Home > Consumer Reviews > Garmin Nuvi 760T Satellite Navigation System

I spent ages in choosing my second device after my TomTomGO 300 failed following three years of heavy use.

I guess if you are on this page, you want a relatively advanced GPS as there are many machines which are cheaper and dont have the extras provided in 760 which has bluetooth handsfree, europe mapping, FM transmission (can transmit device sound to your car speakers when you choose same fm channel on both), wide screen, traffic services (lifetime subscription)
One can get a good garmin device for under 100 with UK maps and without added extras mentioned above (Garmin 200 is only £89 and appears very good)

now for these extras the main competition is with tomtom 720T as you may have found out already
both were priced near £220 when I compared

I looked at garmin 360t, 660t, 760 and TomTom 720T, last two being my final choices.

Glad I chose garmin 760 over tomtom 720T but both have good and bad points

the main issues in my view:

Garmin 760T: map accuracy greater, weight 176 grams, smaller (tomtom720T is 220gm, slightly bulkier)
garmin screen is not cluttered at all
But I definitely miss TomTom's screen display of distance and time to destination with a compass pointer, next turn in graphics like 2nd exit and other customizable bits that is lacking in garmin (760 only shows arrival time and next turn)

Not having a lot of info on Garmin's screen may make driving safe as you dont keep looking at it to check how far you are from your destination and what is your speed and comparing your speedometer with Satnav(speedo is less accurate than GPS devices)

Garmin only shows arrival time so no major reason to fix your stare on screen and this may be good for safe driving.
Nevertheless speed and distance details are available if you touch arrival time.

garmin's POI are great (much more accurate and useful than tomtom 720t)
its FM trransmitter can also transmit phone's sound (not in tomtom)
garmin's menu is a lot simpler and less cluttered than tomtom

garmin's traffic service also better than tomtom, but tomtom voice quality is superior and less synthetic and there are more choices. Even the speaker output is more in TomTom.

overall, both great but garmin is my choice for simpler menu, accurate maps and physical form but I feel none of them is a bad choice.
Good luck with your buy.

I have only had this satnav a short while, but have found it extremely straightforward to use and set up. Particularly the phone functions and FM transmitter.

On the phone functions there are a lot of neat tools, like being able to phone points of interest, such as restaurants and hotels. Also you can assign numbers to your favourite locations and phone them using the touch screen. The screen is excellent and the unit seems to pick up signal and recalculate routes very quickly.

One point against amazon though.... they offered this together with a leather carry case, which I went for only to discover an identical carry case was included in the Garmin box anyway...

The road angel got in to the habit of loosing its way, the second unit I had because the first failed within warrenty. This Nuvi is just fantastic in comparison, gets a fix in a few seconds and the traffic updates really work well to replan the route. I have done Portsmouth to Amersham return 10 times now and its taken me on 4 different routes based on traffic information. Scooting off the M25 earlier than the A3 junction because of delays takes me down m3 then sometimes the A32, delays confirmed by radio 2. Its mapping and use is better than Tom Toms, bluetooth hands free works almost instantly with my E90. Even sorts out the route the ferry should take to the Isle of Wight. Absoloutly the best sat nav I have seen to date.

I'm used to having a unit built-in to the car, but I wanted a SatNav for European & UK touring - contenders were Garmin Nuvi 760T, and its TomTom and viaMichelin equivalents. ViaMichelin went out of the SatNav business, so it was the (cheaper)Garmin. Once out of its box and charged, it needs to be connected to the internet and registered before you can do any updates or download speed camera data. It wouldn't talk to the Garmin website (talks to the PC ok), so on to tech support.... "Sometimes the registration software is flaky. I'll do it manually for you" Hmmm. Get an email telling me that its registered. Website says its not. Several times, over a couple of days. It's gone back for a refund.

A pity, as the graphics and menu layout are nice & clear, (although the menus are irritatingly idiosyncratic). No manual in the box, just a quickstart guide, so you have to download it. Deals correctly with full UK postcodes, but not rural French ones - it demands a street name instead of being able to enter the code, select the village and go to the area. (Hangover from US design?) The free 1 month trial of speed (sorry, "safety") camera data only covers the UK; thereafter you have to buy a subscription (at £20 per year) for each area of coverage - France, UK, Benelux, etc. Traffic info is free, though. Voice instructions are clear - didn't try the "FM broadcast through your car radio" feature as you can't listen to broadcast radio at the same time, just mp3 content you've preloaded to the Garmin.

Summary:

If it had worked properly, I would have been pleased with it in spite of the irritating design niggles. It didn't. At that price, it should have, and I didn't have the patience to do their development work for them. It's gone back.

I bought this to replace a built in sat nav system. Using bluetooth you get handsfree functionality with your phone but even better you are able to broadcast the phone and the navigation instructions to your car stereo using the built in FM transmitter. If you load up an SD card with some music, the benefit of doing this is that you can then mix the navigation instructions with listening to music and using the phone and it will fade one out to accommodate the other. No more missing instructions (or speed camera warnings!) because the music's too loud or missing your music in a bid to hear your sat nav. All in all this integration works very well - with SD cards being so cheap, this is a good replacement for an ipod and itrip as a music companion in the car.

Technically, the unit is easy to set up and the bluetooth pairing with the phone is straightforward. Just don't expect it to find satellites when you are sat inside opening the box - you need to be outside (or in the car)

In terms of usability, it's very intuitive and user-friendly. All the menu options are easy to understand and if all else fails you can download a comprehensive handbook from the website which is much more detailed than the one in the box.

The speed camera database is pretty comprehensive but didn't have a couple of newer ones near me on it - then again, I wasn't expecting it to be perfect. The alerts telling you of mobile speed camera locations was good and there were indeed a couple of these in use so was glad to have the warning.

The traffic warning system is not quite so reliable. Note, this only works in the car when you plug in the power adapter as this also contains the FM receiver for the traffic data. Lights on the power adapter tell you when it's receiving traffic data - if the appropriate light isn't lit or if it's red, you don't have any traffic data signal - it has so far been fine on main roads/near towns but less so when you're out in the sticks. This is a little frustrating if you live in the country as obviously you want the traffic data for your proposed route before commiting to a particular route. I haven't been able to test how much of a problem this actually is but it's likely to be a minor gripe and doesn't detract too much from this useful functionality. There is also a glitch on my unit when you try to manually select the trafficmaster data - I suspect this is just my unit though.

Overall I'd certainly recommend this unit (and indeed have done to friends already). My only reason for not giving it 5 stars is that I have yet to resolve the glitch on which data source to select for the traffic warnings but everything else is 5 star.

At this price with European maps also included the added functionality you get over the basic versions costing half as much (bluetooth, FM broadcast, traffic warnings, widescreen) make it well worth the extra investment if you value having an integrated system.