Garmin Nuvi 760

While my current unit does not have routing, the 2720 I once had did, I believe the limit is 50 sets of routes, not 50 points in a route.

The total waypoints you can store in the 760 is 500 and the stored routes is 10. I don't know the specific number of waypoints per route, but have read both 50 and 99.

I have entered 20 and it was still going. I guess we can agree that it handles a lot of stops in one route.

Bill

Well I was going to wait till the 760 was available at a decent price but the 680 is on sale at Costco online for under $500.00. That is too good a deal to pass up. If you want one better hurry they won't last longf at this price

I've had my 760 for about 1-1/2 to 2 weeks now... overall I like the 760 and it's interface... for the most part it's fairly intuative. The (PDF)user manual sucks- for what the price is, an actual paper manual (and an AC charger) are warrented. There are a number of features which I feel are essential, but which Garmin has chosen to hide (numerous 'press and hold on this part of the screen' until the feature is 'revealed'... these should not be hidden. When I called tech support to check on WAAS support, I was told that Garmin decided that WAAS was not neccesary because the 760 was designed for automotive use and was WAAS not supported by the hardware (uhhh... what about the usage mode select for automobile, bicycle, or pedestrian???). Then I pointed out that the SiRF Star III chipset which is used in the 760 is WAAS capable, and in fact is used in several other of their products which are WAAS-enabled... there was silence from the other end of the conversation. I hope that Garmin will enable WAAS in a future version of firmware, it was a stupid decision for them to disable it IMHO.

Why would I want a WAAS enabled GPS in my car? Well, for one, when I was using it to get a fix on new POI's, I would rather it be more accurate than less for the initial fix. Without WAAS, the GPS operates in a 'stay on road' mode. Okay, that's fine if all your fixes are on roads, or at intersections... but what about a speed camera that is in-between intersections? I would like to have the extra 30-40 feet accuracy to give me extra time to react. And what about GEO-caching??? Increasing your search area from 12- 15 feet to 40 plus feet changes it from a test of your skill in interpreting the instrument to a needle in the haystack scavenger hunt!

And this exchange from Garmin tech support which appeared earlier in this thread simply left me with my jaw hanging wide open... do they just leave the front door open at Garmin and let anyone walk in and do tech support for them these days???? I have been using Garmin GPS receivers since their first avionics products, and quite frankley, who the hell cares what you 'believe'??? Tell me what you KNOW!

"I believe WAAS is not supported in the 7xx line to conserve battery power.

Reference:

Product Support Specialist
2nd Shift Automotive Team
Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020
913-397-8282
www.garmin.com"

In fact, the SiRF Star III chipset is not only WAAS-capable, but was specifically designed for it's low power characteristics. Why Garmin chose not to enable this feature is a true mystery. I have 4 GPS receivers with SiRF Star III chipsets, and except for the 760, the other 3 have incredible battery life (and sensitivity). If there is anything in the 760 that needs power conservation addressed, the one thing that clearly doesn't is the SiRF Star III chipset!

It seems to me that the sophistication of the GPS receivers that Garmin turns out is inversely proportional to the competence of their tech support department. I hope that this is just a 'growing pain' of a rapidly expanding company, and that they will remedy this situation soon. The prospect of spending 30-60 minutes waiting in the tech support queue to speak to someone who is 'guessing' about the operation of a Garmin product is enough to make me seriously consider doing business elsewhere. Up until this receiver, I have always received excellent support from the tech support department, but after 4 telephone calls regarding the 760s operation that were met with substandard responses, I am greatly disappointed.

My next challenge is to figure out how waypoints work in the 760; not at all like any of the other 8 or 9 GPS receivers I have owned...

It's too bad, with so many great features, to hobble this receiver due to bad documentation, poor tech support, and hidden screens, not to mention an RF modulator that doesn't have enough power output in the default setting to quiet one's FM receiver (which in general, automobiles have high sensitivity receivers these days) for the majority of people, is a crying shame. I've increased the RF output level in the hidden diagnostic menu, but I've not had time to see if that helped yet.

