A widescreen display, preloaded maps, bluetooth, an FM transmitter, hands-free calling, and Enhanced MSN Direct service put Garmin's new nuvi 780 squarely into the premium GPS category. Sure, other GPS manufacturers offer similar features on some of their models, but unlike many competitors, the nuvi 780 manages to integrate a bevy of sophisticated features while still maintaining reliability and ease of use.

Mounting the nuvi 780 in the Car

Like other Garmin GPS units, mounting the nuvi 780 in the car is a simple matter that doesn't require any professional installation. Simply attach the windshield mount to the glass, dock the GPS, and connect the power to the cigarette lighter.

The secret to Garmin's highly effective mount is its simplicity: simple, lightweight and very few moving parts makes for a reliable, solid connection that holds-up well to normal wear and tear. Locate the area on the windshield where you want to mount the GPS, then press the suction cup mount against the glass and lower the locking lever into place to secure the mount to the windshield.

The nuvi 780's 12v adapter is also the MSN Direct receiver, used for receiving real-time traffic data, movie listings, gas pump pricing, weather, news, and more, and has its own internal rechargeable battery. MSN Direct data is only available when the 12v adapter is connected to the nuvi 780 and is in a coverage area for MSN Direct.

Depending on your vehicle setup, the L-shaped angle of the GDB 50 power/MSN Direct adapter may make for a snug fit; in my car's main 12v cigarette lighter adapter, Garmin's plus just barely cleared the ash tray. The 12v adapter connects to the cradle instead of the nuvi unit directly, making it that much simpler to dock/undock the nuvi 780 from the windshield mount. Once the 12V power adapter is connected to the cradle, it's ready to be snapped onto the tip of the windshield mount.

To connect the cradle to the mount, you simply press the cradle onto the mount until you hear it "click" onto the ball of the mount. Together, the two pieces (cradle and mount) form a socket and ball type joint that can easily be angled into the desired viewing angle. There are no screws to loosen, or levers to unlock - adjusting the nuvi is simply a matter of applying slight force and adjusting the cradle.

With the windshield mount, 12v power, and cradle assembled, we're ready to mount the nuvi 780. Fit the bottom of the nuvi 780 into the cradle and tilt the nuvi back (towards the windshield glass) until it snaps into place. To release the nuvi 780 from the cradle, press the release button located on the underside of the cradle, and tilt the nuvi away from the mount.

Docking and undocking the nuvi is extremely simple, and even easier than previous Garmin nuvi models, thanks to the improved windshield mount/cradle design. The nuvi 780 is a handsome looking GPS. With just one wire (12v power cable) visible, the 780 is a sleek, modern looking GPS that doesn't clutter up the dashboard with lots of wires or oversized mounting hardware.

Garmin's windshield mount is excellent, holding the nuvi securely in place, even when driving at highway speeds. Adjusting the viewing angle of the mount was easy (even with one hand), thanks to the innovative mount design that doesn't require any knobs or levers when making adjustments.

 Nuvi 780's Enhanced MSN Direct Features

Garmin has teamed up with Microsoft's MSN Direct to provide various services based on your current location. The nuvi 680 was Garmin's first GPS to make use of MSN Direct, and the 780 extends the offering by providing "Enhanced MSN Direct".

Garmin's nuvi 780 includes 3-months of MSN Direct service for free, after which you'll have to subscribe for about $50/year if you want to continue using the service. MSN Direct service isn't required for basic GPS navigation, but does provide some nice additional features, including:
Traffic Reports
Send to GPS
Gas Prices
Weather Reports
Movie Times
Local Events
Stock Quotes
News Headlines

Before signing up for service, you'll want to make sure there's service in your local area. You can check service coverage using MSN Direct's Coverage website, and viewing the coverage map for your area. Zooming in on MSN Direct's coverage map allows you to view more detailed coverage information for your local area. For example, figure 32 shows a detailed coverage map for the Hartford, CT area.

Note that MSN Direct service coverage is NOT the same thing as Traffic Information coverage. Traffic coverage is much more limited than service coverage, and is generally only reported for cities and major highways. That means it's entirely possible that the coverage map will show you living within solid green coverage, but traffic information might not be available in your area. You can check if traffic information is reported in your area by visiting MSN's Data Availability Chart.

Bottom line: check the coverage map before signing up for MSN Direct; coverage in the United States is generally pretty good, but it's still wise to check first. Second, if your primarily subscribing for the traffic data, consider that traffic information is generally limited to major highways and cities.

