Nuvi 880 and Beyond (Product Discussion Thread)

My replacement unit had arrived. so far it's working fine. I had to call msn to register the new traffic antenna and cancel the old one. I also had to call Garmin to obtain a new unlock code for the replacement unit.

Garmin Released # nuvi 880 Ver. 3.10 as of Sep 02, 2008.

New software can be installed directly or by using the following link:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/store/downloadsUpdates.jsp?produ...

Major Changes made from version 3.00 to 3.10:

* Improved support for WebUpdater
* Corrected issue with DEM data appearance when using track-up map orientation
* Improved FM transmitter frequency adjustments for European locales
* Improved appearance of metadata and spectrum analyzer in Music Player
* Corrected issue where scroll arrows were inactive on MSN movie review pages
* Improved appearance of address search page when maps for two or more countries are detected
* Improved speech recognition support for supplemental map data
* Lowered default backlight brightness in night mode
* Improved shortest time route calculation for some routes
* Corrected issue when viewing multiple traffic events on current route
* Improved coordinate entry keyboard translations
* Improved Audible player to pause and rewind slightly when pause button is pressed
* Improved banner message indicating the MSN Direct free trial was ending
* Improved FM Transmitter broadcast audio quality
* Added hour glass in Language Guide when voice language is being switched
* Improved Music Player to remember track position through suspend/resume or power cycles
* Improved turn preview page so it advances automatically to next turn when one turn completes
* Improved music player to avoid lowering music volume if voice level is set to 0%
* Added space to humidity field on the MSN weather page
* Removed speech recognition shortcuts for volume when using the FM transmitter
* Improved roadside assistance page to only display phone icon if bluetooth is paired
* Corrected issue where some outgoing SMS messages had partially obscured text
* Corrected potential UI freeze when receiving an incoming handsfree call
* Improved non-English translations
* Other minor corrections and improvements

Does the the Nuvi 880 automatically change the time zone and update the ETA when you are driving into a different zone? I have not made a long trip with this unit yet.

What Garmins do automatically change time zones?

Garmin finally sent a new MSN receiver for my 880 and now I do receive all the MSN information, prior to this I only received the traffic. Today, for the first time I noticed the unit rebooted itself when it came upon a red light camera notice. I will check this again when I go out this afternoon to see if the red light camera actually caused the gps to reboot.

My 880 also did the reboot at a red light camera this week. I thought it was just random since this is only my fourth week with the 880.

Is this a known glitch that has been discussed elsewhere?

Today is the first time it happened to me.. I am wondering if it had to do with the latest firmware upgrade to 3.10.. I am going to see if this happens when I remove the SD card or just temporarily not load the red light camera file to see if this happens again.

No, and I am Quoting Garmin Support..

"The nuvi does not automatically change time zones. The unit displays the time in correspondence with the time zone that you selected when you set up your unit."

I have seen this a couple of times..

I have a Nuvi 880 and I understand it can receive text messages. I bluetooth paired my cell phone (which is the just released LG Dare phone) and tested to see if I receive a text message on my Garmin and I did not. =(
Does it depend on what service provider I have? I use Verizon Wireless which runs on the CDMA network. I wonder if it would work if I had a phone using the GSM network like the iPhone from AT&T?
Are you guys able to receive text messages on your Nuvi 880? If so, what cell phone provider do you use?
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Roy

From what I understand none of the LG phones support sending or receiving text messaging to any NUVi model. I have the Voyager model and it does not support it. There are phones that Verizon has that will work. I believe either Motorola or Samsung have models that do.

The phone must support SMS/Text Messaging using Bluetooth to work with the NUVi.

My Motorola Razor V9 from ATT does receive text messages. I just tried it now and it works real nice with my Nuvi 880

This is confirmed, LG is not supported

Well it happen again, unable to receive any of the MSN information except for the traffic information. Garmin wanted to send me a new unit but I decided to hold off for another MSN receiver and see how long this one will work. It is the same issue, when you go Settings, System and then About, for the GDB SW Version is says N/A which is the same issue I had with my previous receiver. This time if it doesn't fix the problem, I will then get a new replacement.

Hi Nick,

Well, just had a look, My 880 displays the same info.

Software Version 3.20
Audio Version: 2.20
Unit ID: ??????????
GPS SW Version: 2.60m
Bluetooth SW Version: 3.10
GDB SW Version: N/A

Mike

Are you receiving all you info from your MSN icons?

Hi Nick,

Well, I'm not sure if its suppose to work like this but, when the unit is plugged into the car adapter I get a version of 2.50 if I'm on battery power I get version = N/A.