Oh, BTW, the GTM 20 FM TMC (Traffic Message Channel) traffic receiver was included, and I from what I read, it was supposed to come with a 30-day free trial... when I connected it and it updated it's firmware, I checked the nuvi it said I had approximately 90 days left on my trial... maybe they have extended the ridiculously short 30 day trial period??? At least a small step in the right direction...

I just upgraded from a Nuvi 680 to a 760 and the first thing I noticed was the poor contrast at night. Where blacks are black on the 680, they are "blue" on the 760. Online manual is as bare-bones as it gets. And can anyone tell me how to use the "breadcrumb" feature? The manual gets an F" in this area. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably stick with the 680, though I've had the 760 for less than 12 hours and I do like the speed limit indication. And finally, can anyone tell me how to retrieve my favorites from the 680 and import them into the 760?

You can download you Favorites into MapSource and then load them to the new unit. Or copy the current.gpx file from one to the other.

Jamie, this is one of the least intuitive features of the 760... I've done it before, and I had to sit down and go through the menus repeatedly before I could remember how to do it.

From the 'Where to' / 'View map' screen:

Tools > Settings > Map > Trip Log ( Show / Hide }

Now, to clear the Trip Log is even less intuitive:

Tools > My Data > Clear Trip Log ( 'Yes' )

It seems to me that turning the 'Trip Log' on and off, as well as resetting it should be in one place instead of 2 different locations... and calling it 'Trip Log' isn't the most intuitive name...

I don't think WAAS has any benefit on my Nuvi 350. I have turned it on and observed the accuracy reported and I can't see any significant increase. Unless you find going from 15 foot accuracy to 14 foot accuracy significant. Seriously, the two times that I compared running with it on vs off, my reported accuracy only increased 1 or 2 feet. I think that the SiRF's capability of locking on to so many satellites gives just about as good an accuracy as a lesser chipset plus WAAS.

Are you sure that when it's in "snap to road" navigating mode that it is actually altering your position coordinates to coincide with the road, or is it just drawing the pointer to be on the road even though your actual coordinates are slightly off the road? Seems like it would more logically work the latter way. Pressing the icon to get your current coordinates would then give whatever coordinates it was reading, not adjusted to be on the closest road.

MM & JK: So is the Breadcrumb feature useless w/o Mapsource? I take it Mapsource is another $75 or so that I need to spend for the Breadcrumb feature to be realized?

Well, you can view the track log on the unit itself without MapSource, so in that sense it's not useless.

However, if you call Garmin, you should be able to get MapSource for free. At most, you might have to pay $15.

Also, you can download the track into other programs like GPS Trackmaker or TOPO Fusion. You can also view them in Google Earth.

It depends upon what you are trying to do with it.

Here are some shots of what it looks like in MapSource.

http://i4.tinypic.com/85kecz6.jpg

http://i1.tinypic.com/6yb5lzc.jpg

johnc wrote:
"I don't think WAAS has any benefit on my Nuvi 350. I have turned it on and observed the accuracy reported and I can't see any significant increase. Unless you find going from 15 foot accuracy to 14 foot accuracy significant. Seriously, the two times that I compared running with it on vs off, my reported accuracy only increased 1 or 2 feet. I think that the SiRF's capability of locking on to so many satellites gives just about as good an accuracy as a lesser chipset plus WAAS.

Are you sure that when it's in "snap to road" navigating mode that it is actually altering your position coordinates to coincide with the road, or is it just drawing the pointer to be on the road even though your actual coordinates are slightly off the road? Seems like it would more logically work the latter way. Pressing the icon to get your current coordinates would then give whatever coordinates it was reading, not adjusted to be on the closest road."

