Garmin NUVI 765T

11 Comments

1. Don S. Carlson says:

   March 12, 2010 at 12:00 am

   BLUETOOTH problem
   Rating:4 out of 5 stars
   The Garmin Nuvi 765 is great, BUT I also have the HTC Hero phone, It is NOT Bluetooth compatible with the Nuvi 765. Tech support said “Sorry”. So unless they figure out a firmware upgrade, I am out-of-luck. Check the Garmin Bluetooth compatibility list if this is a requirement for your purchase.
2. J. Marshall says:

   March 13, 2010 at 12:00 am

   An Okay GPS
   Rating:3 out of 5 stars
   This is an okay GPS. I like all of the features it has but am unimpressed with the maps. I tried to locate my home address and instead of being located under the town that I live in, it is located in the township I live in. If I am travelling to a place that is small and I don’t know the township it will be a real pain to find the street. The maps or at least locating streets near a town are much easier to use on TomTom. Other than that, everything else is above average with this GPS.
3. Brian Smith says:

   March 14, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Not quite sure yet.
   Rating:3 out of 5 stars
   The 765 seems to do the essential job ok but I will agree with others that the touch screen has some issues. I recalibrated it and that seemed to help somewhat but I still find that it erroneously selects icons which I clearly did not touch. I’d say 1 in every 20 or so touches, I’ll have to take corrective action due to this flaw.
   
   It seems to take me out of my way sometimes even though I’ve set the navigation to not avoid anything and I’ve also set it to take the fastest route. For example, I absolutely know the fastest route to my work and yet this insists on taking a path which is definitely not the fastest. In fact, it is likely one of the slower routes.
   
   The rerouting works fairly well. I’ve gone against its directions many times and it seems to recalculate fairly readily.
   
   For the most part it navigates correctly and displays street names in a timely manner however there have been a few times where it tells me that “I’m arriving at destination” and it is way too late for me to make the turn even though I’m at or under the speed limit.
   
   The FM transmitter is ok. There are times when the static is noticeable but it’s not annoying.
   
   I’ve had no problems with volume on the unit itself or through the car speakers.
   
   I have not tried lane assist or the traffic features yet.
   
   Bluetooth works well and was easy to set up.
   
   The battery is Lithium-Ion.
   
   Bottom line is I’m going to test it some more over the next week or so and in areas I am less familiar with.
4. Jonathan M. LHomme says:

   March 14, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Unfortunately I Returned This Unit
   Rating:2 out of 5 stars
   I bought the 765T with great hopes, despite user comments about the touch screen. After using it on a trip to Florida, I returned it. The touch screen is horrible, the traffic NEVER was accurate, the unit crashed at least ten times, and it was just a nuisance. This is unfortunate as the screen is clear and colorful and I liked the directions and screen layout. Garmin is the only manufacturer I have seen who provides the ability to plot routes (via MapSource) on your PC and then transfer the route, not just the start and end points, to the unit. If you use MapSource, just make sure you review your route a few times though. If you click a millionth of an inch off a highway, it thinks you want to exit the highway and go to that point. So the directions, left unchecked, would have you exit the highway, go to the point you clicked, then get back on the highway to head for your end destination. Annoying but I guess this makes sense since afterall, you did click a point off the highway. A user interface modification would be helpful to alert the user though (maybe Garmin reads this??)
   
   Bluetooth worked well, although I disabled it as using my bluetooth earpiece was far better than using the Nuvi.
   
   I have always used Garmin products and was really disappointed with this one. This unit was just too cumbersome and I found myself making excuses for keeping it.
5. N. Hamlett says:

   March 14, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Great Features and Functions. Hardware needs work.
   Rating:3 out of 5 stars
   I have been using the Nuvi for approximately nine months. I don’t know how I lived without it before. The software is terrific! Easy to use and understand.

   The hardware needs some work however. The life of the device is short: About an hour. Significantly less than the five advertised. The touch screen is primitive and clunky compared to what iTouch and iPhone users are accustomed to. Even though it recalibrates itself periodically, it still has errors. If you touch the “a” character, for example, the device will record an s, z, or q.

