Garmin 3790T

I BOUGHT 3790T FIRST WEEK IT CAME OUT FOR MY BUSNESS. THE FIRST DAY IT FROZE UP.COULD NOT TURN IT OFF. WE LET THE BATTERY RUN DEAD. THE NEXT DAY WORKED FINE TILL 3:33 PM IT FROZE AGAIN. BEST BUY GOT IT BACK. JUNK. DONT BUY. WE NEED DEPENDABLE SERVICE. WE HAVE A 255W WORKS FINE. $129.00 DONT GET 255WT. T STANDS FOR TRAFFIC. THE 255W HAS TRAFFIC FREE. ENJOY.

for your post Modgnik, and welcome to POI Factory. Just wanted to say there is no need to shout on this forum. People here are very friendly and will respond to your posts without shouting.

Sorry you had a bad experience on your 3790T. It seems that most users who have bought that unit have been pretty happy with it. Maybe you just got a defective one.

Just for clarification, the 255w is traffic compatible and will receive traffic if you purchase a traffic receiver separately. The 255WT comes with the traffic receiver in the box.

I like the look of this unit more than the Nuvi models but I keep waiting for something fresh with the feel of the firmware.

alandb, please don't get offended...but I had to laugh after reading of your comment... and I just wish, you were right...have a nice day and keep your positive thinking.
I hope, it might happen one day and Garmin will get back where used to be...design of new units is really awsome, just if it was true with software reliability too...

Mine 3790T work with both GTM-25 and GTM-35 traffic receivers.
The only thing I dislike is the bulky cord compare to slim unit. Garmin could do a better job built in the receiver to the unit and made a tiny car charger just like Belkin USB charger for iphone/ipod.

You must a bad unit cause my unit work perfectly with voice commands. There is a known issues with the Red Light camera that should be fix in a future update.

You must have a bad unit cause I've had my for a month and I love it. Anytime you buy a mass produced item you will always get a bad one but that doesn't mean that the company or the whole line is junk. This scenario happens everyday with appliances, cars and anything that you buy that is mass produced.

Anyone know how soon Garmin will release the fix for Nuvi 3790T redlight camera and map update?

If they don't do anything soon some people might return the unit.

So true here. Not sure how many people are having bad experiences, I am about to buy mine. What I will say is that every time I have had any type of issue with Garmin, I have called for tech support. The wait sometimes is long, but each time I have talked to a real human being that speaks the same language I do. The three times I called I was actually speaking to someone in Oleathe, Kansas- they were knowledgable, friendly, and absolutely helped with my problem. What I am trying to say is that costomer service goes a long way and Garmin has the best of most companies out there today. When my 660 went bad 2 years after I purchased it, Garmin had me mail it back and sent me a new one without charge. They did the same for my GTM 20 traffic receiver. I can't say enough good things about Garmin Customer Service. I will go with garmin for that alone.

My 3790T got a cracked screen today. Yesterday I put it into a Garmin slip case and carried it in my cargo shorts front pocket. I have done this for years with my 650. When I put it back in my car today I found the screen was destroyed with a spider web of cracks.

Garmin asked for $75 to "repair or replace" the unit. They say it will be 10 to 14 days from the time they receive it.

For all you folks with one of these units I urge you to get a hard shell case for transporting. These nüvis are thin and it looks like mine flexed a small amount but enough to kill it.

If anyone has found a hard camera or portable hard-drive case that fits a 37xx please let me know.

I bought a nice semi "hard" case at Big Lots for $10 last week. Logo on the case says, "GPS Traveller". It is big enough to hold a GPS that is 5" wide. Hope this helps.

appears to be very well suited for any 4.3 inch GPS. It's called the Navi-Shield. See link below.

http://products.lowepro.com/product/43-Navi-Shield,2179,50.h...

This one I've seen a few places including Best Buy. If I recall correctly, the price was somewhere between $24 to $27. I know, a little pricey but your might want to protect that pricey 3790 too:)) The case also has places for charger/cables and even SD cards. It's a well built, attractive hard case. Lowe Pro makes all kinds of fine camera bags too. Happy shopping.

"Could there be a difference between 765T units bought in the US versus those bought in Canada? I have noticed that many of thise who hate the unit are from Canada."

curious on how you made that leap, I am not satisfied with the 765 and I live in the US. On my third unit would have been 4 but the 4.0 update corrected most of my complaints, the refurnished unit I finally ended up with didn't have any dead pixels or stuck on pixels so everything is ok for the moment.

That is along the line of what I am looking for but it looks awfully thick. I am hoping to find something that provides protection but still allows pocket use.

The 37xx have a pedestrian mode so they are meant to be carried around. I used it quite successfully when walking around Portland, Maine last month. Until I find a good case I will only carry it in my shirt pocket.