johnc-
I'm pretty sure I never said that the 'snap to road' altered the coordinates that the gps was reporting... in fact, as your logical self supposed, it is drawing the pointer to be on the road even though the REPORTED coordinates (NOT actual coordinates) are slightly off road. And pressing the icon would most likely report the coordinates that the GPS was reporting... which would include the inaccuracies of using non-WAAS mode. I don't know your background in GPS technology, but let me say this in laymen's terms... All positional information received from the standard GPS constellation contains errors due to several factors. Being able to receive a great number of satellites plays a smaller role in accuracy than it does in providing a 3D fix (one that includes altitude information) versus a 2D fix (lat and long position only). There are 2 additional satellites in the GPS constellation that are fed additional error correction information from ground stations. These error corrections are calculated from reception of the rest of the constellation at fixed known positions and fed to these two satellites. If you have a WAAS-enabled GPS chipset and the software to integrate this error correction data with the rest of the GPS sat data stream, it will result in a much higher (although not perfect) degree of accuracy.
I have a several SiRF Star III GPS's, WAAS enabled, and the difference between WAAS and non WAAS accuracy is significant. By the way, the importance of locking onto as many satellites as possible in non-WAAS mode does not increase your receiver's accuracy once it has it's maximum theoretical accuracy, it merely decreases the chances that the accuracy will degrade as obstructions such as tree cover, buildings, mountains, direction of travel, etc. cause signal degradation or loss from some of the viewable constellation, by virtue of having enough viewable satellites in reserve to provide the data stream for an accurate fix.

The fix error could be off in any direction, and since "snap to road" only corrects relative to the left and right of the driver's course, if the error happens to be to the front or back of the driver's course when the fix is taken, this could result in an error of roughly +/- 50 to 60 feet worst case, so if the fix was on a speed cam or traffic cam, the extra 4 car lengths difference would be a significant factor when coupled with reaction time. Also, if I were hiking in the dark and missed a trail by 50 or 60 feet, it would be a much bigger deal than if it were by only 10 or 15 feet. You could point out that for me to be out hiking in the dark with a GPS that has a battery life of only several hours at best would be foolish, and I would have to agree... the point is accuracy and what I paid for the nuvi, and the fact that the chipset is already capable of this function. I paid more for the 760 than any other GPSr I've ever owned except the one in my aircraft, and the one I bought for hiking, with a phenomenal battery life, trans-reflective display, and a SiRF Star III chipset (coincidenally, also built by Garmin) is far more accurate, and even when you subtract the price of the traffic receiver that came with the nuvi from it's price, the nuvi STILL cost a lot more than my GPSmap did. It's just really ridiculous that for something that cost $900 + list not to enable WAAS, or provide a paper manual, much less a DECENT paper manual instead of that crappy PDF one. There's a lot to like about the nuvi, but, like I said, I think we all paid enough for what we got to expect the very best that Garmin could supply.

Motorcycle Mama said:

"Well, the reason that they are in two different places is that these are two different functions.

Viewing or not viewing the trip log on the map screen is a function of what details you want shown on the map. Whether it's the trip log, the map detail, the vehicle icon, and the 2D vs 3D map view.

Clearing the trip log is a data function and thus is contained on the data screen."

I respectfully disagree with your opinion. It was spoken like an engineer or programmer (I am both, so I recognize and understand the logic of it), but I disagree... part of being an engineer (or programmer) is being able to understand the organization of a system and the flow of data within that system. But another part of being a great engineer is recognizing that what we design is built for humans and the way they think. Humans are task-oriently (generally) and tend to group various aspects of a task together, for instance, having all of the controls on your car radio in the same location, rather than having all of the on-off switches in the same location- the radio on-off, the lights on-off, the windshield on-off, the engine on-off switches all in the same place would have some logic to it, but humans don't generally think this way. So even though the switches all go to a common power source, and it might make some sense to group them all together, human engineering dictates that we put the radio power switch (similar to the viewing or not viewing function in the nuvi- in this case, hearing or not hearing) which goes to the fusebox- placed right next to the volume control, and the tuning control which just go to the radio and bear no relation to turning anything on or off, along with the cd changer track skip control, the disc change control (all data control funtions), etc... because this is the most intuitive way for humans to operate technology. And a good engineer knows that designing a good piece of equipment or system, or even writing a good program involves taking the learning curve and operational load off the human being's workload, and substituting good design technique, instead. Well, that's my opinion, anyways, based on decades of experience and observation.

Motorcycle Mama also wrote:

"Calling is the trip log makes sense because that's what it it. A log of your trip. If you view the trip log in MapSource, you would see that is contains a bunch of information (speed, distance, elevation, position) about your trip."

