Garmin Nuvi 765T

Occasionally we feature opinions and reviews from our forum members. SergZak, a very advanced and knowledgeable Nuvi user has written this about his experience with the Nuvi 765T.

I spent some quality time over this past weekend with a two different nuvi 765T units. The units have since been returned and I thought I would post the following obsevations to help any users out there who are “on the fence” about purchasing this unit to perhaps replace their 7×0. Many of the things I will comment on have indeed been mentioned here and elsewhere before but I will include them despite that fact for completeness. This will mostly be a comparison and will touch on the differences between the units. All comments are my opinion only and I’m sure others here will feel very differently. Both units were updated to the most recent unit software version 2.50.

Overall useage & feel

In spite of the newer & faster processor, the 765 has a more sluggish feel in overall use. Map screen redraws while navigating were fantastic and very smooth. Bravo to Garmin on this. I feel my observed sluggishness has more to do with navigating the menu system as the screen changes “slide” in/out instead of instantaneously changing. The screen “slides” were also a bit jerky as compared to the map redraws which were very smooth. I much prefer the menu system used by the 7×0 as it just feels snappier and quicker.

LCD observations

Both units had the brighter LCD used in the older 7×0 series. Touch screen sensitivity was average…not as bad as some units I have used but not as good as my current 760 which is very sensitive and a joy to use. However, *both* of the unit’s LCDs had issues with screen touches being misinterpreted, especially on the bottom row buttons. Many times the button pressed triggered not that button but the one just above it thus triggering a different press than what was expected. Despite numerous screen re-calibrations, I could not alleviate the problem and even tried to fool the calibration process by pressing slighty to the left/right/up/down of where the calibration required you to press. Using the diagnostic mode’s screen press test page (also available on the 7×0) showed the random screen touch errors, with some being way off compared to where I pressed. The test icon would “jump” to a random area about 10% of the time, mostly to just above where I pressed.

Screen panning/dragging was painfully slow and very frustrating. Given the faster map redraws, I really don’t understand why this would be the case unless it is somehow related to the touch-screen since my 760 (with the sensitive LCD) is very fast and smooth in map panning.

New features

The new UI & lane guidance was quite useful and I wish my 7×0’s had it. However, I found the junction view quite annoying the times that it popped up since all you see is that screen for seconds at a time. There is no means to disable it through the menu system but I was able to force the unit to NOT use it by simply renaming the junction view file in the x:/Garmin/JCV folder.

The new map zoom button placement is ideal and very handy. Initially, the new zooming in/out motion was impressive but after a while, I wished for just the direct zoom in/out as on the 7×0 series. I felt that the new zooming was no faster than the old way…but it was cooler to watch though.

3D buildings was also useless to me since I use 2D mode exclusively. Even if I did use 3D mode, I would turn this feature off since it did nothing for my situational awareness. In fact, it may be a distraction to some people since you should really be watching the road while driving, not looking at 3D rendered buildings on your GPS screen.

The ability to configure the data fields is also a welcome change that I wish the 7×0’s had…I will miss this feature using my old 7×0’s

Odds and ends

The North pointer is back once again. Thanks Garmin!

I could no longer use voice dial with my RAZR (Verizon) phone on the 765. My 760 works just fine using voice dial.

Your Favorite’s names are no longer displayed on the map screen. Boy this annoyed me to high heaven. I rely on seeing the Favorite’s names along with the icon on the map and having them gone was a big deal for me. The Favorite’s icon size has also been increased slightly which may be good but not being able to see it’s associated name is pretty pointless to me.

The map screen can no longer display the same detail as the 7×0 series. Smaller streets only display at .03 of a mile and below while the 7×0 series can display the same streets at .05 and .08 of a mile. I think I -may- see the reason for this inability…the map & streets drawn seem to have a higher degree of anti-aliasing(AA) applied, thus giving a smoother look. However if the same amount of AA were applied to the map at the “most” detail setting of the 7×0 series, they would all blur together.

Upcoming street names are no longer displayed as on the 7×0 units. Only the name of the street/highway you are currently on now is displayed instead. I have heard that the upcoming street display was removed due to the fact that another manufacturer has the rights to display the upcoming street data. Regardless, this is yet another step backwards.

The volume setting is no longer saved between being cradle powered and battery powered. If you set the unit’s volume for say 90% while being cradle powered and you then run off the battery in your house, the unit will still be set to 90% volume. You end up with a very loud unit on battery power/indoors until you turn the volume back down or mute it. When you put the unit back on the cradle in the car, you again have to unmute or increase the volume back up. I found this very annoying since I use the unit indoors frequently and having to constantly mute/unmute the unit was just plain silly. The 7×0 series saves the volume setting being cradle/battery powered just fine.

Summary

In my *personal useage*, I felt that the 7×5 series was a step backwards from the 7×0 series, due (for the most part) to the last four items listed under “Odd and ends” above. It seems like more effort was put into creating new visual “eye candy” for the user. While this is all good, it’s actual usefulness was really not important to me. Instead of being constantly impressed by this, I was constantly wanting the older features of the 7×0 I mentioned above instead. The new features like lane guidance & the new user interface are fantastic though and may be enough to steer 7×0 users to the new 7×5 series. I think that if your first nuvi is going to be a 7×5 unit, you will be very pleased with it, not knowing what the 7×0 series is capable of doing despite that fact that it’s an older unit. If you’re a current 7×0 user, you may in fact be rather disappointed with features (again) being removed and missed.

Occasionally we feature opinions and reviews from our forum members. SergZak, a very advanced and knowledgeable Nuvi user has written this about his experience with the Nuvi 765T.

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Located in GPS, Garmin on Aug 27, 2008