Great idea. I found one and will try it when I get the broken unit returned. It looks roomy enough. I like the belt loop hook too. It really is too big for a pocket but the hook will help to transport the unit.

I have used the pelican cases, but they are bulky to be carrying around in your pocket. They work great in my carryon going through airports until I get to my rental car. Small enough to put in your computer bag, but to big to carry around

It amazes me the many public reviews that rave about these boat anchors - clearly anyone who says anything good about them hasn't turned one on. Totally premature release with so much wrong with them. Here's a few:
a) if you have no GPS signal you have to power-off reset if you say stop looking for satellites (Tomtom you can just click on the strength bars)..
b) POI icons still max of 24x24 even though the hi-res means they have shrunk to 60% so you can't see any decent ones (what bright spark at Garmin couldn't predict that one);
c) none of the inbuilt POIs display when driving (Fuel, ATM, etc) -but you can set them as a destination. Custom POIs display but you cannot click on them to find the detail;
d) No train stations (I guess they idiotically removed all the Public Transport POIs so they could see with CityXplorer maps - talk about ruin your reputation);
e) As with comments on other forums, sends you in massive loops to navigate to the opposite side of the street (in my case a 1 km loop past many streets I could turn around in);
f) on a main road 3 km long to my office in a straight line it kept trying to divert me into side streets ("rat running") presumably to avoid traffic lights, but each side street would dead-end and have to eventually come back out onto the same main road - so it made no sense at all !!
g) so many user options that people expect as standard are removed, eg. avoid Toll Roads, etc. Some idiot at Garmin has decided to do an iPhone idiot trick and decide for you how you want it to work.

PROs: sexy display to look at before you notice how much is missing, or how much its intelligent navigation is cocking up; nice undock from cradle.
CONs: guessing how many months before Garmin may or may not fix up all the massive inept mistakes. Do yourself a favour - buy a TomTom instead... these are currently the biggest mistakes in the market.

I've also been looking at 3790t, found lots reviews at Amazon. Per one reviewer, a new firmware update was released last month, there are some bugs prior to the update (per several reviewers), but most reviews are positive.

I'm a klutz, but tried replacing the battery on a nuvi 650 a few months ago. Even tho I found a web video to help, I ended up damaging a ribbon connector between the motherboard and the screen. I found a place willing to repair it, but so far they've not been successful. Cost $29 for the battery, $10 for tools, $29 for repair, plus shipping. Sign.

I'd been better off paying for someone more handy than I to replace the batt, but at the time, the prices to do so seemed pretty steep.

YMMV

Are you sure you posted this in the right place - Garmin 3790T ??

I bought the 3760T instead of the 3790T, and so far I really like the unit. The only concern I have is that the GPS runs quite hot to the touch, and it is not all solar heating. Do the rest of you experience this with your 37XX units?

I believe it's normal. I've handled quite a few different 37xx units and they all ran "hot". The difference between the 37xx series and other nuvi models is that the aluminum back is likely the heat sink for the CPU and other supporting chips.

Other nuvis have quite a bit of air space between the mainboard and the case. Whatever heat is generated by the unit is transferred to the air space rather than directly to the case back.

I doubt that there's very much air space at all inside the 37xx.

What's the processor speed on the 37xx series? Do you know off hand?

After my 3790T cracked in my pocket I received a replacement yesterday (for a $75 charge from Garmin). The build quality of this unit seems much sturdier and it has a better functioning power button.

This unit continues to have the problem I was experiencing getting POI files to load using POI Loader for Mac. The program would say that the file was loaded but it never actually seemed to write to the Garmin. I found the solution:
1. Run POI Loader to save the poi.gpi file to the computer.
2. Manually copy the poi.gpi file to the Garmin's poi.gpi folder.
3. Yank the USB cord from the Garmin when the copy is complete. This is in violation of the usual Eject procedure but seems to work without harm to the Garmin. Ejecting the drive will negate the copy, leaving the old poi.gpi in place.

I have seen that some Windows users are having similar issues, so this seems to be a Garmin issue with writing to the nuvi's memory, not an OS issue.

I am glad that you have something that works but was just wondering - after you do the manual copy to the Garmin, can you open the file on the Garmin...\Garmin\POI folder in, say, the Mac equivalent of Wordpad?

What I am trying to determine in my own mind is what would cause an apparent erasure of the file during the 'safely remove" process. If the copy had completed AND IF you were able to THEN open the .gpi file in the Mac equivalent of Wordpad, I am at a loss as to how or why "safely remove" would have any impact.

I use Windows so maybe another Mac users could give us some insight.

The file will open after the transfer but will not permanently write to the Garmin if I select Eject disk.

