Titus

I've never had a GPS. I am ready for one in my Toyota RAV4. During Summers I travel the US by car and am tired of the Mapquest, etc. I have a bluetooth cell phone and just recently purchased a new Sirius satellite radio. My SUV is also wired for my IPOD.

The reason I considered waiting for the 880 is that I want voice recognition. I don't want to deal with distractions.

Is this unit worth waiting for or is the voice recognition a gimmic. I invested in voice recognition for a very expensive computer setup and it was a bust.

Opinions? My budget is $1,200 max.

Thanks.

dav

Hey, welcome to the board, Titus! I drive a RAV4, although mine's electric (2002).

Unfortunately, I can't actually answer your specific question. I had voice recognition on my Laptop GPS (Co-Pilot), but that was several years ago. It was not very useful.

Voice recognition on my cell phone is adequate, since I only have one phone number set up, it has never come up with the wrong number, not even once! Although sometimes it does tell me it cannot recognize what I'm saying...

I think cars are too noisy an environment for voice recognition to work well. If you bring the unit up to your mouth and talk to it, it will work fine, but if it is on the dash by the windshield, you'll probably have to shout to even make it understand you are talking to it.

On the other hand, I thought FM transmission of MP3s from my nuvi 750 was just a gimmick until I traveled with it in a rented vehicle. Now I think it is a wonderful option.

Good luck with your decision.

Titus

Good point. I haven't even tried voice recognition on my cell phone. I really don't want to wait until the 880 comes out, then find out the voice recognition isn't useful or is lacking.

I'm looking at the 780 also. It's on sale tomorrow.

Andy

I have voice recognition in my Mini. It has the OEM Nav system. It works really well, even voice dialing entries in my phone's phonebook without any prior setup on the phone or the car. I don't use the voice dialing function on the phone at all. Some how it actually reads a name out of my phone book and compares it to what I said. It's actually kind of amazing how well it works. It lets you control all the radio functions and the nav system in addition to my phone using voice. I find it really handy. It gets some things wrong once in a while but not too often.

The FM function on my 660 is kind of weak. I can't really find any empty stations to tune it to and it's over powered fairly easy. If it worked well, I would find it a great feature. But I haven't used it since the first month of ownership.

dav

Thread highjack in progress...

Andy, we had to quit using the FM Transmitter about Livermore heading up the I-5, through Oakland and over the San Ramon bridge.

Just too many FM stations in the whole Silicon Valley and surrounding area.

Once up to Petaluma, we could use it again.

I don't know if I could use it locally here in San Diego, don't need it here, so haven't tried.

dav

Titus,

On most of my travels I rent, both to spare my cars the extra wear, and to be able to try out other cars.

For instance, I've always "wanted" a Miata. They're just so cute. Well, I finally rented one from Hertz. Drove it up into the mountains to visit my parents. It had "sport suspension" and a really nifty automatic/manual transmission. Select by moving the shifter left or right. Once in "manual" you use the shift levers on the steering wheel - no clutch! That was such a lot of fun on the twisty mountain roads.

But it was AWFUL on the freeway. That harsh suspension combined with the short wheelbase just does not work. So I am REALLY glad I rented instead of just going out and buying one.

The point of all this is that you should check with the major car rental agencies and see if any of their vehicles have a voice recognition system. A one or two day rental might end up saving you lots of grief or regret.

Titus

Sounds like a great idea. I have some herniated disks in my neck and try to do everything possible to avoid reaching, turning, and other unnecessary movement while driving. The voice recognition appeals to me for that reason but my degree of patience with poor technology is rather low these days.

dav

Titus,

Picked your GPS yet?

Regarding the renting a car, I did not realize there were already links on this forum discussing it.

Garmin has a page on renting a nüvi 780 from Avis here: Garmin Blog: Business trip - or guilt trip?