That's an interesting point you've made. Perhaps I never thought of it that way because Garmin failed to include the necessary program to view it with my nuvi... another small peave to add to the Garmin nuvi list. Without the software to relate to, calling it a 'log' makes no sense in the strict context of a nuvi user, because all that information completely invisible without the right software installed on a seperate computer, and and the knowledge that it exists. Perhaps they should have called it the Track History, or something that referenced it's graphical nature, since the general usage of the term 'log' refers to textual information stored in chronological order.
I do, however, have a better understanding of why, since it seems you are a Mapsource user, it makes so much sense to you. I can't wait to get my copy from Garmin, mainly for easier route entry, but also for it's other enhanced capabilities as well.

BTW, thanks for the screenshots, MM

Jamie Hoarty wrote:

"So is the Breadcrumb feature useless w/o Mapsource? I take it Mapsource is another $75 or so that I need to spend for the Breadcrumb feature to be realized?"

Useless? No, since Garmin didn't include 'reverse route' functionality, it could be used as a poor man's manual substitute. This was a glaring oversight IMHO. Also, I have used it in densely urban areas to make it more clear when to add vias when creating a specific route that I have driven before when feeder ramps, overpasses and elevated freeways obscure the roads I am trying to specify.

Wow, that was a long post! : )

I did read it, however, and my only comment is that I'm neither a programmer nor an engineer.

But no problem disagreeing, though. : )

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I don't think that for the average Joe WAAS is really a big deal. Sure you may have braging rights, but the best accuracy I got was about 9 feet. My car is longer than that. I mean if you can't find something within 9 feet, pack in the GPS and call a cab.

But I digress. I have an excerpt from Wikipedia discussing WAAS and it states that it was designed for aircraft approaches in 3D space.

***
The WAAS was jointly developed by the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), beginning in 1994, to provide performance comparable to category 1 instrument landing system (ILS) for all aircraft possessing the appropriately certified equipment.[1] Without WAAS, ionospheric disturbances, clock drift, and satellite orbit errors create too much error and uncertainty in the GPS signal to meet the requirements for a precision approach (See GPS sources of error). A precision approach includes altitude information and provides course guidance, distance from the runway, and elevation information at all points along the approach, usually down to lower altitudes and weather minimums than non-precision approaches.
***

If you plan to fly your car on a regular basis, then WAAS is a must, but if you don't then it really shouldn't be an issue. Remember, the Nuvi and other similar products are used for street navigation, not to fly a plane or trekking in the back country. There are specific GPSr's out there for those applications.

My 2 cent rant. I'm not trying to put anyone down or start a flame war, I just think people are getting "sucked in" by the hype.

I am with you. I don't think WAAS really is that much of an advantage with these nuvi's. I have the 680, 760 and a 770 and did a simple static test to see what they did side by side. The 680 gave 10ft versus the 7xx giving 13ft accuracy. Here are the screen shots showing the signal strengths of each. The 680 got better reception.

nuvi 760 without WAAS
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=269936&l=23a46&id=8266...

nuvi 680 with WAAS enabled
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=269937&l=7d97b&id=8266...

By the way with all the talk of the 7xx screen being lots better simply doesn't show that on my units. When I adjust the 7xx up to 100% brightness you can't tell the difference unless you have them side by side and even then it is so insignificant that it isn't even worth commenting on. They are the same to the naked eye.

Someone has told me to wait until the unit turns on. Then hold your finger over the battery icon for about 8-10 seconds and the screen should pop up.

I am new to this as I just got my 760. Thus far, it has worked great. Still trying to figure out how to create POI's, how to download them to my 760, etc.

I will learn in time, I am sure.

Am I missing something obvious with the Brightness controls?...

Like my other two units, this one remembers separate Day and Night brightness settings. However, it seems to also remember a third one, for when it is powered by the cradle. This 'cradle settings' is irrespective of the time of day and thus has a 50:50 chance of being wrong

Is that right?

I'm considering getting either the 750 or the 760. As far as I can tell, the main difference is the Bluetooth capability.

How good is the Bluetooth? Will I be happy with it? Here in CA the law says that all cell phone use in a vehicle MUST be hands free after July 1 so this is an important issue for me. I don't want to have to wear a dang earpiece all the time when I'm driving for work.