I have no idea why this works. I have not seen such behavior when writing to any other media with a Mac. I think there is some error in the Garmin firmware that is affecting how files are written to the unit.

There is discussion at the beginning of this thread on what may be happening. It seems that just pulling the USB out is a better way to disconnect for both Windows and Mac users.

This is some kind of issue involving write caching to the 37xx. For some reason, the files (seemingly smaller-sized files) are not actually being written to the unit when "safely remove" is used. To top it off, you cannot change write caching on the 37xx as those options are grayed out. I have had no issues under WinXP 32-bit but frequently have this issue under Win7 64-bit. It also seems to be intermittent as some users report they have had no problem under Win7 64-bit...it's an odd bug. The work-around is to wait a minute or so after transferring the file, then simply pull the plug. Goes against everything I've been taught through the years regarding USB removable storage devices but it does in fact work.

I also can not see any POI on my Garmin when in View Map mode. This includes custom POI as well as the default POIs. Seems like this is bug that I'm surprised hasn't been fixed yet.

Check out http://www.the-portable-gps.com/garmin-portable-gps.html they have a chart comparing all the Garmin models. You can click on the model you are interested in and read reviews from current owners of that particular unit. Hope this helps

Is anyone having problems where you get a traffic signal, it stays working, but then it drops and doesn't reacquire again automatically? I have a problem (have latest firmware), where my unit works great on traffic and suddenly i get poor traffic reception. Yet, it doesn't reacquire a signal automatically in areas where there is a strong signal. The only solution I've found is to pull out the Adapter from the cigarette lighter and put it back in. Thus, the signal returns just fine. Otherwise, it'll lose the signal and just say poor reception 1 minute, 2 minutes, etc never finding it again.

My 3790T gets good reception except when I am in fringe areas of metropolitan areas. I have seen similar behavior of traffic icon going from green to grey to green again but it is always while traveling far from the city center. The traffic receiver is a FM antenna that is prone to the vagaries of weather, direction, placement in the car, and distance from the transmitter.

The only complaint i would have is the speech recognition is HORRIBLE. For 450 dollar Garmin should used a way better software technology. They were to cheep to get like the Dragon Naturally Speaking technology.9 out of ten times have missed the name of the city....the numbers....many time creates an extra number like you say 6234...becomes 62034 . So it is just faster to type it in then fight it out with the device...where to....i say Glendale....3790 says...did you say Alhambra? and i am not kidding. That is not even close. And its happening all the time. Shame on you Garmin....Profits....profits....maximum profits

I've found the speech recognition on my Pioneer N3, my cell phone, and other products to be really poor. It's just not there yet. Ambient noise really makes it more difficult too. I guess the 3790T is in the same ballpark too. I was hoping to get one but since I've seen so many posts here and other places RE: the poor recognition, I may wait.

Well mine never returns to life. I actually did a drive from where I live to Detroit and back, and the grey icon never sprung back to life. I ran another test locally, and found the same issue.

Basically, it'll say poor reception for 1 minute, etc and never turn green again. The only way I have found to correct the problem is yank out the traffic receiver from the lighter and plug it back in. Thus, it reacquires a signal.

Wondering why it would work fine though for some duration but fail? It always works initially, but then drops.

Torn between wondering if this is a hardware problem or a software / firmware glitch.

Yep, mines doing the same thing as yours. My guess its a firmware issue.

Yours is doing the same as in my post of my 3790t? The Icon goes grey, loses traffic, and never springs back to life until pulling the cigarette plug and putting it back in? Was your reply to me or someone else?

It was to you. Also I dont think we are the only ones experiencing this issue.

I was eying this baby....but no more, needs a lot of fixes from those "hands on reviews" I read. We'll wait for the fixes first.

My unit runs real hot also, bin like that from day 1.
At home on the usb its not bad but hooked up in the truck through cigarette lighter its hot as heck, almost seems like it just keeps charging the Battery constantly even after its full. No trickle charge built in.

AS I was going to do a Return Authorization my my Traffic Cord, thinking it was bad. All I know is that I'll be driving along, it loses signal, and never regains. It lost signal from Ohio to Michigan and Never reacquired until I yanked the cord and stuck the traffic receiver plug back in the lighter.

So Anyone else other than Drew and I had this problem? I'm on the fence if to try a replacement of the cable or see if a firmware fault is the culprit.

CNET video review:
http://reviews.cnet.com/car-gps-navigation/garmin-nuvi-3790t...

CNET:
Garmin Nuvi 3790T

Editors' rating: 4.5 out of 5

The good: The Garmin Nuvi 3790T is one of the thinnest and lightest portable navigators we've tested; it's the best looking, too. Voice Command is truly hands-free and can be activated merely by speaking to the Nuvi. Bluetooth calling also helps drivers keep their hands on the wheel. Traffic data is free.

