Garmin Nuvi 760 Review: Excellent GPS, A Bit Pricey

Noel Kuhlman — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:35:03 +0000

The Garmin Nuvi 760 is one of the more advanced PNDs in the company’s line of GPS hardware. Like the rest of their products, it features accurate routing, excellent usability and top-notch design.

Slim and lightweight, the Nuvi 760 measures 4.8 x 3 x 0.8 inches and weighs a mere 6 ounces. It’s about the size of a deck of cards, which makes it easy to carry along, as well as to find space for in your vehicle.

Display is a 4.2-inch touchscreen with a 480 x 272 pixel resolution, with excellent quality. Text, images and maps all looked gorgeous on the panel, with the touch interface proving extremely responsive. Other hardware components include a 3.5mm jack, a microSD card slot, a miniUSB port and an antenna jack around the back.

GPS features, of course, comprise the meat of the Nuvi 760. In the US, it comes bundled with a complete set of City Navigator NT maps of North America and a POI database with about six million entries. The maps are available in both 2D and 3D, with night and day modes, allowing for a good set of variations in how you see the visual representation of your routes.

Getting started is easy as can be. Simply type in a specific address, choose a POI or select a location, and let the PND find the routes, based on your preferences (e.g. fastest time, shortest distance, which roads to avoid, etc). It also supports multiple destination routes, apart from performing automatic route recalculation when you lose your way. Do note that recalculation is unexpectedly sluggish. As usual, there’s text-to-speech and guided turn-by-turn directions, both of which work beautifully.

Apart from in-car use, the Nuvi 760 also offers a bicycle and pedestrian mode, Bluetooth hands-free calling (with your phone, of course), an FM tuner and a number of fittings that extend the functionality, including an MP3 player, an Audible book player, a slideshow viewer and optional software bundles. Overall, it’s a good GPS unit, with the same quality and reliability you can expect from Garmin-branded devices. It’s a bit pricey, though, for the feature set at a little over $500.

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Garmin Nuvi 760 Review: Excellent GPS, A Bit Pricey

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