Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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has the FM antena on the roof at the back of the car.

MSN Direct is not accurate though they have nearly full coverage in my area. Weather was in accurate. However gas prices were very accurate. Traffic was not covered in my town area.

Voice command is very accurate. I have typical "Indian" accent and Nuvi 880 had no problem in recognizing my commands whereas my Lexus always failed to recognize my voice commands.

Bottom line: Expensive unit. However, very user friendly and since a garmin it is the best amongst other brands available today. If bluetooth and voice command is not a priority for you, go for Nuvi 700 series and save nearly half or more of the cost compared to Nuvi 880. MSN Direct is not worthy for the price they charge! If your Nuvi 880 comes with a 2.x version of firmware, you will have a lot of problems. Your computer may not even recognize the unit by auto webupdater service. You should manually upgrade your firmware to current 3.x version. ***SOMETHING GARMIN TECH SUPPORT WAS UNABLE TO HELP ME***

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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speech recognition - only the remote transmitter. For the price of the Garmin Nuvi 880 you would think that Garmin would correct this problem before placing the unit on the market!

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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speech recognition - only the remote transmitter. For the price of the Garmin Nuvi 880 you would think that Garmin would correct this problem before placing the unit on the market!

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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for the vehicle, at least one could stick a small speaker on the dash.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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for the vehicle, at least one could stick a small speaker on the dash.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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not allow it to function. I followed all the instructions, new remote battery - no help. Reseting (removed GPS battery) cleared both issues.

Internal speakers are difficult to hear and people on the receiving end mention the clarity of my voice is not all that great thru the bluetooth connection. This is true even with no radio, no fan motor, no passengers talking, etc) Like another reviewer, I am also hard of hearing and found that using the FM option does not help much for a variety of reasons. Have to really turn up the volume on the radio to even hear the nuvi and quality was not consistent. Thank you for the tip of plugging into the AUX jack, which I have on my 2008 CRV - I will definitely try that. One thing that has helped with the sound issue it that, after experimenting a bit, I am able to locate the unit on my windshield next to and at the same level as the rearview mirror. This gets the unit as close to me as possible and gives me a clear line of sight. One learning point - on some cars, the "dot patterns" on the windshield around the rearview mirror on some cars are printed on the inside surface which the suction mount will not stick to - so you have to position the unit lower and farther away. On my car, I eventually found out that the dots are within the glass which allowed me to better position the unit as mentioned above.

WebUpdater - I am a Mac user and had to spend quite a bit of time getting the software to recognize/find my unit. I tried using a Dell laptop as well but got the same result except that it kept telling me that I might have to change an interface setting (somewhere/somehow) to "Garmin" or "Host" which I was not anxious to experiment with. Garmin does tell you that you might have to update the software on older models (which I did not expect the brand new 880 to be !!!) before WebUpdater will work. Unfortunately, they don't tell you your options for doing such - you have to nose around. After several hours, I was able to find and get thru a back door by going thru the "Additional Software" section on the Garmin website and found a link specific to the 880 to update the software. Once I updated the software to version 3.00 (from 2.50 as received), I connected my nuvi back to my Mac and everything now works fine. Better instructions would have saved hours here.

I am also a little surprised on how long it takes for the unit to find a sat signal. Not sure of other brands performance in this area though.

Not sure if any make or model would do better but when in situations where one turn or instruction needs to be followed quickly with another instruction (to turn again in a short distance or stay left for example), I found that the unit would sometimes be giving the second instruction after I already had to execute the move. Other times, traveling the same route, it gave both instructions right up front so that you knew that you had to pay extra attention.

Note to Judy - I also experienced the same "unit already registered" problem. There are multiple codes in the battery compartment of the unit that are "8 or 9 characters long". I got the same message using one number and then was successful using the number directly under the barcode. You think that maybe they could be a little more specific in the instructions on where to find the right code ???!!!