The subscription is active and the unit appears to be working.

Mike

Changes made from version 3.10 to 3.20:

* Improved 'Find near' searches for custom POI's
* Improved spell search on MSN items
* MSN Movies review page now includes rating stars
* Improved find nearest POI category searches when using ASR
* Improved Hungarian QWERTY keyboard
* Corrected issue where some POI phone numbers failed to appear on POI review page
* Improved position of sun and moon icons on GPS satellite page
* Improved non-English translations
* Other minor corrections and improvements

When I try to reset the MSN receiver, I finally noticed I was using the wrong hole to do the reset, when I finally realized that the unit reset itself and everything works fine now. I am sending the new unwrapped MSN receiver back to Garmin.. Getting old is Hell, can't see so good.

That's funny, I just wished that we can reset our age as well!

i have a nuvi 880 as a replacement for my tomtom go 910.
i bought an 8gb micro sd i can use poi loader on my windows xp laptop to put pois into the card but when i boot the nuvi id does not find them under extras or seemingly anywhere else. i want to use the capacity of the sd card as the 880 i have shows up as having under 4gb total. overtime user stuff can get big, hence the sd.

cheers
chris

Some of the nuvi don't recognize SD card for POI. You have plenty of space on 880 for the POI's. and use everthing else from the SD Card..

I just wanted to share with the owners of units that can remove their battery. Yesterday, for some reason my contacts were not available to me to remotely call them up and have my voice dial them; my MSN local events were not working, all other MSN items working fine. just by removing the battery for about 2 minutes did wonders, it restored all my contacts and fixed my local events with MSN. I am beginning to find out that the reset button is usually not the best choice, just remove the battery and let it sit for a few minutes, it will save you a trip sending your unit back to Garmin

Hello everyone,

I got the 765T with FM traffic, when i hook up the traffic receiver to my 880, the list for traffic pop up and notice only 4-5 locations. At the same time the 765 notice 10 different locations. I have tried different time of the day and the 880 always notice less than the 765. Any idea how it happend?

Thankx

Most probably the traffic severity display was set to very low on the 756T. Since in Nuvi you we can't alter the traffic incidents display, it's mostly done through the built-in configuration, I Think!

How do you find the quality of the voice commands..?

It could be better. Basically it is a trial and error scenario...

I have trouble with Nuvi880 when searching the POI, it show up the list then freeze for about 10 - 20 second before I can touch anything on screen. I got the lastest FW and any idea how to fix it?

Thank you.

I would not hesitate in contacting Garmin and asking for a replacement, they are very good about that. I did notice today for the first time in awhile when I did a search on a particular POI and clicked on go, it rebooted itself, I had this problem in another 880 but this is the first time this one has rebooted. I will continue to watch if this happens again, if it does, off to Garmin it goes.

I don't think garmin is able to change the time zone. But with the MSNDirect the time zone should change automatically. Some of us have posted about this in the past. I belive when garmin shipped me theres it had a different time zone and it changed to the zone i'm in here. Do a google search on it because I thought some of the newer ones had auto time zone transition.

When they send the replacement unit, is it brand new unit or used one? I got another problem: when I first turn the unit on outside safe location, it ask for PIN, if I press the cancel button on the remote, then the screen go white and frozen. If I was inside safe location, it would go back to main screen without asking PIN.

Thank you and best regards,

My experience with Garmin replacement, was always a new replacement. Giving the fact that your unit is not like 2 years old unit, most probably you will get a brand new unit, but they will place a hold on Credit card.

I sat down this morning to register my new 880. Everything was going good and I was at the point where you unplug the Garmin from the computer so it will update the software.

The update started processing and as I set down the unit I saw that the switch was in the lock position, thinking that it would be better to not have it there I moved the switch and inadvertently turned off the unit. Now all I get is the Garmin splash screen and the 880 will not start. I've reset - removed the battery and searched Garmin's site for an answer.

Also my computer does not recognize that the unit is connected to the computer.

Does anyone have any advice or a fix? At this point any help would be welcome. I would really hate to have to send the unit back to Garmin.

I was considering an 880 as an upgrade to my 660, but it seems like there are still some bugs. Should I wait or is it safe???
Regards,
Keith

The first thing I would do is contact Garmin come Monday. They are usually good about support and should be able to send you a DVD of what you need or figure out another way that you don't have to send it back.
http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/support/supportcont...

This unit offers voice recognition. Any problems effected with this feature when the updates are done ?

Did you try the Hard Reset..?
Slide the Power to the left and hold for a minimum of 8 Seconds. The unit should operate normal. You can also try to remove and reinstall the Battery.

