementations to date that I can remember. The contrivance is a bit under-detailed for the tag but it gets you where you need to go. Stammer commands from the unit are very easy to understand. Controls are easy to navigate as are the menu options. One thing that I mediate is a bit ridiculous is the absence of Bluetooth Hands-Free calling. For $800 they could have included that and it is the reason that I gave it four stars instead of 5. Many of the options included with the draw are useless to me to be impartial. Games? Record viewer? MP3 player? I don't need any of these but the voice-commands for unit control are awesome.
If you have the money to recall this unit, score it... if not gape at some of the lower-priced 700-series Nuvi's