Overall a very helpful unit and would recommend to anyone. The 850 might be the better and less expensive choice for most.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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being said, I would not let
this get in the way of a truly GREAT GPS. Shop around for pricing though.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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being said, I would not let

this get in the way of a truly GREAT GPS. Shop around for pricing though.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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move, a previously clear FM channel may become occupied resulting in constant fiddling with the radio and Nuvi.

Voice Recognition - it's a great concept and the 850 does pretty well but you need a very quiet environment. Doesn't sound like a moving car does it? Even in the house, with a TV at low volume 15 feet away, the unit becomes confused about what it's "hearing". Mute the TV, and tell the kids to shut up and it really does a pretty good job. Entering addresses via voice is just so much better than tedious typing. My opinion of the professional reviewers who rave about the Nuvi 800's voice recognition has slipped quite a few notches. It ain't that great.

Garmin Features - the "Where Am I" and "Where's My Car" features are great ideas and well implemented. But again, both of these are available on the much cheaper 700 series of Nuvi's.

Battery - the 800 series has the first user replaceable battery on a Nuvi. For about $30 you can carry a spare. Nice.

So, is limited voice recognition and a replaceable battery worth the $300 premium over a 700 series Nuvi? Only you can answer that. Although very disappointed with the voice recognition accuracy and low volume, I'm keeping my Nuvi 850. The voice recognition still saves me from typing and a spare battery means I don't have to carry a power cord for most trips. I'll just enter my destination using voice comands in the office, hotel, restaurant, or at home before I head out. The VR remote can live in my briefcase. Less clutter for the cabin.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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the Nuvi is telling me.

5. I used it in pedestrian mode once. It worked really well. I bought a fanny pack to take it with me when I leave the car. However, it actually fits in the pocket of cargo pants.

6. I use the bluetooth feature all the time. It was absolutely no effort to sync with my phone.

7. On a recent trip I was using the "Where Am I" mode a lot. It has an elevation feature built into it. We were traveling high mountain roads and we used the Nuvi to get the elevation. It was all in fun.

Now, the Cons:

1A. I don't know why Garmin leaves every house on my street off it's maps. The street AND street name appear, BUT try putting in an address of any house on my street, and it chooses another street in the neighborhood instead. My wife has had a Garmin 300 series for a couple of years and has the same problem. She tried updating the software, but nothing changes. How many other locations are missing?

1B. Just for fun I was going to navigate to our Credit Union. The Nuvi wanted to send me to where the Credit Union Used to be located. This could be an updating issue, but the Credit Union moved around 4 years ago. This bothers me because I don't know how many potential places I could navigate to are actually in a different location, and have been for years.

2. The voice system is great. I have no real issues with it. However, it has a hard time understanding your commands if there is too much noise. Road noise is not the problem. It happens only when others are talking at the same time you are trying to give it commands. Also, my a/c was too loud once.

3. The MSN Direct is a nice feature. I would like to see it expanded into more areas. You have to be in the few service areas it has in order to receive the info. However, I know the service areas are expanding all the time. My one "BIG" complaint is the updating of this service. I used it the other day to find a movie and the times it would be playing. I should have called ahead because the movie was NOT playing at the two theaters I went to. This is no big deal because I called a third place I found. I used to Nuvi to give me the theater's phone number!

4.I tried using the FM transmitter to have a wireless hookup to my car's radio. I have had no success with it. But, the AUX port works fine.

5. As for pedestrian mode! Well, I would like to see some type of mode indicator on the main map. Why? It's no big deal, but I forgot to put the mode back from pedestrian to automobile when we in Las Vegas. On the day we left everything on the Nuvi seemed really messed up. It was telling us we wouldn't get home until some rediculous time, and it would stop telling us as we drove down the road that it was recalculating the route. It thought we were walking home (about 800 miles). My fault, and it will never happen again.

6. Bluetooth. My cell phone syncs with the Nuvi 880. But not entirely. The only thing it will let me do is make and receive calls. Not a real problem. However, my wife sync'd her phone up and got just about all of her phone's features such as address book, texting, etc. I don't text, but I would like to use my address book.