The bad: The glossy screen tends to create a good deal of glare when used in direct sunlight. Traffic data cannot be accessed while using the device in the hand.

The bottom line: The Garmin Nuvi 3790T is an exceptional portable navigation device with just the right blend of form and function.

Read CNET's full review
Price range: $444.50-$449.99

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2300-1041_3-10004742.html?tag=newslette...

The bottom line: The Garmin Nuvi 3790T is an exceptional portable navigation device with just the right blend of form and function.

Read CNET's full review
Price range: $444.50-$449.99

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2300-1041_3-10004742.html?tag=newsletter&tag=nl.e434#ixzz0zA7haAGt[/quote]

I've always wondered, how these guys test "some" of this stuff. Like did they take it outside and use it for a week, putting it through it's paces? I think not. I'll stick with the user reviews. If I want a GPS i'll come here.

Had mine for a week now, great little unit, love the voice activation feature, never have to touch touch it...occassional failure to recognise your voice command but so much better than the Tomtom 930 which was good but nothing like this, and if you get one this month FREE lifetime map upgrades....yippee!

After reading about changing the POIs to 256 8 Bit, I tried and was still having problems.
I then created POI storage Files on my computer and converted all my POIs to 256 8 Bit. I then ran POI Loader on all of my files and saved the GPI files in two separate storage files (one for 3790T and one for the SD card which holds the majority of my files.
I then deleted POIs on my 3790T and My SD Card and then copied the updated files from my computer to the 3790T and the SD Card. Every POI that I have, now displays on the screen.
I Did not have to do any master resets or anything else.

Some questions:
So the secret is to remove all image files and replace with 8-bit 256-color files? I assume those are bmp files? What size are the images (pixel x pixel size)? How big do they appear on the 3790? Thanks.

I used MS Paint and pulled each image up and saved it as 256 Color Bitmap (.bmp)
My sizes are primarily 22 x 22 but I do have some 24 x 22, 17x24, etc. Majority are 22 x 22. The images initially appear smaller but as you approach them they appear larger. I have read others that you should make them bigger I haven't tested them yet as I can see them with no problems.
Like I said when I started testing I would use POI Loader to directly place them on the unit and would not see them (except for some McDonalds, and Walmarts). I use POI Loader to convert them on my computer and then delete the ones I have on the unit and the SD Card and the copy them from the Computer to the Unit and the SD Card. After 2 weeks of driving around the only one that I have had problems with is Wachovia - the icon displays but it is white with only a little side view of the Wachovia sign. Still working on that one.
Hope this helps.

It certainly did help! Thanks Gary.

I've been playing with this icon issue off and on for a few weeks now with limited success but after reading your posts I started to use MS Paint instead of my normal Graphics tool. That made the difference.

With Paint I would use Save As and was then able to select to save the bitmap files as 256 color. Although I thought I was doing that with my other programs, obviously I wasn't. With Paint it warned me each time I saved an icon that was not 256 colors and I found lots of them. Once saved as 256 color bitmaps, all my icons now appear at zoom levels of 80m or less.

Thanks again.

@brentrn - I played a bit with the icon size (all my icons are 22x22) and found it made little difference. If you double the size for instance, it will be distorted/blurry and only a little bit bigger on the screen. The problem is that they still only appear at 80/50/30m so you don't really gain anything by enlarging them.

80m equates to 200ft. It also seems like you need to zoom to 50m/120ft before the icon first shows up and then you can zoom out to 80m/200ft and it will remain visible.

I purchased the 3790T a couple of months ago and noticed many micro cracks where you touch the "return" menu at the bottom left of the screen. Returned unit to retailer Johnny Appleseed GPS for new unit. Replacement unit screen cracked about 3 weeks later while in a semi hard case from my previous GPS unit the Nuvi 660 which I had unfortunately dropped and broke screen. Just like the guy with the cargo pants with the spider cracked screen the previous day it was ok but the next morning the screen was broken. The unit has no blemishes on it and where the crack is you cannot feel any ridges from the crack. What is surprising is that according to this website Garmin charged $75 for a screen replacement whereas Garmin Australia want to charge $420 (US/AUD about the same) to replace the screen which appears exorbitant given that the unit cost me almost $500 to buy in the first place. Any suggestions!

I was told that a screen repair would be US$150 but they offered a one-time discount of $75. They did not actually repair the unit but sent me new one.

Cracks due to user error, such as in my case, are not covered by the warranty. It is really up to Garmin in these cases. I would complain that their fee is too high and the breakage is partly due to their poor durability design. If they don't want to help tell them you will be switching manufacturers.