Review by R. Kintner for Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black)
Rating:
I recently bought a Nuvi 850. Here’s my advice for what it’s worth.

The real value of a Nav system comes from the fundamentals.

* Receiver

* Maps

* Routing Engine

* Display

* User Interface

Garmin does a solid job in all these areas. But that’s not why you’re paying a premium for an 800 series Nuvi.

This model has a couple of “nice to have” features that were introduced on the 700 series of Nuvi’s.

* Where Am I

* Where’s My Car

Both are very well implemented and can be very handy. But again, all of the stuff I mentioned so far can be found in a Nuvi costing $300 less.

So what are you paying a premium for?

* Voice Recognition

* User Replaceable Battery

* Front Mounted Speakers

Well, the front mounted speakers are still drowned out by moderate road noise. So, I wouldn’t pay a nickel for that. The only real sound solution remains the FM transmitter that everyone complains about. It works OK for me, in my car, in my area. Your mileage may vary.

The user replaceable battery is excellent. For $30 you can carry a spare battery and go totally wireless in the car or use the Nuvi for 8 hours of walking around a city. I’d pay for that. In fact, every portable device should have user replaceable batteries.

OK, that leaves the “Big Kahuna” feature, voice recognition. Don’t believe the hype from the professional reviews or some of the hosanna’s being thrown around in Amazon reviews.

Does it work? Yes, it works amazingly well. In a dead silent environment.

With moderate road noise or even indoors with a TV at low volume 15 feet away the thing to gets confused about what it’s “hearing”. It should have a microphone with low sensitivity and high directionality to screen out spurious noise. A little DSP noise filtering wouldn’t hurt either. Unfortunately, the standard piezo mic that Garmin also uses for bluetooth phone calls will pick up any sound coming from any direction. The result is that voice recognition becomes an excercise in frustration.

Still, I’m gonna keep the darned thing. I’ll simply enter destinations in the quiet of my home, office, hotel room, or a restaurant before heading out on the road. The remote will live in my briefcase. It does save you from a lot of tedious keyboard entry. But, it is not the mobile safety feature that reviews would have you believe since voice commands are all but useless in a car. You can get essentially the same features in a Nuvi 760 and save yourself $300.

Your decision.

EDIT: Update…..OK maybe I was a bit harsh first time round. I have found that the unit will respond with moderate background noise…..some of the time…..if you yell at it. It appears to have the ability to lock in on the loudest sound it “hears”. So, if you are relatively close to the microphone and speak really loud (yell), it does respond some of the time.

On the upside, connecting to the Garmin website was very easy. I registered the 850, downloaded the newest firmware, and downloaded/installed the latest maps (2009), all in about ten mintues without a glitch.

Review by Edward L. Cole for Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black)
Rating:
This unit functions perfectly as it is described. The voice-activation is nearly perfect. Probably one of the best implementations to date that I can remember. The map is a bit under-detailed for the price but it gets you where you need to go. Voice commands from the unit are very easy to understand. Controls are easy to navigate as are the menu options. One thing that I think is a bit ridiculous is the absence of Bluetooth Hands-Free calling. For $800 they could have included that and it is the reason that I gave it four stars instead of 5. Many of the options included with the device are useless to me to be honest. Games? Picture viewer? MP3 player? I don’t need any of these but the voice-commands for unit control are awesome.

If you have the money to buy this unit, get it… if not look at some of the lower-priced 700-series Nuvi’s

Review by The Green Mountain Boy for Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black)
Rating:
This unit has some major flaws, most of which Garmin is aware of and seems to ignore because you see the same complaints on all their products. The biggest source of issues is the map. The points of interest are critically lacking; I’m not just talking about new points of interest that haven’t been added yet, but also old points of interest that have been overlooked. For example, in my hometown the biggest bank in town has been here for well over 100 years, and in the EXACT same location for the whole time. The Garmin map doesn’t show it. But the same bank has a smaller branch on the edge of town which has only been there for 3 or 4 years, the map does have that. Immediately adjacent to that bank is the towns largest gas station which has been there longer than the bank; the map doesn’t show it. The largest grocery store in town is also curiously absent. I was waiting at a four way intersection in a neighboring state, the map showed no points of interest at the intersection, while in reality there was an enormous gas station with a mini-mall behind it. The fact that gas stations are missing is inexcusable. Before I got the unit my father asked if the only points of interest the map would show are of businesses that paid to be included, I hypothesized that a manufacturer which wanted to earn customer trust and loyalty wouldn’t do that. Imagine if you were in a town you had never been to before and desperately needed gas. You ask the GPS for the nearest gas. Which answer do you want; the nearest gas is half a mile this way just around the bend, or the nearest gas is 10 miles the other way (because our map sucks), oops, sorry, you only had enough gas to get you 5 miles, tough luck. Whatever the reasoning, that is what you get with Garmin.

