upgrade to Nuvi 855T?

[pontifex]

Trying to decide if I want to upgrade to a Nuvi 855T. I currently have a TomTom One 3rd edition. It works fine, but I'd like some more features like speaking street names and lane assist.

I don't really use the GPS much though as I don't really travel, but when I do need to go somewhere new, the GPS is invaluable.

I have a hard time spending a lot of money on something I'll rarely use.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

The 765T was one of hte top rated GPSes. I got one for $187 or so. I think that's worth getting. The 855T is a bit pricey for me, and unless there are some deals, from what I read the 765T is one o the best buys out there.

 

[pontifex]

The 765T was one of hte top rated GPSes. I got one for $187 or so. I think that's worth getting. The 855T is a bit pricey for me, and unless there are some deals, from what I read the 765T is one o the best buys out there.

Every time I see the 765T, it's like $225 or higher. The 855T has been on sale lately for $199.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

oh ok 855's much cheaper than i thought. I used to look at the 885T which was really expensive. Not bad I suppose?

Honestly I think Garmins are WAY better than Tom Tom basic models. Only the Tom Tom 7xx series can start competing and even then they fall behind. The 930 or whatever is half decent though. I have just avoided the entire Tom Tom One series. But if you're not going to use it very often, you might just save some money and stick to what you have.

Lane assist and street names are handy. I always admire my GPS for having capabilities over the ones my friends ran out to for Black Friday @ Walmart, but sometimes I ask myself, do I really NEED these capabilities for the extra $100 or so?

 

[QueBert]

If you don't need lane assist or BlueTooth, Best Buy has the 255wt this week for $129. Pretty much the 755 without the 2 things I mentioned, oh and no mp3 support. My GF has the 755 and it's pretty nice, I think for $129 the 255 is a steal.

 

[pontifex]

Ended up ordering a Nuvi 765T last week. Supposedly was delivered today. I decided to use some of my tax return money to get it.

 

[pontifex]

Really like the 765T so far. Haven't had to use it to actually find anything yet. used it once on the way to work. Like the speaking of street names and the satellite acquisition is FAST!

my tomtom one would take like 5 minutes to get signal, this thing has a signal in like 30 seconds.

The battery also seems to last longer as well. left it unplugged (power off) over weekend and it still has full battery. tomtom would be dead or near dead.

 

[Fox5]

Meh, I've got one of the higher end nuvis (Garmin Nuvi 850) and it's pretty crap. Tons of features, but it's so slow and sluggish. Interface isn't very responsive, visuals lag behind and sometimes lock up for several seconds, especially when the audio player functionality is in use. FM transmitter doesn't work very well either, but that just may be the nature of FM transmitters.
Voice recognition is really slow too, and sometimes takes so long switching screens that it times out before it gives prompting me for the next voice input!

 

[pontifex]

i noticed that its not as loud as my tomtom. this is bad. when it's unplugged, its really low even at 100%. it gets louder if its plugged in though, but still not very loud, especially if you have the radio on or something.

sometimes the touch screen is a bit sluggish or takes a bit more pressure but not too bad.

 

[Brian Stirling]

I have the 855T and although it's good at what it is it's not my cup of tea. Prior to getting the 855T last May for app $350 I had used handheld GPS's dating back to the Garmin GPS 50 in 1993. They were not much for turn-by-turn, but were great for hiking. I have also used them with a laptop and Delorme Street Atlas and the much greater detail this combo provides over the 855T makes the car type units unappealing to me. I now have a netbook (HP Mini 210 HD) with 1366x768 resolution and with a GPS puck connected via USB and Delorme Street Atlas I have a much better GPS setup than the 855T. A netbook for about the same price as a better car type unit will give you a better setup AND a PC for doing PC things...


Brian

 

[pontifex]

well since the volume sucks ass i emailed Garmin about it. They told me to update the firmware which I had already done and it didn't make a difference. they told me next step is to send it in for repair, but since I bought so recently, i should try to return it to the retailer first for an exchange.

Amazon is awesome. I did the return option on Friday and the replacement unit will be here today. Just have to hand over the original unit to the UPS driver.

 

[zerogear]

I got my 765T last week and they have it on sale right now for 185$). I called them up and they refunded me the difference :]

 

[pontifex]

I got my 765T last week and they have it on sale right now for 185$). I called them up and they refunded me the difference :]

Really? I got mine like 2 weeks ago for $219. I wonder if it's too late?

 

[zerogear]

Really? I got mine like 2 weeks ago for $219. I wonder if it's too late?

I would say if you're within the 30 days return limit, you should be able to pull it off. But it was just a goldbox deal for yesterday, so if you didn't do it yesterday, it might be too late.

 

[pontifex]

I got my replacement 765T last night and tested it out today. Its not louder than the previous one. I don't know what to do, other than not listen to music while using the GPS or copy music to a flash card and use the media player in the GPS and use it through my aux port. That way it stops the music when it speaks the directions and then resumes it.

This is rather annoying. I kind of feel bad returning it if there's technically nothing wrong with it. I could try a newer TomTom since my old TomTom's volume was awesome, but who knows if the newer TomToms don't also suffer from inadequate volume?

Whats weird is that I read that the regular voice that only gives directions but doesn't speak the names is louder. I tried this out and it is true. the non-street-speaking voice is much louder, but then I lose one of the reasons why I bought the unit - speaking street names.

I like the unit otherwise. Oh, this new unit also seems to be better with the touch screen.

 

[pontifex]

oooh!!! i was just doing some searching and I found a site with Nuvi tips on it and they mentioned using a program called TTSEditor to edit the volume of the voices! I'm trying it out now. If this works, this will be awesome!!

 

[zerogear]

oooh!!! i was just doing some searching and I found a site with Nuvi tips on it and they mentioned using a program called TTSEditor to edit the volume of the voices! I'm trying it out now. If this works, this will be awesome!!

Nice, let me know if it works.

 

[pontifex]

Nice, let me know if it works.

hmm...not sure it worked...the voices didn't seem much louder. I'll have to double check that I edited the right files.

 

[pontifex]

ok, it does seem louder with the car charger plugged in, but running off the internal battery is still extremely low. Guess I just need to use the car charger all the time or hook it up through my stereo aux port.