Not much to complain about. I found the Nuvi 880 to be very useful for me. I don't consider it to be an expensive toy. I really do benefit from the features it has. One more thing to consider:
I have recently (Last Year) been diagnosed with an eye condition called Macular Pucker. It does not lead to blindness, but straight lines aren't exactly straight anymore. It could clear itself up on it's own, or maybe surgery is in the future. I can read road signs, menus, and other printed material, but it is frustraing as small print letters can "run" into each other sometimes. The hands frre, voice activated Nuvi 880 allows me to bypass most of the looking at small print and typing in of names and addresses. For this feature alone it was worth every penny.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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the Nuvi is telling me.



5. I used it in pedestrian mode once. It worked really well. I bought a fanny pack to take it with me when I leave the car. However, it actually fits in the pocket of cargo pants.



6. I use the bluetooth feature all the time. It was absolutely no effort to sync with my phone.



7. On a recent trip I was using the "Where Am I" mode a lot. It has an elevation feature built into it. We were traveling high mountain roads and we used the Nuvi to get the elevation. It was all in fun.



Now, the Cons:



1A. I don't know why Garmin leaves every house on my street off it's maps. The street AND street name appear, BUT try putting in an address of any house on my street, and it chooses another street in the neighborhood instead. My wife has had a Garmin 300 series for a couple of years and has the same problem. She tried updating the software, but nothing changes. How many other locations are missing?



1B. Just for fun I was going to navigate to our Credit Union. The Nuvi wanted to send me to where the Credit Union Used to be located. This could be an updating issue, but the Credit Union moved around 4 years ago. This bothers me because I don't know how many potential places I could navigate to are actually in a different location, and have been for years.



2. The voice system is great. I have no real issues with it. However, it has a hard time understanding your commands if there is too much noise. Road noise is not the problem. It happens only when others are talking at the same time you are trying to give it commands. Also, my a/c was too loud once.



3. The MSN Direct is a nice feature. I would like to see it expanded into more areas. You have to be in the few service areas it has in order to receive the info. However, I know the service areas are expanding all the time. My one "BIG" complaint is the updating of this service. I used it the other day to find a movie and the times it would be playing. I should have called ahead because the movie was NOT playing at the two theaters I went to. This is no big deal because I called a third place I found. I used to Nuvi to give me the theater's phone number!



4.I tried using the FM transmitter to have a wireless hookup to my car's radio. I have had no success with it. But, the AUX port works fine.



5. As for pedestrian mode! Well, I would like to see some type of mode indicator on the main map. Why? It's no big deal, but I forgot to put the mode back from pedestrian to automobile when we in Las Vegas. On the day we left everything on the Nuvi seemed really messed up. It was telling us we wouldn't get home until some rediculous time, and it would stop telling us as we drove down the road that it was recalculating the route. It thought we were walking home (about 800 miles). My fault, and it will never happen again.



6. Bluetooth. My cell phone syncs with the Nuvi 880. But not entirely. The only thing it will let me do is make and receive calls. Not a real problem. However, my wife sync'd her phone up and got just about all of her phone's features such as address book, texting, etc. I don't text, but I would like to use my address book.



Not much to complain about. I found the Nuvi 880 to be very useful for me. I don't consider it to be an expensive toy. I really do benefit from the features it has. One more thing to consider:

I have recently (Last Year) been diagnosed with an eye condition called Macular Pucker. It does not lead to blindness, but straight lines aren't exactly straight anymore. It could clear itself up on it's own, or maybe surgery is in the future. I can read road signs, menus, and other printed material, but it is frustraing as small print letters can "run" into each other sometimes. The hands frre, voice activated Nuvi 880 allows me to bypass most of the looking at small print and typing in of names and addresses. For this feature alone it was worth every penny.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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she WANTS to use it. Same goes for my father-in-law who is completely technology challenged. He learned how to use it with only about 5 minutes of basic instruction. As easy to use as it is, you still get access to advanced features and the "ease of use" doesn't get in your way. Once you learn some of the "shortcuts" (like holding down a "back" button to go all the way back to the main menu in one press) it becomes even easier to use. Without a doubt this is the easiest to use of all portable navigators I've used (which is quite a few). I give ease of use a "5".

