Which Garmin would you get?

 

Hi All,

Been getting use to my Nuvi 680 and was wondering what those with more experience with GPS systems think about the 6xx, 7xx and 8xx series.

I got the 680 at Costco, for our trip down to Baltimore, MD from Toronto, ON and I've been trying to create a route on it that would somewhat match the one that we take when using the MS Streets & Trips off the laptop.

We got a new, bigger laptop and the wife doesn't want it sitting on her lap for the whole 10 hour trip. grin

So, if you had the choice to pick between any one of the models (or even another GPS brand) which one would you pick and why? (not only long distance trips, but daily use as well.)

These are the current ones at Costco.ca:

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare.do?compare=compare&compa...

Thanks for you're thoughts, in advance,

S Johnson.

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Roleplaying Canuck Gamer with: Nuvi 760 & 2595 LMT (Map Ver.: 2019.30) 2012 RAM 1500 4x4 Big Horn Quad

I would go with the 880, if

I would go with the 880, if you can afford it and you would like the voice activation. If your cell phone has voice activation features, its a plus, I have a Motorola from ATT and able to call my friends. Plus able to receive text messages on the screen..

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NickJr Nuvi 3597LMT

Which Garmin would you get?

Well, of the ones you posted, the only one that doesn't seem to support a custom route is the 680.

There are some tricks you can play between your laptop's mapping software and the GPS though.

Print out the route and directions from the PC with stops identified for meals and gas. When you start, put in stop 2 as your destination and use stop 1 as a waypoint. This should get you close if you want it in the GPS.

I just finished a cross-country trip, from Maryland to California and back. Used the printed maps from my PC and monitored my position with the GPS. We had loaded the rest areas with a half mile (800 m) proximity alert so we could get off when needed and could look and see when the next one was coming up.

When going through some of the larger cities, we put in a destination somewhere on the other side of the city and then stopped it from trying to route us once we were through the city or town. We did all this with a bare-bones Nuvi 200 and a 2 GB SD card to hold the custom POI. idea

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ɐ‾nsǝɹ Just one click away from the end of the Internet

750 is great.

I don't need bluetooth on my GPS since I have a dedicated Motorola visor speaker. Very happy with the 750.

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non-native nutmegger

Narrow the choice

You can narrow your choices by refining your needs.

Since you expressed an interest in custom routing, you can eliminate the 680 because it does not support that. Nothing else wrong with the 680 of course, it just does not have custom routes that you mentioned.

Of the three 7xx models, they are all basically identical except for Bluetooth and the supplied maps.

The 770 is identical to the 760 except the 770 also includes European maps. Unless you're planning a driving trip in Europe you can eliminate the 770 and $200.

The 760 is identical to the 750 except the 750 does not include Bluetooth.

Personally, I did not care about Bluetooth, but at the time of purchase the 760 was on sale and was within $10 of the price of the 750. I liked the black color better, so I bought the 760 and just turned the Bluetooth off.

Your choice could be simplified by only choosing between the 750/760 vs the 880. You'll have to decide if the extra features are worth the extra $300. I would really like voice command capability myself, but not at that price. There will probably be many other not so obvious differences that would show up on a performance-based review comparison. Right now the 760 is experiencing some significant firmware difficulties and it is unclear if Garmin will be able to successfully solve them.

Hope this helps your decision process.

`

johnc wrote:

Right now the 760 is experiencing some significant firmware difficulties and it is unclear if Garmin will be able to successfully solve them.

It's not just the 760 with issues on the 4.0 and issues not fixed in 4.1 fiasco - my 750; and other threads here have noted Garmin says a release to fix the issues is 'immanent'.

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*Keith* MacBook Pro *wifi iPad(2012) w/BadElf GPS & iPhone6 + Navigon*

One Minor Clarification

One minor clarification to johnc's excellent post. The 760 & 770 come with an FM traffic receiver and a trial subscription. The 750 does not include the traffic receiver, although it can be purchased separately.

hybrid

What I'd actually like is one they don't have out at the moment. Hard to believe since they have a ridiculous number of units. I'd like the 785T along with the voice recognition of the 800 series. Now that would be sweet. There's no way I'd be willing to pay what it would cost though.

I'll stick with my 760 and hope they fix the firmware issue.

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GPSMAP 76CSx - nüvi 760 - nüvi 200 - GPSMAP 78S

Thanks!

johnc wrote:

You can narrow your choices by refining your needs.

...

Hope this helps your decision process.

Wow, thanks for all the info, I was thinking of the 760, as I do have a bluetooth enabled phone and it would mean that one less gadget that I'd have to take with me when I take a trip grin

I think I'll hold off for a while, since I've got 3 months to return the one I've got, until I see that these models firmware issues are resolved.

The 880 is tempting, for the remote, I drive a minivan and the windshield is a bit deep, I've got no real problem, a little shift forward, but the wife can't reach it. But for the extra cost ($300+) I can reach over and pass it to her laugh out loud

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Roleplaying Canuck Gamer with: Nuvi 760 & 2595 LMT (Map Ver.: 2019.30) 2012 RAM 1500 4x4 Big Horn Quad