To access the Enhanced MSN Direct features, tap on the Tools icon from the Main Menu. Also, note that the current outdoor temperature is displayed in the top center of the screen when you're traveling within an MSN Direct coverage area. Tap on the MSN butterfly icon to access the MSN Direct features.

The following options are available via the MSN Direct menu:
Traffic
Weather
Gas Prices
Movie Times
News
Stocks
Local Events
Web Favorites

Tapping on Weather from the MSN menu displays the weather conditions at your current location. You can also view the 3 day forecast, or tap on Other City to view the weather conditions in an alternate location. The MSN Weather Forecast displays a 3-day forecast of the weather at your current location. The forecast includes the visibility, high/low temperature, and precipitation.

If you tap on "Other City" from the Weather screen, the nuvi 780 displays the local weather conditions of nearby cities, listed in order of closeness to your current location. Another integrated MSN Direct feature shows up when entering a destination address. Once you've successfully entered in an address you want to route to, you'll notice that the nuvi will also display the local weather conditions at that destination. You can even tap on the weather icon and get more detailed weather reports at your destination address.

If a weather alert is received while navigating to a destination, such as flood, wind, or lightening warnings, the inclement weather icon will appear on the map screen, as shown above. Tapping on the weather icon will display more detailed information about the weather alert.

From the MSN Direct menu, tap on Movie Times to view local movie theater information. You can search for local movie listings either by movie title or by theater. Select "Searching by Movie Theater" and the nuvi displays a list of nearby movie theaters, ordered by closeness to your current location. Tapping on a theater then displays the movies playing at that cinema, and the show times.

The Stock Quotes page can be customized to display the stocks of your choosing. Notice the "Waiting for broadcast" message shown above: it can take a while before MSN Direct data is downloaded and available.

Top news stories can be viewed by tapping the News icon from the MSN Direct menu. Each headline story can be read by tapping on the news item in the list. There's no way to search for a particular news story, or customize the feed, so you're limited to the headline news feed from MSN Direct. Tapping on Gas Prices from the MSN menu displays a list of local gas stations (ordered by closeness) and the price per gallon of gas (regular unleaded) sold at that station. The page also displays the distance and direction to the gas station, as well as the age of the data.

MSN Direct collects this data by observing credit card transactions at gas stations, and recording the price paid per gallon of gas. Using this data, you can choose the gas station that has the most competitive gas price, even if it's not the closest gas station.

Note that only stations with known gas prices are included in this view. In my area, several local gas stations did not show up on the MSN Direct Gas Prices search. So if you want a complete list of gas stations, you'll want to use the POI (Points of Interest) menu and search for gas stations. Presumably the data will get more complete over time, but for now I noticed that not all nearby gas stations were reported by MSN Direct.

Traffic

Technically speaking, Traffic is part of the MSN Direct offering, but since real-time traffic data is such an important feature, it warrants its own section in this review.

Access to real-time traffic information and the ability to navigate around traffic jams is a major selling point of the nuvi 780, and one of the features consumers are most interested in; after all, the thought of avoiding traffic jams and intelligently routing around them is an appealing proposition indeed. Unfortunately, traffic data is generally limited to major highways and cities, is delayed, and is still far from perfect.

If a traffic event is received that will impact your current route, the nuvi 780 displays the corresponding icon in the lower-right hand corner of the map display, as shown above. Tapping the alert displays additional information about the traffic event.

This screen displays an overview of the traffic problem, and marks the problem area with the appropriate traffic icon. Tap the traffic notification bar at the top of this screen (the gray bar that reads: "1 min delay 15 mi ahead"), and additional details of the traffic issue are displayed. Tapping "Avoid" forces the GPS to find an alternate route around the traffic problem.

Note that if the nuvi receives a traffic alert and finds a faster route with less traffic, it will automatically prompt the driver with a message asking if you want to route around the traffic (a message saying "A better route is available").

Garmin's traffic integration in well implemented and easy to use. My biggest complaint was with data accuracy; more often than not I found MSN's traffic data either wrong or missing, resulting in avoiding traffic jams that don't exist, or the nuvi telling you the road is backed up as you sail along at 70 MPH. In fairness, this isn't unique to MSN Direct - virtually every traffic-enabled GPS I've tested to date suffers from the same limitation. Hopefully, over time the data accuracy will improve and coverage areas expand, making traffic data a more valuable feature. Currently, traffic data is better than nothing, but it's still got a long way to go.

