Garmin has been steadily updating it's popular nüvi product, rolling out new units complete with updated map screens, lane guidance, improved GPS chipsets, free traffic, and more. First to receive the update was the entry-level nüvi 200 line, which has now been replaced by the nüvi 2x5 models. For example, the nüvi 200 has been replaced by the nüvi 205, and the 260 has been replaced by the 265, and so on. Next to get the updated features was the nüvi 700 series. The nüvi 750 is replaced by the nüvi 755T, and the nüvi 760 by the 765T, and the 780 by the 785T. Now Garmin is completing the update to its nüvi catalog, replacing the high-end nüvi 800 series with the new nüvi 8x5 series. The nüvi 885T replaces the nüvi 880.

Mounting the nüvi 885T in the Car

Like other Garmin nüvi GPS devices, mounting the nüvi 885T in the car is a simple matter that doesn't require any professional installation. Simply attach the windshield mount to the glass, connect the power cable, dock the GPS, and (optionally) mount the remote control on the steering wheel. The nüvi 885T's 12v adapter contains an internal MSN Direct receiver, and provides power to the GPS as well as real-time traffic data, movie listings, gas pump pricing, weather, news, and more. MSN Direct data is only available when the 12v adapter is connected to the nüvi 885T, and are you in an MSN Direct coverage area.

The power cable connects to the right side of the cradle rather than the GPS unit itself -- a nice feature that makes docking and undocking the nüvi 885T from the dashboard quick and easy; you don't have to hook up any cables -- just snap the GPS into the cradle and you're ready to navigate. Remove the protective plastic from the suction cup windshield mount's rubber backing. 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 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. With the windshield mount, docking cradle, and power cable connected, we're ready to mount the nüvi 885T. Fit the bottom of the nüvi 885T into the cradle and tilt the nüvi back (towards the windshield glass) until it snaps into place, as shown above in figure 31.

To release the nüvi 885T from the cradle, press the release button located on the underside of the cradle, and tilt the nüvi away from the mount. The remote feels wells made and blends nicely into the steering wheel. Garmin's documentation suggests mounting the remote at 12-o'clock on the steering wheel, so as not to interfere while driving (though in theory you could put the remote anywhere in the vehicle you want).

The nüvi 885T looks good mounted in the car. With only a single cable connecting the GPS to the vehicle, the 885T looks sleek and blends nicely into the vehicle's interior. The bright, sunlight-readable display can easily be seen from the driver's seat, and the 885T can be docked or undocked with one hand in a matter of seconds.

Entering A Street Address

In order to test the nüvi 885T's address entry system, and overall ease of use, I'll enter a destination address in New York City: 135 Central Park West.

After powering on the nüvi 885T, the Main Menu screen appears, as shown above. To begin entering a street address, tap "Where to?" from the Main Menu. 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.

The nüvi 885T automatically defaults to use the State you are currently located in. If your destination address is in a State other than your current location, tap Change State or Country. After tapping on "Change State/Province", the nüvi 885T 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 nüvi 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 nüvi 885T 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 nüvi 885T 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 nüvi product line.

Now that the nüvi 885T knows we'll be entering an address in New York State, we're ready to tell it 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. I'll tap on "Spell City" to continue.

Entering the city name is identical to the process for entering the State name; once enough letters have been entered the nüvi 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 N-E-W on the on-screen keyboard, nüvi produces the results list, shown above. I'll tap "New York, NY" to continue. Note that the nüvi would have accepted either "New York" or "Manhattan" as valid city names.

Use the on-screen keypad to enter the house or building number of the destination address, and touch Done. The final step in entering the destination address is the street name. 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 produce a list of matching street names, such as "South Main Street" and "North Main Street".

With the address fully entered into the nüvi 885T, the destination can be viewed on the map by tapping Show Map, saved to the address book by tapping Save, or the nüvi can start driving to the destination by pressing the large green Go! button.

Finding a Restaurant (Searching for POIs)

In GPS speak, a "Point of Interest", or POI, is a business address saved on the GPS. You can think of the POI database as a pre-loaded yellow pages on the GPS. Most modern GPS devices come pre-loaded with a Points of Interest database, allowing you to find nearby businesses, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and more.

The nüvi 785T ships with relatively large POI database of around 6 million entries. During my testing, the nüvi 785T was able to find every restaurant or nearby business I could think to throw at it. To search for a "Point of Interest", tap on Where to? -> Points of Interest.

In this example I'll be searching for a restaurant, so I'll tap on Food from the Points of Interest page. I could have also chosen any of the following other available Points of Interest (POI) categories:
Fuel
Transit
Lodging
Shopping
Bank/ATM
Parking
Entertainment
Recreation
Attractions
Hospitals
Community
Auto Services

If you're not sure what category a given business would be found under, but know the name of the place you're searching for, tapping on Spell Name allows you to search the entire POI database for a specific name.

By default, the nüvi 885T searches for Points of Interest (POIs) close to your current location. If you want to search for a business near a specific address, along your planned route, or near your destination address, tap "Near..." to access the "Search Near..." screen, shown above:
Where I Am Now - Searches for businesses close to your current location
A Different City - Searches for businesses in a city (you will be prompted to enter the city name)
My Current Route - Searches for businesses along your current planned route (you must be navigating to a destination for this option to be selectable)
My Destination - Searches for businesses near your destination address (you must be navigating to a destination for this option to be selectable)

Some POI categories have sub-categories. For example, if you choose "Food" as the main category, the nüvi then asks if you also want to enter a sub-category (in this case, a cuisine type). If we wanted to find the closest Mexican restaurant, for example, we could choose Mexican as the sub-category, and the nüvi would limit the results to just Mexican restaurants.

