jogforfitness

I recently purchased a Garmin 750. After using the unit for about a week there are a few pet peeves I come across.

1- It does not display the current road being driven other than when it is first turned upon.

2-When on the freeway, it seldomly displays the current route. When it does it often pops up at random just in front of the car image. Within a second, the car image runs over the top of the route number then the route rolls off the display shortly thereafter hence, the route number is only displayed for a brief few seconds.

I've tried different settings/altitudes and have found some nominal differences. This happens in both 2 dimensional and 3 dimension modes.

Has anyone else come across this? Have you found a way to get the device to display current routes and roads on a more frequent basis? I've called Garmin support and they didn't have an answer. They did take note of my questions/complaints/suggestions and are alledgedly going to submit my them to the developers. If noone or very few others complain then it probably wont receive much attention.

I did mess around with the Tom Tom 720 and it displayed the current street at all times and when on the freeway the current route floated from top to bottom and eventually off the road display. It would loop and reappear again at the display top. Very nice. Unless Garmin either addresses these issues qucik, at this moment, I wish I'd purchased the Tom Tom 720 and not the Garmin 750.

I'd be very interested in hearing other opinions.

Youngstown, Ohio

Max

I don't have a 750, but a 680 Nuvi - and it displays the street name or highway name on the top of the screen on it's own line.

The only time it doesen't is when I have selected a route for it to travel, and then it shows the next desired turn location, etc.


Come to think of it - this is the same for all my Garmins, so I am not quite sure what you mean .


Can you possibly give us a screenshot of what you mean?

If you're not sure how -go into settings -> display -> screenshot, you should be able to enable the screenshot function. Once you do this there is a camera icon on the screen at all times (until restarted or disabled). Every time you press the camera button, it puts a picture of the current screen into the systems memory.

If you could post up a few screens I'd be delighted. Mybe there is a setting or something we could help you with that might make this thing work better for ya

Max

Oh and by the way, to the site!

netguysc

I would suggest just pressing the car icon, it will show your current location (closest street address of the road you are driving on). I am not aware of a way to always show what road you're driving on.

Max

You could always buy a 2720

(I have the data field labels off, but the 3rd field down is where I presently am, and since it's an intersection it only shows the street name of active direction of travel)

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jogforfitness

Hi Max,

I've attached a few screen shots. All of them are 2 dimensional.

4328 and 2817 are taken with a 0.3 scale. Routes occasionally pop up which is acceptible but, not great. I'd rather see them displayed all the time. Also, 0.3 scale is not great when in an area with a lot of other streets and such on the display. The screen is very cluttered hence a setting with a closer zoom is preferable but, when zoomed in the route info does not display.

1168 and 1355 are taken with a 0.2 scale. Routes rarely pop up. They do display if I was just on the 0.3 scale displayed,, then I zoomed to the 0.2,, they'd remain until they floated off. Then nothing.

944 and 1741 are taken with a 800 ft scale. Routes rarely pop up. They do display if I was just on the 0.3 scale and were displayed,, then I zoomed to the 800ft,, they'd remain until they floated off. Then nothing. In essense its the same result as the 0.2 scale.

902 was a screen shot taken in the neighborhood. As can be seen, the current road is not displayed. Boo! I know it will occasionally display if I dont have a set destination. But, when I drive I do typically have a destination.

Hope someone can find a setting or something somewhere to improve this but, I have my doubts.

Thanks,
Mitch

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Max

It looks like your map detail is set really low, for starters...that would at least give the streetnames on the maps I believe.

I'll have to play with the 6xx Nuvi when the wife gets home and get back to ya.

Andy

I'm not sure I'm following this. The current street name. Max's 2720 looks like it can through a data field. I'll have to see if any of my handheld models have that field as well. My Nuvi and 76CSx will show you the name of the road you are on at the top of the screen, until you are approaching an intersection, where it switches to display the name of the street at that intersection.