Map Screen

The map screen is displayed automatically when navigating to an address. The route the GPS has calculated is marked with a magenta line, as shown above in figure 48. The map screen can also be manually invoked by tapping on "View Map" from the Main Menu.

Tapping on the Arrival Time area (#5 in figure 49) brings up the trip information page, which displays a running counter of various statistics about the "trip", or since it was last reset.

The Turn List, available by tapping on the text bar (the horizontal green bar across the top of the Map Screen), displays a list of all upcoming maneuvers. Each turn can be selected to view a more detailed view of the turn.

The "Next Turn" page is available by tapping on the lower-right icon from the map view, and displays a detailed view of the turn. This split-screen view shows a 2-dimensional drawing of the turn on the left side of the screen, and a text description of the turn on the right side. Also displayed are the distance and time to the turn.

Tapping the up/down arrows in the lower-right portion of the screen cycles through the upcoming turns, one at a time. Voice prompts are also announced as each turn is viewed. New to the nuvi 700-series is the addition of a speed limit indicator on the map screen. When the nuvi 780 knows the posted speed limit for the road you are traveling, the speed limit is displayed on the map screen, as shown above.This feature can also be disabled if you prefer not to see it.

Overall Garmin's map screen is well implemented and carefully designed. It is easy to read and does a good job displaying key information without being cluttered or confusing. For example, notice how the green information bar across the top of the map screen mimics the color and font used on actual highway signs. Also notice how the angle of the 3D map makes it easy to see upcoming maneuvers. The map screen is one of the most important aspects of any GPS, and the nuvi 780 gets it right.

Finding an Address

The nuvi 780 allows you to input a destination address a number of different ways; probably the most common method is to use a street address. In the following example, I'll enter a destination address in New York City: 135 Central Park West.

It doesn't get much simpler than this: after powering on the nuvi 780, the Main Menu screen appears, as shown above in figure 54. From here, you can view the map, search for an address, adjust system settings (wrench icon), or adjust the volume (speaker icon).

Also notice that the Main Menu displays the GPS signal strength, Bluetooth icon, battery level, and current time. Outside temperature is also displayed if you are located in an area od MSN Direct coverage (and the 12v MSN Direct antenna/power plug is connected).

Most of the time you'll probably be driving to a street address (as opposed to a business name or intersection). After tapping on Where to? from the Main Menu, tap on Address to begin inputting a street address. After tapping on "Change State/Province", the nuvi 780 prompts you to enter the name of the State or province of the destination address. Spelling the State is straight forward. Use the on-screen keyboard to spell out the city name; one enough letters have been entered, the nuvi GPS will automatically produce a list of possible matching States to choose from.

I'm entering a destination address in New York State, so I type out N-E-W-space, and the nuvi 780 automatically produces a short list of matching States (just one, in this case) to choose from. I tap on "New York" and continue on to the next step. The nuvi 780 feels fast and responsive, allowing me to enter the city name as quickly as I can type, without any annoying delays or sluggishness.

However, I did find myself wishing that the text entry system was more like Magellan's QuickSpell system, which dims out invalid letters as you type, only allowing you to press keys that would spell a valid city name. TomTom also has a similar text entry system. These systems reduce the likelihood of misspellings and make text entry generally easier and faster, and would be a welcome addition to the Garmin nuvi product line.

Now that the nuvi 780 knows we'll be entering an address in New York State, we're ready to tell the GPS what city our destination address is in. If you know the name of the city your destination address is located in, tap on "Spell City" to enter the name. If you're not sure what city the destination address is in, tapping "Search All" lets you search the entire State.

Entering the city name is identical to the process for entering the State name; once enough letters have been entered the nuvi automatically produces a list of results. Also, just like the State entry screen, tapping on the folder icon in the upper left corner displays a short list of recently found city names. After tapping M-A-N on the on-screen keyboard, nuvi produces the results list, shown above. I'll tap "Manhattan, NY" to continue. Note that nuvi would have accepted either "New York" or "Manhattan" as valid city names.

One downside of entering the house number before the street name is that the nuvi cannot list the valid range of house numbers on a given street, as Magellan's GPS units do. For example, if you're trying to get to a house on "South Main Street", Magellan's GPS units will ask for the street name first, then show you the valid range of houses along South Main Street, allowing you to pick a house number even if you're not sure of the exact address.

The final step in entering the destination address is the street name. In this test I'm entering an address on "Central Park West" in New York City, so I start to spell out C-E-N-T-R-A-L...

