Box Contents

Inside the box you get an FM/TMC receiver, Vehicle suction cup mount, USB cable, Carry case, Dashboard disc and a Quick start manual.

Specs

• Software: City Navigator NT for Europe
• Map coverage: UK & Ireland + Maps of Western Europe
• Map Provider: NAVTEQ
• Dimensions: (H/W/D) 76 x 120 x 20mm
• Weight: 190g
• Display Size: 4.3 inches (480 x 272 pixels)
• Battery Life - 5 hours

Design

The Garmin nüvi 760 certainly looks the part the moment you lay your eyes on it, weighing 190g which is 30g lighter than the TomTom Go920T and its slimmer to.

Its 4.3" widescreen display features a high 480 x 272 resolution and both the interface/maps look great.

At the top of the nuvi lies a sliding on/off switch, which also has a hold function - locks out the screen - this is useful for pedestrian navigation.

Just like TomTom the Garmin’s interface is also extremely easy to use, upon start-up you will see two large icons a ‘Where to’ and ‘Map View’, the first icon can be used to access the various navigation options, whilst the Map view allows you to browse around the hi-res map.

Features

As well as the two front icons you will also find a tools menu option at the base of the screen. In here you will find a stack of utilities, which include an MP3 player, conversion software, calculator and a language guide to name but a few.

For inputting destinations you can enable a handy Qwerty keyboard option, which makes life extremely easy. Especially as destinations can be typed in using both hands - in a thumb formation.

Under the 'Where to' icon you will also discover the 'Extras' option, which holds any 3rd party software you may have installed, for example custom POI and travel guides. Most of the software will also integrate seamlessly within the default interface, which means you don't have to learn any new procedures in order to use the software.

You can also enable a handy screen shot icon which can be used to take snap shots of your maps and interface. With the USB cable you can then link up your Garmin to a PC and access the drives (internal or SD card) via 'My Computer'.

Driving Tests

The Garmin was quick at calculating the Initial routes, but its biggest problem was with its location acquisition time. Indoors it took nearly 5 minutes to pick up our location and it could not maintain a lock properly, in overcast skies it was around a minute or so.

But outdoors in clear conditions it was quick at under a minute, plus once it had picked up satellites it could maintain them pretty well.

For directional aides the Garmin offers a countdown marker to next turn - at the base of the screen - and a handy trip log, which can record your current or total trip mileage.

Again just like the TomTom series you have a car icon to represent your standard directional arrow.

The car icon which is customisable of course, also serves another purpose. By clicking on the icon you will enable a sub-menu which allows you to select nearby POI quickly.

We found the hi-res maps to be pure eyeball candy, with clear street labels and colour coded routes, which helped us differentiate between our optimal and normal route paths.

The only snag we noticed with the 3D maps was the initial route-recalculation performance, which could have been a bit quicker in our eyes. As this did not affect the 2D maps, we recks the higher resolution maps have a tendency to drag down its performance - due to having to re-draw more detail.

But this is something of a minor point really, as the majority of users won't notice the issues unless you were looking for them.

The supplied TMC/FM receiver worked well, with traffic problems being reported promptly, though we must point out that the system uses an all-in-one cable, which has the car charger integrated within the same cable as the receiver itself.

The receiver will only work when plugged into the side of the car cradle and then powered via the cigarette lighter, but at least this means you have fewer cables to carry around.

We also found the FM receiver easy to setup and it allowed us to pipe the voice directions into our cars speakers (via a spare FM frequency). It did pick up a minute bit of interference, but only really noticeable when voice directions were not spoken.

Voice directions were clearly spoken and the Garmin also offers text-to-speech support, which allows the unit to speak road names. On the whole we were impressed out how well it could speak even the most complex of names.

The supplied safety camera database - which gives you an audible prompt and a description of the approaching cameras - was accurate and proved useful during our tests (Updates cost £30 per year).