 Avoid the Nuvi 850 like the plague! |
| Review Date: July 10, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Kalves, Massachusetts |
First let me start by saying that I also own a Garvin Nuvi 360 (have for a few years now) and absolutely love it. It's still working well. The only reason I purchased the Nuvi 850 was so that I could have one dedicated to my vehicle.
I liked the 360 so well that there was no question that I wanted to stick with the Garmin brand for my new one.
I thought the features and price was outstanding and bought the 850 about a year ago. Immediately after getting it I could tell that the voice recognition aspect was less than acceptable. As a matter of fact it quickly became a running joke in the family whenever someone attempted to navigate using voice commands. While I understand the technology is relatively new, so many other electronics companies have managed to hit the nail on the head with their versions (think iphone). Anyway, that was such a small reason for the purchase that I didn't really care. What has been frustrating is the fact that the touch screen is awful. It's very hard for me to believe that this is a much newer version than the 360 when the effort and response to use it is horrible compared to the 360. I would think it would have been leaps and bounds ahead by now. You have to press the screen much harder and about 80% of the time it selects something from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT area of the screen (I'm not even talking about close - I'm talking about an inch away!)Okay, so that's not great, but usually I navigate by favorites and could deal with it. But the REALLY FRUSTRATING "feature" of this unit is the fact that the screen freezes up repeatedly. I mean about one to two times a day. I figured it was a firmware bug or some such issue so I've updated/wiped/re-updated/restored to factory settings/etc. on more occasions than I care to think about. It still does it. It also demonstrates a nice feature of randomly going from the standard map to displaying one where you can see both North & South America with the vehicle icon on top. While I realize that I sometimes drive fast, I have not yet been successful in covering the distance of two states at the same time as my Garmin would indicate.
In short I'm definitely frustrated enough with the performance of this unit to try another manufacturer. I recommend that you avoid this model at least. |
Good deal!
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| Review Date: May 14, 2010 |
| Reviewer: jedediahb@aol.com, Newnan, Georgia |
| Great price on a nifty step-up from navigator basics. Pros include pretty good menu navigation, fairly good voice recognition (depending on the noise level in your vehicle) and very nice trip planning features. Cons include fair to poor battery life and a non-intuitive detour feature. |
Love Garmin
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| Review Date: March 31, 2010 |
| Reviewer: P.K., TX |
| I got this GPS for my wife since she doesn't know her way around much. She loves this thing and won't go out of town without it. It's easy to use and nice large screen is perfect for her. It has so many features and we haven't used all of them but man we love it. There is so much you can do with this it blows your mind. |
Extremely satisfied!!!
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| Review Date: March 19, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Michael D. Mccoy, Midwest City, OK |
Hello all,
This is my first ever review of any product, but I love my new Garmin. I have never owned a GPS unit before, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but for what I need this unit goes above and beyond.
I am please with the cost that it was. Very worth it.
Great unit!!!! |
Great device, Garmin PC software leaves something to be desired
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| Review Date: February 7, 2010 |
| Reviewer: THATCH, OHIO |
There are lots of reviews here about the unit, and it is a very good unit. The majority of my thoughts that I'd like to share with other potential customers have less to do with the unit itself, and more to do with the software for the PC that comes with it, and the process of updating the maps.
Garmin has a long way to go to simplify and make easier the process of updating maps. First you install the software, then plug in the unit, then find out that the website you go to wants you to install about 3 other things, then the map downloads, then you have to manually find the downloaded files & apply them, etc. etc. etc.
I'm used to very technical things on computers, but that being said I found the map updating process unusually cumbersome, and it doesn't need to be that way. The unit gets a good rating, but if you're not a very technical person and think you'll want to update your maps, be ready for some work. |
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