Not that I know of. The voice recognition is still functioning as intended.

The Bugs will be in every Garmin new unit. the only benefits of waiting is getting latest maps and cheaper price. Garmin always offer the free software upgrade and fixes.

I was looking at all the Garmin Models at https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134 and reviewed some of the owner manuals.It appears all of the models ending in T have the automatic time change as well as a lot of Nuvi 200 models.It even states on 200 model to look and see if the setting is there.Didn't see anything for the 800 series but find that hard to believe.To find if you have it click on tools,settings,time and if you see current time touch the time.You should see automatic for time.

I just received e-mail from GPSDeals4U.com stating that Garmin announced the intent to discontinue Nuvi 880 and 850 GPS. they are offering the 880 ON SALE!!! for $579.95

Changes made from version 3.20 to 4.00:

* U-turn direction icon was sometimes incorrect in UK
* Custom avoid area box wasn't being shaded
* Coordinates on the review page are localized
* Iceland MPC map city search broken
* Formatting on traffic description page corrected for Italian language
* GPS suspend/resume issue resolved
* Corrected Polish MPC map city search
* Improved interaction between POIs and phone calls
* Speed/proximity alerts now work correctly with a VIB 11
* Backlight timeout improvement

I wonder where they got that information. I wouldn't be surprised if Garmin replaced them with an 8x5 version.

On our weekend drive to Louisiana, I left my 880 in the car, turned on. Don't know what caused it to lose its touch screen sensitivity, but when we hit the road this morning, I had to give it voice commands. With voice commands, you cannot enter a new address to navigate to, so it was only tracking our trip as we came home. It did, for the first time, warn us of a traffic slowdown on I-10 in Alabama, which was helpful.

After we got home, I went to Garmin and found that my touch screen needed recalibrating, which was simple enough to do....just hold the power button down for 30-40 seconds while the unit was turned OFF. So then it started working.

I also found the new base unit software version 4.0 and had Webupdater install it for me. It also had an update for the MSN Direct, which I took, and the Bluetooth update also. I still enjoy the Audible.com books on it, the voice comes through loud and clear. I never have tried to hook it up through the FM radio, since I'm cautious about broadcasting my wireless phone calls.

I've had the unit for about 6 months now, and like it a lot. It's about time it went down in price, nothing stays new forever. I can live with that.

If I do get another GPSr, it will be one I can really play with, like for geocaching. We'll see. Right now, there is a moratorium on discretionary spending at our house.

One of the best ways I found if you have any difficulties with your 880, is just remove the battery for about 30 minutes, you be surprised how everything will return to normal, even if you are having problem with MSN, removable of the battery will clear most MSN problems.

My Nuvi 880 is paired with my Sony Ericsson and the incoming text messages would be displayed when ‘Review’ was selected without fail. Until recently that is.
It now locks up and I then have to remove the battery and reboot.
Anyone have this happen or have a solution I can try?

Thanks… palestar

Strike that request. After some 'experimenting' I tried disconnection and removing the phone from the Nuvi then removed the Nuvi from my phones ‘devices’ list. Then re-added (reintroduced) them to each other. All is well and good now.

I also just got a Dare and a Nuvi 880. My Nuvi was able to Bluetooth pair with my previous LG VX5300 *and* tranfer the contact list, calls dialed/received and missed etc. It would not display TXT messages though.

Now, paired with the LG Dare, the Nuvi will only operate hands-free. It will not even display my contacts list from the phone. Is this what other users are seeing? Is there hope for a software update that will improve things in the future?

thanks

Different phones provide different ‘toys’ that will work with the Nuvi. My Sony Ericsson has some neat ‘toys’ that work well with the Nuvi. Other phones that are not as ‘Geeky’ as the more expensive brands just won’t provide you with the same experience or satisfaction that these 880’s can deliver. Even with my k790a Sony and the ‘toys’ it has it’s a little behind the newer Sony Ericsson that my son recently purchased because he like the ‘toys’ that my k790a has. His phone took a big ‘geek’ leap over my phone.

I have my wireless service with ATT and the only cell phone, outside of maybe a Blackberry where all the functions of the nuvi worked was with the Motorola Razor.

On My trip to Florida, I had several search issues. Trying to search POI by spelling tends to either lock the unit for a while or automatic reboots. any feedback on this issue..?. This is using the latest ver 4.0 Nuvi Update

My 880 reboots by itself once in awhile for no reason that I can think of. This is my second one, the first one I had did it more frequently that the one I have now.