The feature where the unit can talk to you and tell you directions is a liability. If you rely on it, it will get you lost. For whatever reason, the voice feature does not mimick the on screen directions, it tells you much less so eventually it will forget to tell you about a turn you needed to take. Just like other reviewers, I find it hard to hear the directions on the built in speaker unless it is silent in the car; no talking, no radio, fan on very low, etc.

The logic for routing you to your destination seems good, but one time it did a very strange route for me as I was testing it near home. I was driving on road A, and to get home all I had to do was turn on road B and drive a tenth of a mile to my house. Instead, the Garmin wanted me to drive past road B to road C, then drive down road C to where it intersected road B at the opposite end, then drive down road B a number of miles to my house.

How it differentiates one road from another also leaves you confused sometimes. If you have a road in a town with a specific name, but once that very road leaves town it has a different name (usually a number) and that second name is how most people refer to the road, the Garmin will refer to the road by the wrong name. Also, sometimes it will tell you that you are getting on a different road, or you are exiting, when ABSOLUTELY nothing has changed from the driver’s perspective. This even happened on a section of interstate highway where the road didn’t even change numbers. Also, on a road with a fairly sharp bend, it will treat the bend as a “turn,” this leads to more confusion as you spend time looking for an actual turn, not just a bend. This factor also changes distance measuring because the road after the “turn” is now a new measurement. The opposite has also happened; the Garmin has told me to “keep left” when I was actually turning from one road to another. Lastly, and I’ve only seen this once, it wanted me to drive on a road that has not existed for over 30 years! It was someone’s back yard! (That could have been entertaining)

Traffic lights seem to create two problems for the user. First of all, the 850 doesn’t seem to consider any time you might be stopped at a traffic light into it’s calculation for your ETA. That’s a fairly minor quibble. However, I think (though I’m not certain), this failing also affects the route it creates for you. I always have my routes selected for shortest time, not shortest mileage, which means a longer but faster route is better than a shorter but slower one. Because of the lack of consideration of being stopped at lights, the 850 can’t accurately measure the time spent on routes with traffic lights. On a recent trip, as a result of having to stop for three traffic lights in the span of about 2 or 3 miles, my ETA got worse (later) by five minutes. When you see how much speeding you have to do over hours of driving to get the ETA to improve even a minute or two, you know a five minute addition in such a short span is due to a huge error in calculating.

For obvious reasons it doesn’t work in tunnels. In most tunnels this doesn’t matter because there are no turns or exits. But in some cities (Boston, for example) the tunnels have multiple exits and merges. It would be really handy if they could figure a workaround for this, as tunnels can perhaps be the most intimidating places to be lost. Two ideas would be short range auxiliary GPS transmitters attached to the ceiling or walls of the tunnel, or a simple accelerometer (like in the iPhone!) in the unit itself to estimate accurately enough where you are in the tunnel. I have heard of (but not experienced) a similar phenomenon when traveling on elevated highways where there are multiple roadways stacked vertically. The units aren’t accurate or smart enough to know which of the roads you are on.

Garmin has failed to win my loyalty, in the future I will try one of the other brands. If Garmin wants to keep me or win me back, they can update their maps DRAMATICALLY and give current owners free map upgrades.

Update 12/2/08

Navteq does the maps for Garmin, and if you visit their site[..] they have a feature called the “Map Reporter” which allows you to submit changes to their maps. I’ve submitted a number of them today, so I don’t know how they handle submissions yet. But it’s certainly worth a try.

Update 1/8/09

It looks like Navteq does make a good effort to update their maps based on consumer input. As to when this might trickle down to Garmin is anyone’s guess, but at least we can help.

Update 2/16/09

In July 2008 I paid $700 for this from an amazon partner store; amazon’s price was $750 or $800 at the time. Today, seven months later, I see the price is $321. That will mark the last time I by an electronic device, especially a Garmin, on amazon that isn’t already steeply discounted. I know prices on electronics come down quick, but that’s offensive.

Also, with continued use, the 850 isn’t growing on me, in fact the opposite is true. It’s flaws are too glaring to ignore, and more flaws continue to pop up. I’m sorry for the negative tone; I’m usually quite the optimist, but this whole product experience with the 850 is hard to take with a smile.