Searching
Searching for POI's on the Nuvi continues to be quite good. However, I'd like to see some improvements to the categories. For instance, it's amazing that all Nuvi's don't have a category for RV related POI's like "RV Resorts", "RV supplies", etc. You have to search by spelling for "RV" which also returns things like "Joe's Soft SeRVe Ice Cream". A nice improvement on the 880 is the capability to skip putting in the city when searching for an address. Over all the search functions are the best I've seen on a portable GPS navigator but because there are some small and basic improvements I give searching a 4.5 rather than a 5.

Maps
The maps are "good enough" for the most part on the 880 and the other Nuiv's however, having used quite a few other navigators I have a few gripes.

1. My overall biggest complaint is WHY doesn't Garmin have a more frequent update capability for their maps? They know how to do this stuff because their aviation products have it where you can subscribe to updates every 28 days. Other manufacturers are no better but Garmin has the know how (in partnership with Jeppesen). We should be able to get incremental updates rather than waiting for 1-2 years for a complete map database update. This is a huge issue.

2. Accuracy. The maps Garmin uses (which they buy from Navtek) are "acceptable" but in my travels I find annoying errors. For instance, I'm currently staying with my son at a USAF base. The Navtek maps are mostly accurate for the base (missing one of the entry gates) and surrounding areas but when I ask the 880 to take me somewhere off the base it tries to route me straight through a 10 foot tall barbed wire fence rather than through the main gates. This is a map problem not a GPS software problem.

3. POI's display. The 880 and the other Nuvi's give you the option of displaying POI's on the map page but they don't show all of them for some reason. This is not a map problem but rather they way Garmin has choosen to display the maps. If I tell it to display all POI's on the map then it should do it.

4. Map Detail. My aviation Garmin units have very detailed maps which include lots of detail on unpaved roads and associated POI's and when you use them in automotive mode you get to see this detail. My cheap, difficult to use and unreliable, Lowrance 350 shows a lot of this as well. This is very useful for off-roading. To get this for the Nuvi's you have to buy Garmins Topographical maps.

Overall, I give the maps on the 880 (and other Nuvi's) a "4". The maps are probably good enough for 90% of owners but could be improved in my opinion.

Voice Recognition
To be succinct, the voice recognition is AWESOME. It works incredibly well even in the high noise of my Jeep Wrangle. It is nearly flawless. I'll caution that I do not have any sort of accent though and I have no idea how it behaves if you do not speak "standard" english. Of course it would be great if it was just like "Hal" on 2001 A Space Odessey where you can just talk to it conversationally but that capability is still a few years away because of the computing power required. The 880 only responds to specific commands but it works amazingly well. Give that I understand the state of the technology, the only improvment I'd like to see is the ability to optionally turn off the voice prompting. For example, when you select a POI to navigate to, it takes you to a screen which requires you to say "Yes" to begin navigation but before you can say "Yes" you have to wait for the GPS to say, "Say Yes to navigate to this location" (or something like that). Once you are familiar with the unit you don't need those prompts and you can use it much more quickly without them. Overall, I give the voice recognition a 5 given the current state of technology.

Summary
The 880 is an AWESOME unit. The initial price is rather high compared to other navigators but it most certainly will come down. I tend to wait for the first price drop on such things these days but I found the 880 so compelling, capable, and desirable I bought it only a few weeks after it was released at only a slight discount and have no remorse. I feel the 880 is the absolute best consumer handheld/portable GPS automotive navigator available today - bar none. I give it a pragmatic and objective 4 only because of the Map issues I noted however I will say you can't do better than the 880 at this point in time and relative to all other units on the market it is definitely a "5+".