   The most disconcerting problem was that the device simply stopped working one morning. It would not power up.

   Garmin’s product support pales compared to that of industry leaders (e.g., Apple). When you register the problem on their website, they send you an email pointing you back to the FAQ diagnostics that you’ve already tried. A 30-45 minute wait on hold is required in order to talk to a human being on their customer support lines.
6. J. Timbol says:

   March 15, 2010 at 12:00 am

   The useful and the useless
   Rating:3 out of 5 stars
   I’d like to compare this with the old unit I previously had. It was also a Garmin which I bought in 2007 but I can’t remember the exact model. In any case, this old unit:
   
   - Did not speak street names
   
   - Not wide screen.
   
   - Did not have an indicator for the road speed limit.

   What I like about the Nuvi 765T are:
   
   - Wide screen
   
   - Speaks street names
   
   - Traffic alerts (although it’s not accurate all the time)
   
   - Speed limit indicators

   What I could actually do without given the utility these features have given me:
   
   - Lane assist (I’ve used this mainly in Florida and I haven’t really found this useful)
   
   - Bluetooth (With the road noise in my Honda Accord, I can hardly use thisto have a proper conversation.)
   
   *These were the reasons why I bought this particular model.

   What I don’t like:
   
   - Touchscreen is too sensitive or “uncalibrated” which make me, with fat fingers, type and delete several times before I get to key in something.

   Given this, I think I could’ve gotten a more basic and cheaper model instead of the 765T
7. ElektroDragon says:

   March 16, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Warning! Bad volume, bad screen, bad touch!
   Rating:1 out of 5 stars
   I bought this unit last year, and had to re-sell it very soon thereafter. It suffers from some terrible problems:

   1) The speaker volume is so low, you can’t hear it over highway noise!

   2) The screen has really bad viewing angles. If you aren’t looking at head on, you’re out of luck.

   3) The touch screen is finicky and often doesn’t register your selections.

   Otherwise, it’s a good unit, but I bought a Tom Tom XL instead, and I’m so glad I did! Ear splitting volume (if you want it), amazing viewing angles, and perfect touch screen! It boots and finds a signal even faster, and is comparable in the other areas. Having owned Magellan and Garmin in the past, I have to say Tom Tom is the best choice.
8. Tim Hoag says:

   March 16, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Not as as good as my Nuvi 650. More weird or incorrect routes
   Rating:3 out of 5 stars
   Well, I bought this specifically for the traffic service. That was cheaper than trying to add it to my Nuvi 650. The traffic service has been pretty good. A few times it has told me of problems that weren’t there when I got to that stretch of read. However, I would prefer that to finding out about the problem after I’m caught in it – which happened to me and prompted me to buy a GPS with a traffic feature.

   However, this one send me on some pretty whacky routes – much more often than my older Nuvi. I would have expected it to be better, not worse, as the Nuvi software and logic improves. That hasn’t been the case. I’ve had it tell me an address doesn’t exist when I start my trip, but when I get near the target city, it magically can find it. I’ve had it create circular routes, or force me to take a route that requires unrelated turns (example, at the Sarasota airport it routes me through the passenger pickup area to take me to the hotel across the street from the airport. There is a direct left turn available in to the hotel that is right on the corner. This is true regardless of my settings about u-turns, fastest route, or shortest route – it always tells me to circle through the airport to get to the hotel.. I’ve had it take me to a totally wrong part of town where there is no address like the one it was supposed to take me to (like a neighborhood with different street names, and then when I search for the address again, it finds it many miles away and takes me to the business address it was supposed to route me to in the first place.

   Also, after I bought it, I quickly updated to the 2010 maps. Often it will tell me at start up that there is a 2010 map update available that I need to buy. When I connect to the Garmin portal, it tells me I already have that update. Also, that update isn’t as accurate as the 2009 maps I have in my 650. I started using both devices side by side to see if I could find a pattern for what is different. I can’t explain it, but the 2009 maps in the older Nuvi have shown newly built roads where the 2010 maps in the newer model doesn’t reflect new construction. Strange. That has caused me to get lost where there was a major interchange added or modified and it tells me to take exits or ramps that now go someplace else, or aren’t there anymore. I’m starting to use my old device for city driving, and only use the 765t for long-distance driving where I need to be alerted to big delays on interstate highways.