If you don't want to narrow the results by cuisine, choose All Food to list all restaurants in the search area you specified.

The POI search results list displays each restaurant in order of closeness to our current location, along with the exact street address, distance, and direction relative to your current position.

Tapping on a POI in the search results list displays the details page for that particular POI. This screen displays the street address and phone number of the business (which can be dialed via the hands-free speakerphone once a Bluetooth enabled cell phone is paired with the nüvi 885T). This screen also lets you view the POI on the map before navigating to the address (Show Map), save the POI to the address book (Save), or begin routing to the business by tapping on the large green Go! button.

Setting the Home Address

The Home address is a special saved address on the nüvi that provides quick, one-touch access to the address you'll probably most often use: home. The first time you tap on Go Home from the Where to? menu, the nüvi 885T will prompt you to enter your home address.

The nüvi 885T allows you to enter a street address for the saved "Home" address, store your current location as the Home address (especially handy if your street address isn't located exactly where the map thinks), or pick a recently used address as the Home address. Once the Home address has been set, it can be changed anytime by tapping on Where to > Favorites > Home > Edit.

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 nüvi 885T, 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. The reality isn't quite as perfect, but MSN Direct's coverage and accuracy is continuously improving.

If a traffic alert is received that will impact the planned route, a traffic alert icon appears on the map screen, and displays how much time the delay has added to the trip. Tapping the traffic icon on the Map brings up the Traffic page, shown below.

The Traffic page allows you to view traffic conditions the following ways:
Show Traffic Map - displays traffic conditions on the map. You can manually scroll around and see all traffic incidents on the map
Traffic Search - lists all traffic delays that have been received, sorted by distance from your current location
Traffic on Route - displays the traffic incidents along the current planned route

The Traffic on Route screen displays details regarding any traffic along the planned route, and indicates the severity of the problem by color:
Green = Traffic is flowing normally
Yellow = Traffic is slightly congested
Red = Traffic is heavily congested or stopped

The nüvi 885T automatically attempts to avoid severe traffic when an alert is received. However, you can also manually avoid certain traffic conditions by touching Avoid on the details page for a given incident. If the nüvi 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").

Canceling A Route

Tapping on the Menu button while navigating to an address brings up the Main Menu, shown above. 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 right on the Main Menu 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).

In my testing I found the detour function worked adequately, although there are no options for how far you want to avoid the current problem, or ability to choose from a list of alternate routes, or exclude specific roads from the trip. But it does provide a quick and easy way to get off the current road if you run into a problem.

Saving Your Current Location

Tapping on the vehicle icon on the map brings up Garmin's updated "Where Am I" screen. 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 nüvi's Address Book, and allows you to assign a name the location.

GPS Sensitivity

Garmin has stopped disclosing which GPS receiver it uses in its products, however it's a fairly good bet that the nüvi 885T I tested is using SiRF's high performance StarIII receiver. In a head-to-head test against the SiRF StarIII-equipped nüvi 660, the nüvi 885T achieved identical signal performance.

Throughout the testing process, I was especially interested to see how the nüvi 885T's new, slim case design would compare to the older fold-out antenna nüvi 300 and 600 units. Thankfully the nüvi 885T exhibited none of the GPS performance issues that many nüvi 200-series owners have reported. Signal performance on the nüvi 885T also appeared to be better than the 780, consistently achieving identical GPS signal strength to the nüvi 660.

Conclusion

The nüvi 885T succeeds where many others have failed, delivering speech recognition that actually works, and ease of use that other devices can only dream of. Virtually every GPS function can be performed using your voice, including entering a complete street address, searching for points of interest, and navigating menus.

The included remote is nicely designed and fits snugly to almost any steering wheel. Pressing the button on the remote activates the nüvi 885T's voice recognition, and lets the unit know you're about to issue a command.

The 885T benefits from an updated map screen. A much needed upcoming turn arrow has been added, making it easy to see the direction of the next turn. Also added is lane assist with junction view. When approaching highway intersections, the 885T displays lane guidance information, letting you know which lane you need to be driving in. When available, highway intersections are rendered in almost photograph-like 3D detail. 3D junction view isn't yet available for most areas, but Garmin will continue to expand coverage with each subsequent map update.

MSN Direct content has been enhanced with flight status information, improved traffic coverage, expanded weather reporting, and improved movie listings. I also appreciated nüvi 885T's multi-destination routing support as well as the ability to optimize (sort) the stops by distance, tracklog support, and a "Where Am I?" and "Where did I park the car?" feature.

The nüvi 885T is Garmin's flagship automotive GPS, and also the most expensive as of this writing. Yet the 885T lacks some important features found on the considerably less expensive nüvi 7x5 models. Compared to the nüvi 785T, for example, the nüvi 885T lacks 3D building view, 3D landmarks, and the ability to customize the data field to show remaining time, distance, elevation, or direction of travel. Also missing is the faster screen refresh rate found on the nüvi 7x5 models. Compared to the nüvi 7x5's ultra-smooth map scrolling capability, the 885T feels choppy, and more like the nüvi 2x5 series in terms of screen refresh rate.

Like all Garmin nüvis, the 885T's internal FM transmitter is woefully underpowered, handicapping an otherwise wonderful feature, and the inability to exclude specific roads from the planned route can be frustrating at times. Priced at around $800 (estimated street price as of this writing), the nüvi 885T is the best voice activated GPS available today. Garmin's nüvi 885T delivers voice recognition that allows almost complete control of the GPS without taking your eyes of the road, and still gives up none of the nüvi's legendary ease of use that loyal customers have come to expect.

If voice recognition is worth the fairly hefty $300 price premium to you, Garmin's nüvi 885T doesn't disappoint. However, the nüvi 785T is a slightly better all-around navigator, and a much better bargain.