Update 2/23/09

The adventure continues. (The day before the following trip I updated my 850 on Garmin’s website) This past weekend I was in the city I went to college in over a decade ago, and while parked at a movie theater I asked the 850 to find me a Wendy’s restaurant so I could get a Big Bacon Classic. No matter what spelling I used (Wendy, Wendys, Wendy’s) it couldn’t find any Food or Drink establishment with those words in the name. Oh well, I thought, maybe there isn’t a Wendy’s here. So I went on my way and, no exaggeration, drove right by a very busy Wendy’s restaurant within a half mile of the theater. By this point the 850 is a joke in my head so I just laughed.

On my trip home I followed my usual route which follows as many interstates and large highways as possible. Now, I mentioned before that I have my 850 set up to give me the fastest route, and I double checked that I had it set up that way on this trip. On one stretch of road the 850 desperately wanted me to exit and follow a different route, a route that presumably it calculated to be faster than the route I was following. Whenever I ignored it’s request for me to exit, it would quickly recalculate the route and give me a new ETA based on the new route. Logically, that route should be slower than the original route it calculated, so my ETA should become later, right? Most of the time that’s exactly what happens, but one time I ignored the request to exit, and the recalculated route was actually four minutes quicker than the original route.

Update 5/27/09

I took the 850 on another trip this past Memorial Day weekend, and came across a number of very annoying problems. Problem number one; this unit is almost worthless for getting around a city like Boston. If you don’t know what Boston is like, it’s not a simple grid pattern like Manhattan or most cities west of, well, west of Boston. It has streets going in all directions, and has some staggeringly complicated intersections. The intersections are so bad that half the time the 850 basically hangs you out to dry and says “get on X road” without telling you how. Thanks Garmin. It also, on occasion, used street names which were inaccurate. Like I’ve said earlier in my review, it’s calculations appear to not consider being stopped at red lights.

Second problem; say you’re driving along the interstate, and you need something like food or gas or whatever. I needed gas so it shows me a list of gas stations by distance, starting with the closest. Seems reasonable right? Nope. In a situation like that I want gas that is in front of me, not behind me. On the interstate things behind you might as well be three or four times as far away as they appear. Each listing that it shows you has an arrow that tells you roughly in which direction the point of interest is in comparison to your current position, so fortunately I was able to scroll through a few pages and find what I needed in front of me. So I added that gas station as a stop and it directed me right to it which was nice. Well, it would have been nice if the gas station was still there. In fact the gas station was so long gone that there was no structure and no pumps to tell me a gas station used to be there. Thanks again Garmin.

Last smeg-up from this trip. Without asking the 850 for permission, I exited the interstate, took two right turns, and within a quarter mile from the interstate I was at a gas station. When I started my car back up in order to get back on the highway, the 850 calculated the route back to the interstate. You would expect to leave the gas station, take two left turns, and in about a quarter mile be back on the highway, right? Nope. The route it showed me had me taking a right out of the gas station, and going off somewhere I hadn’t been getting to the gas station. Well, sometimes the entrance ramp and exit ramps aren’t in the exact same location, so I decided to follow the 850′s directions. When it took me onto a very small road in a wealthy neighborhood, and I still didn’t appear to be within a mile of being back on the interstate, I decided to turn around and go the way I would have assumed. Sure enough, two left turns and a quarter mile from the gas station I’m back on the interstate. Wow.

Update 6/18/09

Another trip, further aggravation. Trying to find a convenient gas station using the 850 while cruising down the interstate is like pulling teeth. I’ve previously mentioned that it will bring up a list based on distance, but it will include things behind you which is terribly inconvenient. It makes no sense to drive two miles further to an exit so you can get back on the interstate going the other way so you can drive three miles to the gas station that was the nearest 10 minutes ago. The best feature would be one where you inform the gps unit (probably by pushing one of the preselected distances) in how many miles you need gas; do you need it in the next 50 or 60 miles? Or is it pretty urgent and 10 miles would be better? Then, once the unit knows that, you ask for the gas station with the least disruption to your current route. If you’re like me and have a gas card with a specific brand (Exxon/Mobil in my case) then being able to request that brand specifically would be icing on the cake. At least at this point it feels like it would be icing on the cake, maybe it should be a reasonable thing to expect.

The speed limit on most of the interstates around me is 65 and the 850 knows that. I tend to speed, usually doing between 75 and 80 in these situations. Over two hours solid of speeding by this much and my ETA usually does not change, if I’m lucky it improves by a minute. But if there is construction and I have to slow down to 60 for a mile you can be sure my ETA worsens by at least a minute. Is Garmin really calculating that people speed that much?

Update 9/27/09

Two times within the span of two blocks the 850 directed me to go the wrong way on one way streets. Tell me Garmin, why would a reasonable person find this product acceptable?

Update 9/30/09

Today, the 850 tried to direct me onto a road that doesn’t exist. I would have driven right into a farmer’s field. I took a look at google maps and google earth and there was probably a road there 50 or 60 years ago.