   They also removed some features that didn’t make me happy, such as the ability to decide when to dim the screen between turns as a way to save battery. The battery life on these isn’t that great, but you need to run them on battery periodically so you don’t ruin the battery by having it constantly plugged in. It has a neat capability that the traffic antennae gets powered by the device specifically so you can use it on battery and still get traffic. Along the same lines, most poewr sources you plug this in to make it think you are hooked to a PC, and therefore you can’t use it as a GPS. I forgot my charger once, and because of the poor battery life I didn’t have the juice to reach my destination, but plugging it in to anything I had available put it in USB mode so it couldn’t guide me.

   What do I like about it? Size is good. I really found myself loving the bluetooth integration, especially since I can attach a microphone while it is also connected to my car stereo. That way I can hear others well and they can hear me well, because it doesn’t sound like I’m shouting at a speakerphone with lots of road noise. Unfortunately, I just bought a new smartphone, and it can’t seem to sync with my 765t, so I won’t have that feature until the phone manufacturer and Garmin figure out what they broke…

   The net of my story is that this wasn’t a big improvement from my older Nuvi as I had expected. At some point I may try a newer Nuvi model because they quickly replaced 76x series – and I think the problems I’ve had may be why that did that so fast…

   Or, I may give Tom Tom another chance. That was my first GPS. It was fine, but lacked a lot of product maturity back then. They seem to have caught up, so I will evaluate both brands before my next GPS purchase.

   I was very loyal to Garmin until this unit shook my confidence in the quality of their software. There is no reason for such major changes in route logic between models, especially changes for the worse.
9. Jason says:

   March 17, 2010 at 12:00 am

   Not too bad, not impressive either
   Rating:3 out of 5 stars
   I owned a few Garmin GPS units already. This 765T is OK to use. It’s almost the same as others speaking of GPS features. Accuracy, routing etc. are the same good quality as other units. Here are my comments for extra features:

   . 3D building display: good to use and indeed is helpful, though not many 3-D buildings in my area
   
   . Lane Assistant: works good so far, clear and accurate
   
   . Traffic: free but almost no use, with pop-up ads
   
   . Bluetooth: very easy to set up and use. No problem to connect with my phone and easy to make/receive phone calls. Microphone is weak, the other end always complain it’s hard to hear me.
   
   . FM transmitter: a nice feature, but barely usable. The signal is too weak so it always has lots of static noise or radio interference. This seriously affects its usage. You have to adjust the FM frequency very often in order to get a clear reception. It’s very painful and dangerous to do that while driving.
   
   . MP3 player: works most of the time, but there are so many problems and it’s very hard to use. First, it’s a very simple and basic MP3 player. It can not play all the MP3 files I throw in. Second, the remembering of last song/position doesn’t work all the time, it often starts over when turn on the unit. Third, the brows function only list ALL the mp3 files in the unit, you have no easy way to organize them and you do not have choice to select from any folder(there is no such folder concept anyway). Fourth, it only has one playlist available to create and it’s very hard to use.

   One last thing, my GPS unit’s touch screen sometimes malfunctions. When touching one point on screen, another point is highlighted and is sent as touching point.
10. H. Fenk says:

    March 17, 2010 at 12:00 am

    Love this Garmin!
    Rating:5 out of 5 stars
    In a fit of road rage, I busted my Tom Tom last month. My boyfriend is a Commercial Property Claims Adjuster and travels extensively for his job so I needed to replace it asap. My boss had purchased the Garmin Nuvi 765T and told me about how awesome it was so I trusted that it would do the job. Um, it more than exceeded our expectations! The traffic function is so awesome, the fact that you can see the highway signs is so nice especially on a confusing interchange. Those features alone make is well worth $200. I am sooo glad I broke my other GPS because this Garmin has so many nice features. I did love my Tom Tom and it was easy to use and had a very clear screen. However, this Garmins extra features make it great for a minimal user like me or someone like my boyfriend who is traveling from the city to small rural towns. Thanks Garmin!