When entering a street name, you only enter the main portion of the street name, and allow the GPS to search for possible matches. For example, if you are looking for "North Main" street, you would only enter "Main" as the search criteria, and the GPS would product a list of matching street names, such as "South Main Street" and "North Main Street".

Canceling the Route

Tapping on the Menu button while navigating to an address brings up the Main Menu. From here, you can stop routing to the destination by tapping on Stop, or detour around a problem area by (such as a traffic jam or closed road) by tapping on Detour.

Including the Stop button is a nice feature. I've tested a lot of GPS devices and have found that canceling a route can be a surprisingly difficult task. For example, TomTom's GPS units don't have any way to cancel the route (you can make it appear by switching the TomTom to "Advanced" mode, but under the default menu there's simply no way to cancel the current route).

Saving Your Current Location

Tapping on the vehicle icon on the map screen brings up Garmin's updated "Where Am I" screen, shown above in figure 98. This is a great feature that provides one-touch access to your current street address (or closest valid street address), nearest intersection, and exact coordinates.

Garmin's well designed location screen also provides one-touch access to nearby hospitals, police stations, and gas stations. Tapping Save Location Saving your current location adds the current position to the nuvi's Address Book, and allows you to assign a name the location.

Custom Vehicle Icons

One of the more entertaining features of Garmin's nuvi 780 (and all other nuvi models) is the ability to download and install custom vehicle icons. Garmin's library of free, downloadable vehicle icons are available at www.garmin.com/vehicles.

Garmin frequently adds new vehicles to the library, so if you're into these icons you might want to check back every few months for new icons. Once you've downloaded the vehicle icons from Garmin's website, you'll want to unzip the files, connect the nuvi to your PC, and then copy the new vehicle icons into the Garmin/vehicle folder on your nuvi.

One you've copied over the new vehicles, the icon that represents your vehicle on the map can be changed to one of the new downloaded icons by tapping on Main Menu > Tools (wrench) > Settings > Map > Change... As you browse the various installed vehicle icons, the nuvi displays the new icon on the map so you can see how it will look. Figure 101, above, shows the "Station Wagon" and "RV" vehicle icons.

Bluetooth and Hands-Free Calling

The nuvi 710, 760, 770, and 780 support Bluetooth, and can be paired to your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone to become a hands-free device. As an added bonus, you can combine the Bluetooth functionality with the nuvi 780's internal FM transmitter for hands-free calling using your car's stereo system instead of the GPS' internal speaker.

When you receive an incoming call while your phone is paired with the nuvi 780, the nuvi displays an "Incoming Call" alert, which also displays the name/number of the caller. You can then tap Answer or Ignore, and use the internal microphone on the front of the nuvi 780 as a hands-free speakerphone. The nuvi also supports a number of useful in-call features, such as call-waiting, transferring the call back to your cell phone, and muting the microphone. If you're navigating to a destination, the nuvi silences all navigation prompts for the duration of the phone call (but still displays the map and visual prompts), and then resumes audible prompts once that call has ended.

Before you can make use of any Bluetooth features, you'll need to pair the nuvi 780 with a Bluetooth enabled cell phone. In order to pair the phone and GPS, the two devices must be within 30 feet of each other. Garmin has a website setup where you can check to see if your mobile phone is compatible with the nuvi 780: www.garmin.com/bluetooth, and see which features will work with any given phone.

Conclusion

Spend a little time with Garmin's nuvi 780 and it quickly becomes apparent why Garmin enjoys the lead position as the #1 GPS manufacturer in North America (by a wide margin). The nuvi 780 displays the kind of refinement, reliability, and ease of use that comes from years of testing and fine-tuning.

Functionally identical the the nuvi 760, Garmin's nuvi 780 adds MSN Direct services to an already outstanding GPS. If you already own a nuvi 760, there's little point in upgrading. However, if you're considering the nuvi 760, the nuvi 780 is only slightly more expensive (about $60 more, as of this writing) and adds some handy MSN Direct features, such as local gas prices, movie listings, weather, news, stock quotes, and local events.

If you don't care about the new features the 700-series brings, the nuvi 680 provides identical routing and still has the MSN Direct features for about $100 less. But if money is no object, and you're simply looking for the best GPS available (or you've been waiting for a Garmin nuvi that finally has multi-destination routing support), the nuvi 780 is unbeatable in terms of quality, features, and ease of use.