What I don't think I'm following is the 2nd thing you posted about. You are saying the route "floats" off the screen? What does that mean? I don't see anything abnormal in the screen shots you posted. But I'm into a pretty good head cold at the moment and just might not be thinking straight...

jogforfitness

When a destination is entered, the next turn is constantly displayed at the top of my 750 nuvi. The current road is typically only displayed right when the turn occurs. After that, its gone.

When no destination is entered, the next street is displayed or, occasionally, the current road being traveled is displayed.

What I mean by the 'route floating off the screen' is that when traveling, as the map moves the route 'number' slowly creeps down,,, then under the car,,, then off the screen. That is fine with me. I like that. What I dont like is that with a lot of the 'elevation' settings there is no route information displayed. The lower the elevation the less route information displayed... only lines representing roads. In my screen shots above, the only screen shots that display route numbers are at 0.3. I've found that settings at 0.2 and closer (in 2 dimensional mode) rarely seem to display the route numbers which seems odd. Why would the nuvi not display route information as you zoom closer to ground level?

dav

I do understand what you are saying about the current street not being on the screen.

But I do have to let you know that I wouldn't want that. There is very limited real estate on these screens, and I want to know where I am going, not where I am.

Generally, I KNOW where I am. I'm in my car driving somewhere else. Why would I care where the car is located? That isn't where I want to be, or I wouldn't be driving somewhere else.

I'm afraid I can see why Garmin does not make it a permanent feature of their display.

And as mentioned, if it is really important for me to know, I can touch the icon and it will show me.

Andy

jogforfitness, I understand what you are saying now. I've seen the same behaviour with the route number moving down the screen.

For the other thing though, unfortunately the Nuvi's don't let you specify what information (road names is just one) is displayed at each zoom level. This was a "standard" feature with their older models (every handheld model I have; 12map, 76s, 76CSx). You pick what zoom level for each displayed item on the map.

From my view, it seems Garmin is wanting you to use their guidance as your directions and not reference the data you are seeing in the map display. It's just not a paper map with labels on everything.

Is having all the streets labeled critical for you to navigate? I can see where that would be a help when you do no have a destination programmed. With it displaying the next street name at the top as you approach helpful enough without labeling it on the map display?

I agree with dav, I don't need to know the name of the street I'm on. It's the name of the next street I'm turning on that is important to me. And really, I don't even need the name, I just need to know when to turn. I can visually see my route highlighted on the Nuvi's screen so I know when to turn, regardless of the name of the street (if it's even shown).

I'm not saying the features you would like to see wouldn't be good, they are just different from what I've been accustomed to using with a mapping GPS.

An example is the OEM system in my car. It doesn't speak street names. It just tells you when to turn, giving you plenty of warnings, "exit the highway at the 3rd exit, exit the highway at the next exit", etc. I find it just as effective as using the Nuvi with it speaking street names. In many respects it's much easier to navigate without all the other "frills" like saying the street name. It's really just kind of useless information to tell me the street name. From my experience, it's just as effective to just have it say turn at the next street.

jogforfitness

The street name is constantly displayed on the Tom Tom 720 as is the route number when on a highway. When reviewing I thought this would be standard with most models especially ones at the upper end (of course I was wrong). I decided on the Garmin because I saw a friends nuvi 200 and thought its graphics were better than the Tom Tom while counting on the Tom Tom's 'basic' features to be available also on the Garmin. That was definitely my mistake. I still like the nuvi 750 unit but, knowing what I know now, I think I would purchase the Tom Tom if I were to do it over again.

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to address my questions. Your opinions, help and advice were definitely appreciated.

Mitch

Andy

No problem Mitch!

GPS devices vary a lot on their feature set. There isn't really any standard set of features in all devices, especially when you start comparing different manufactures. I guess that's why there are so many different ones out there. I haven't used a Tom Tom but can see where I could get accustomed to some of their features.

If you can't return the Garmin, try emailing Garmin's support and asking for those features to be added in a future software update. If they get enough requests many times they'll add things like that. Their Zumo for example wouldn't tell you the elevation when it was first released. After enough complaints, they had a software update for it.