I chose a 760 over the 750 specifically for the Bluetooth capability. Had no issues connecting to my Blackberry Pearl and everything seems to work fine. My only complaints are that the speaker seems a little weak at times and the microphone may not be sensitive enough. Some people have had trouble hearing me, but that might just be my voice too.

I use the bluetooth function whenever I'm driving. I have people tell me that "it's no difference from talking into the phone" to "I can tell that there is a small difference, but not annoying". For some reason, if I use the FM function also, the other party always complait that "I seem to be in a tunnel".

The Bluetooth works fine, it's just the people on the other end say it sounds a little like a tin can. But it works and is convenient.

I primarily use a good quality wireless headset, but I do like the ability to use the 760's Bluetooth if I want.

The 760 has been out for a few months. I have had mine since Jan and have been very happy with the performance,screen, etc. There have been firmware upgrades. The most recent was last month and I believe it is now 2.7. Easy to upgrade off the Garmin site.
JRO

Has anyone else noted the tendency for it to crash, when power to the cradle is removed?

It usually asks if you want to continue on battery power, or shut off - but just occasionally, you don't get the choice! (It records a "Data Abort" crash in the diagnostic log).

I received my 760 today and used it with the 650 on the way home, 40 miles.

I’ve read a lot of posts insisting the displays are the same. Technically maybe…but they are different in appearance. The 650 has more of a reflective coating (shinier) and is gray when off. The 760 has more of a dull coating on the screen and looks like a darker gray that has a rose colored tinge.

The 650 displays gradients better, like on the button on the bottom of the screen. The 760 is a little grainy in some areas like the fonts but not terrible, just not as clear and crisp as the 650.

The fonts are all changed. The 760 went to upper/ lower case on the street names. On POIs or favorites, it lists the distance and direction in a bold font that appears smaller than the standard fonts on the 650. The POI name and address are slightly fuzzy on the 760 and the fonts are smaller.

I searched for “Ocean” in San Francisco under food/Asian. The 650 gave me 8 listings and took nearly 2 minutes. The 760 gave me 28 listings and took about 30 seconds.

The icons are in a different order on the POI screen. The 650 shows 8 icons when going to the “Where to?” menu. The 760 shows 6 but they are larger.

The 760 now lists the food and lodging as separate icons under POIs. On the 650, “Extras” was listed twice. On the 760, it’s listed once on the second page of “Where to?”

While driving, the 760 was 1-5 seconds quicker on telling me the next direction/turn. At one point, the both alerted to take an off-ramp, both announced at .5 miles, the 760 alerted again at .3 miles while the 650 alerted me the second time once I was already on the off-ramp.

The 760 moves a lot. I mean the little car moves, it shows all different directions while the Nuvi still. It keep reading 1.5 mph like someone is walking with it (ghosts?). The 650 is steady and mostly stayed locked on position. The 650 gives about a 20 foot more accurate reading. The 650 is always under 20 even with WAAS off, the 760 is 25-40 feet and at times under 20. They both showed different numbers for elevation and coordinates even though they were side by side.

On the 650 there is a “Travel Kit” Those items are now listed under “Tools” on the 760.

The 760 has an icon on the first screen for volume. The 650, press the power button. The 760 no longer show the “Savers Guide” and “Travel Guide.”

On both, when I press the “Cities” icon, they show many streets as cities.

The 760 shows the speed limit as you drive. It also shows the map scale…unless I don’t have that turned on on the 650???

The Bluetooth hooks-up to my phone, which isn’t on Gamin’s list (LG VX8100), but I haven’t looked into the address book or if it can be accessed from the 760. No one can hear me from the 760 so I’ll stick with my headset for now.

Again, this is just a list of random observations. I know many people are in the same boat of keeping the 6xx or getting the 7xx, especially since the 760 is on sale at Costco, so I hope this helps.

Oh, the sound is better on the 760. A little tinny but not like a Kazoo as my 650 sounds at times.

One last thing...I was pressing all sorts of things to reset the 650 and remove all my data. It went into a screen that said "Enabling Bluetooth" but it hung up on that screen. I think I was pressing the power and reset buttons. I cleared all my data, it went back to 12 am and asking to be set up again, like new.

