Garmin nuvi 885T

Even when the Nuvi885 works, it's a poor unit: --response is sluggish when typing in an address or a name, so sluggish you'll retype a number or letter because nothing happened and then two will appear on… the screen and you have to backspace. Frustrating. --the unit freezes up a lot, and sometimes it will only unfreeze if you remove the battery. Frustrating. --right in the middle of giving instructions, it'll be silent, so you'll look over and it's rebooting. Frustrating. --lastly, maximum volume is too soft. Just an annoyance.

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I found Garmin's Nuvi 885T to be an excellent gps unit - once I got one that performed well and worked the kinks out ot it! I purchased my 885T about a month and a half before a planned trip with my… in-laws. Out of the box the first unit performed flawlessly. It was a joy to use compared to my previous Garmin gps unit, a Color StreetPilot III, that required a lot of key strokes to input data. After I downloaded Garmin's POI software, however, and tried to download some scenic trip software - recommended by Garmin - the 885T's mapping data vanished! No amount of my attempts and those of the Garmin customer service expert, who surprisingly answered my phone call within about 10 minutes (in spite of the recorded message that the wait to speak to a rep was an hour), could fix this. The customer service rep suggested that I return it for a replacement. By the next day the unit was completely dead; I sent it back immediately and received a replacement 885T in about 8 days. This quick service pleased me as the departure date of our trip was rapidly approaching. This second unit also worked flawlessly, but, there was one more task I wanted to accomplish: connecting with MSNBC to use their free 3 month trial subscription. After successfully completing this task, however, now I noticed that all of the maps again had vanished from the 885T's hard drive. With 2 days to go before the beginning of our trip, I was somewhat anxious at the thought of not having a gps on the trip, or having to utilize my crochety Color StreetPilot III. I sent an email to Garmin's customer service dept. asking for help. To obtain the serial number of the unit, though, I had to remove its battery. When I replaced the battery and turned on the unit again, to my delight all of the mapping info was restored! The Garmin customer service rep who responded to my email message could not explain why this happened. The 885T unit worked very well during our 6 day trip in Northern California - except for one mishap: it directed me to turn the wrong way while in Sequoia National Park. Fortunately, a road crew member confirmed my suspicions and we made a 180° turn correction. I found the 885T's ability to understand voice commands and respond to them a wonderful asset when ones hands are occupied with driving. All in all, so far it has turned out to be an excellent and remarkably easy to use gps unit. Now if only Garmin could work out the software kinks, I'd give it a 5-star rating.

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I've read good and bad reviews for this product, so I was a little hesitant to buy it, but it was the only one I could find that had bluetooth and the ability to output to my stereo aux input (I didn't want… to use an FM transmitter). I've had this for about a month, and the only problem I've had is that it kept trying to take me off the highway early and route me through town. Once I found that this was due to the 'Avoid Traffic' feature, I changed settings and have had no problem since. The antenna acquires satellites in under a minute and gets reception inside my house (so I don't have to stand outside to put in my destination, as I have with other GPS units). The only time I've lost reception has been in a parking garage. I would recommend this unit to new and experienced users.

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I wasted all too much money on this device to recommend it. The huge advantage on this device is the traffic monitor. I did not realize that traffic monitor on this device had to be purchased separately… through MSN after 90 days. It is expensive $50.00 extra a year after your free 90 day trial run. On 10/27/09 MSN announced that they will no longer support MSN traffic as well as other services on these device as of 1/1/12. With that in mind I cannot understand why anyone would buy this obsolete product. Plus Garmin sells other devices that do not use MSN and uses Navteq with lifetime traffic without paying yearly. It is already included with the purchase price of the unit. I feel that I got ripped off by Garmin and MSN, since the support will not be there. I already had a very good Magellean unit but purchased the Garmin because of the traffic support. I question in my own mind how much support and effort MSN will be putting in when they have already announced that they will not offer the services within in the next 2 years or so. I hope this saves you some grief. At least go MSN website and check it out under the heading of Important service announcement. [...]

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