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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is surprisingly accurate.

The ability to have a user-changeable battery is featured on the 880. I can't tell you how many times I wish I had this feature with our Nuvi 670 on our trip to Italy when we were out all day on foot and the GPS battery became depleted, (though it did last for 5-6 hours). The only thing lacking is that Garmin should sell some sort of external battery charger for the extra batteries rather having to charge them in the unit itself.

Another reviewer mentioned that the Garmin doesn't have intelligent street recognition (such as with Google) to ask the user if a different spelling for a street/highway was intended when the unit doesn't return any results with the spelling it was given. This is not true, and perhaps that reviewer should have another read of the documentation to understand this. If you provide a partial text street or highway name to the Garmin it will return a list of possible matches. The Nuvi 880 works slightly different than previous Nuvi models in that the earlier models would provide an "active lookup", listing the possible matches as soon as the user had typed enough characters to determine a match. The 880, however, allows the user to provide (enter) the partial or full street/intersection AND THEN it will display a list of possible matches. This works a little more efficiently than the previous models because it allows the system to do a single fast search, rather than searching after each letter, and it allows the user to correct any typing mistakes before searching on them.

Another nice feature of the Garmin unit is that the virtual keyboard for spelling can be QWERTY style now.

The built in MP3 player is fun. For example if you have a music (or any MP3) that you want to hear via the car's stereo, you simply tune the FM radio to an unused station and configure the Garmin to output to the FM transmitter. Music and guidance prompts will be played via the car stereo. This is also nice for extremely noisy car environments if the Garmin's (loud) volume isn't enough, then the GPS prompts can be played via the car stereo. Other utilities on the 880 are very helpful, such as the unit and currency converters.

I've also tried the TomTom units, which I found to be slower in computing routes, and having far too many user configurable options. If you want to spend hours "customizing" all of the screen colors and every other aspect of your GPS, then maybe a TomTom would be a good choice for you. However, if you want an easy-to-use unit, the Garmin is a better choice.

The screen brightness can be set by the user, but 70-80% will suffice in all but the highest glare situations, and the large screen is very clear.

With ANY touch-screen device I always recommend purchasing clear screen protector sheets. These clear sheets stick via friction (no residue), and will help to greatly extend the life of your GPS or other product.

Lastly, another very nice feature on the 880 is the addition of MSN Direct which I renewed the subscription to a lifetime (guaranteed until 2012) extension for about $120 flat (there are other renewal options available). One of the best features of MSN Direct is updated traffic reports sent to your GPS. Even while not navigating a route, and simply viewing the map, a traffice "incident" icon will show on the display if a traffic event lies ahead in the direction you're traveling in case you want to have your GPS route you around the traffice. MSN Direct also features such things as a little icon for weather warnings on your GPS, full weather for your location, a selection to pop up a quick list of gas prices/station near your location, another selection to pop up a quick list of movie times listed by theater or movie title, news, stocks, local events. It is a very nice feature.

All in all this is one of the best portable GPS units available currently.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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nüvi 880 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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nüvi 880 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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that didn't make sense.
Did not come with any software for the computer, as the Street Pilots did, which I am somewhat surprised about. Maybe Garmin is phasing out MapSource now that everyone is using Google maps? Not sure.
Overall excellent, but then again, given that it is basically the most expensive GPS out there, it should be.
If it was even 200 dollars cheaper, I would give it 5 starts, but given the value, I would bump it down to 4.

Garmin n?vi 880 GPS - Piano Black

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that didn't make sense.

Did not come with any software for the computer, as the Street Pilots did, which I am somewhat surprised about. Maybe Garmin is phasing out MapSource now that everyone is using Google maps? Not sure.

Overall excellent, but then again, given that it is basically the most expensive GPS out there, it should be.

If it was even 200 dollars cheaper, I would give it 5 starts, but given the value, I would bump it down to 4.