Home > Consumer Reviews > Garmin Nuvi 865 Traffic Satellite Navigation System - Full EU Mapping

i purchased an garmin 865t from Amazon ,best move i made for years ,i had initally purchased a tom tom 530 from Halfords reason being for bluetooth and fm transmitter only to get it home and find the battery from full charge only lasted 30minutes ,i retutned it and the replacement was the same 30minutes battery life this was not all, the tom toms voice control and music did come through the car stereo but not knowing at the time the phone calls only come through the unit itself and can't be put through the car stereo leaving phone calls under volume ,This is where the Garmin comes into its own all speech including phone calls come through the car stereo via fm transmission also there is an audio out or headphone socket which you can use for a line in wire to your radio direct, all much better than tomtoms effort The unit so far has proved reliable and easy to use its full speech control is very good the only thing i'm not loving is the on -off switch its a slider with which i'm not impressed although id does do what its supposed to do ,anyway if like me you leave the unit in the car most of the time it switches on and off with the car keys and you dont have to touch the unit ,all in all its a great sat nav ,ROD WELLS.

I have had my 865t for a couple of weeks now as an upgrade to my 765t.

The main reason for purchasing the 865t was for the voice recognition with the steering wheel remote. One thing I have found with the voice recognition function is when the car heater is blowing on the screen and the wipers are going it cannot understand what is said and a message comes on the screen saying that there is too much background noise (I am thinking of purchasing the external microphone).

Like one of the previous reviewers my unit has refused to switch on again a couple of times after being removed from the car until the battery was removed and replaced again this causing a lot of the settings needing redoing. Unlike a previous review my battery was still showing fully charged and the unit was OK once booted up again.

Someone said that it showed that there was not enough memory when planning a long trip. I have done quite a few simulations including John-O-Groats to the Eiffel Tower without any problems so trips in this country should not be a problem.

I must agree though that some items on the unit could have been left off and the space put to better use. I personally cannot see the need for a load of games on the device as surely the purpose of a SatNav is to get you from A to B as safely as possible without you getting totally lost. I would rather have had the 3d buildings function and the Eco-route system included instead as per my 765t.

One function I do find very useful is the custom avoidances option whereby you can put in your own roads or even complete areas you do not wish to use on your routes. As I said when I did a review on the 765t, I live in an area dominated by farms and Garmin still want to use the farm tracks (unpaved roads) as normal roads. I can now put these roads in the customized avoidances so then they are not included in the route.

Overall though, for all my comments, basically it is a good SatNav to buy.

have had sat navs for 6 years now
this one is great with the roof down it is
still visible clearly ,blue tooth good ...down side as usual cant hear it with roof down,
the traffic diverter seems to have a mind of its own tried to take me 20 miles away from the M25 ,via southend from enfield to surrey
the device for talking to it ,not used it...they dont mention its suppose to be strapped to the steering wheel put mine around the gear stick out the way ....hunt round for the best price varied £60

Garmin Nuvi 865 Traffic Satellite Navigation System - Full EU Mapping

So far I have been delighted with this product which has worked accurately and well for every trip it has been in use.