Garmin nuvi 750 Reviews

By Ed

I will start this review by stating that I am a professional navigator, a perfectionist, and a tightwad. I have been retired for a number of years and finally decided to get a GPS for the car. I bought Garmin because I have used their commercial units for deep sea navigation and have always been happy with them. I spent a lot of time comparing the various units and opted for the Nuvi 750. I don’t need Bluetooth or the traffic routing. I really don’t care about using a gps as an MP3 player or putting photo’s on it either. The 750 was so close in price to the various other wide screen units with fewer features that I figured it was the way to go. I also really wanted the FM transmitter since I am hearing impaired and read in other reviews that the speakers were tinny sounding and not very audible. So, here are a few things to consider before buying this brand and particular unit. I hope you find the following helpful, and that it makes your selection process a little easier.

pro-ish:

1) Support, support, and again support. A product is only as good as the support that comes with it, and Garmin gets an A+ from me. I sent an email to Garmin with a question and got an answer within one day. When I called Garmin to ask a few more questions , I got a human operator immediately. This tech rep was based in the U.S. and was able to answer all of my questions fully and clearly. I was impressed. The support alone would cause me to buy a Garmin. (A friend of mine has a Tomtom, and he is having a hard time reaching anyone for help with his unit.)

2) The FM transmitter is a nice feature, but really isn’t worth bothering with. If you use it, you will a) have to listen to static hiss, b) have it fade in and out, c) have to change stations as your location changes, and d) won’t be able to listen to the radio or your tapes/cd’s. If you want more volume than the Nuvi speaker puts out, just buy an inexpensive portable travel speaker and plug it into the Nuvi headphone jack. The FM transmitter is a great idea, just not that practicable.

3) The Nuvi speaker. I would prefer more volume, but the speaker is perfectly adequate for the job as it is. My wife can hear the directions just fine, and I can make out most of what it says, even with my hearing impairment. There is really no need to listen over the radio or use an external speaker.

To read the full review on the pros and cons, click here

By Brandon H. Einhorn

The other Amazon listing of the 750 was removed, along with dozens of reviews. I will try and summarize the pros and cons and issues people had mentioned.

When turned on, the unit takes around a minute to load the maps. Solution - turn the unit on when you exit your house. It will be ready by the time you hook it up and start your car. Some had complained it took a long time to acquire the satelite, I have not experienced that.
I suspect that was a problem with the older firmware and has been corrected.

The manual is on line, not in the box. Not all the features are intuitive so its worth reading the manual. There are small things you might miss otherwise - such as converting the type pad to QUERY, or how to block toll roads, etc. The unit is rather easy to use, so its not like you will miss all that much if you don’t read the manual.

The voice is clear and easily loud enough to hear. I also tried it out on the car speakers via the FM transmitter and it worked fine. (My antenna is in the rear, the GPS on the dashboard).

The calculated routes work though not always “the best” as there may be slighly shorter routes using some side streets.

- Driving to Ikea bypassing the toll roads it missed a short cut on routes 1/9 that would have saved a couple of minutes - not a big deal.

- driving locally it wanted to put me on faster main streets rather than side roads even though the route was longer and would have hit 1 or more stop lights. I know the local streets and my way would have saved a couple of minutes. Still - thats not a big deal. I dont care about a couple of minutes if I am lost - just want to get where I am going in a reasonable amount of time.

Get the full review here