760 has no scale? I just upgraded from a 660 which has no scale on the main map, to a 760 that does have a scale on the main map (version 2.9 and 3.0). My 760 has the scale on the main map and on the panning map.

How did you get to the satellite screen on the 760? I have looked in all the menus and all the manuals, and can not find it. Thanks

press on the satellite strengh icon for a few seconds

While in the menu mode... You have to hold it for 5 or 6 secs...

And neon thanks for the observations...

I'm now torn between the 760 or holding out for the 880.

The 880 has the speach recognition, but you also pay the higher price for the latest and greatest.

But that 880 does seem like a sweet little package.

Tim

which it isn't I would wait until a few folks had given it a try. There always seems to be a few bugs in the first versions... Plus if you wait a few months the price will probably be reduced by an unknown percentage...

I looked around in here but could not find a definite answer...

I am going to the Dominican Rep. this Sunday so my car cable is not an option, can I use my nuvi360 wall charger on my nuvi760... I plugged it in and it boots up so I am assuming that it would be OK to use, any thoughts.

Just check to make sure it will work on both 110V & 220V. I don't know what the norm is there but you may want to check..

I just checked they both have the same part listed for a ac adapter...
edit:
Another consideration is the type of recepticles they have... Will that adapter plug into their recpepticles

Thanks for the reply, the new hotels are all 110V and normal N. American plugs, this is my 5th time there, 4th hotel, I think I like the place..

Why not? Excuse my ignorance, but don't non-US cars have the same 12v power sockets that US cars use?

I've had the 760 for about a month now (picked it up at Costco for $349). My biggest gripe is with the speakerphone. The clarity is really poor. I was hoping to be able to retire my dedicated bluetooth speaker phone (BlueAnt Supertooth), but the Nuvi's speaker quality is so poor that it's difficult to understand what people are saying. And, living in Dallas, the FM transmitter has trouble finding a empty frequency so that's not an option either.

Do you, by any chance, have a cassette player? If so, have you tried the Sony brand of cassette adapter? They give great sound. I realize you are substituting another separate piece of hardware for one you already own, but the adapter can be used for navigation and mp3 as well.

I wish there was a way in the 760 so that you can turn off the beep when you touch the screen like how you can in the 680.

Sorry johnc, I am not renting a car.

Well, that would indeed make it difficult to use it with a car charger.

On a Nuvi 760 is there a way to have North shown? I see this is a feature on the Nuvi 200 (I think that is the model - i used one last week).

I have been learning my new 760 and noticed an oddity. Using the same two Favorite Waypoints, "Home" and "Work" the 760 will as expected say "Arriving at Work, on right" as I approach the parking lot.

If I use the same two waypoints to build a route to work, it will say "Navigate off road, on right" when approaching the parking lot at work.

Note that I had tweaked both locations to place the coordinates a few feet (like maybe 10 feet) into the driveways to be sure it would say "on right" when approaching. I just thought it was interesting to note the difference in guidance depending on whether the 760 was operating in standard guidance mode vs running a stored route.

I have a Nuvi 650 but have never tried uploading music to it. Has anyone ever tried?

I thought it was frivolous to have an MP3 player at first. But I had to play with it anyway. If you have an option to feed the Nuvi audio through your car stereo, it's pretty nice. The audio prompts sound a lot better that way. And when it's giving voice guidance, it pauses the music. Works out pretty well!

I noticed yesterday when entering a route with a bunch of stops on the 760, it had an option to optimize the route. Supposedly, this would re-order the waypoints for a more efficient route. After uploading the route into MapSource I wanted to tweak it a little. I can't find the same option in MapSource. Seems odd that MapSource would not have the same option. One would usually expect the full blown computer application to have more options.

MapSource does not have an "Optimize Route" function. You must do it on the unit. My guess is that this is because the vast majority of Garmin units do not have this function AND they recalculate the route upon import.

I have the Nuvi 760... Can I charge it via the included cable to my pc?

connect it to your computer usb and it will charge
i use both usb & charger methods. it also charges while connected to your automobile cigarette socket

Thanks a lot........

I am still getting used to my 760 and have not noticed the optimize route function when entering a route with several stops, where might I find this function?