Some important features include hands free blue tooth, an FM traffic channel receiver for receiving traffic alerts, MP3 audio, longer battery life.If your priority is to dodge traffic situations then the newer models will attract you. One more feature on the latest units is surfing the Internet for added destinations that aren’t pre loaded on the unit’s POI database.

Older models of GPS units may offer plenty of the best features available on GPS units, but at a lower cost. As the new units come out, the older units often decline in price. One of the top rated units that has been lowered in price, but has just about everything that the new ones do, is the Garmin nuvi 760. It is missing the voice-command operation, but it has expert navigation and a “Where am I?” feature that tells you which gas station, intersection or hospital you are nearest to. It also announces the turns by street name with its text-to-speech ability. This GPS unit (the Garmin nüvi 760) is still highly recommended in reviews for navigational devices.

When you are shopping and an older model is mentioned as a reasonable choice, it just may be. The latest trick for GPS auto units is to surf the Internet for destinations. While the only one on the market at the moment is called “The Dash”. Other devices are certain to be popping up in the near future as this is rather popular. Any navigational ability at all will aid most people in their journeys, but the features do vary from unit to unit and brand to brand and you may as well get some additional pleasure out of your purchase. So, blue tooth capability, battery life, voice-command, expert navigation potential as well as the looks of the unit on your dashboard or windshield are where to begin your hunt.

There are more reasons than we’ll mention, but here are three benefits of having a GPS device in your automobile:

1) The first benefit is the “fun” reason for having a GPS device in your car: finding activities at which to spend your free time. Whether you’re on vacation or in your hometown, it can provide entertainment ideas. Typically, you’ll search under “entertainment” and enter keywords such as golf, movies, etc. and the area in which you’re looking, “where you are” or by zip code. There are also GPS-related games and fitness activities available to fill your spare time.

2) A second benefit of GPS devices is to save time and frustration of sitting in traffic. In areas where the service is available, the device can alert you to road construction, major traffic, closed roadways, etc. and it will provide convenient alternate routes to avoid the problem. In this respect, the GPS is a true time-saver — possibly hours a day if traffic is especially bad (or you’re in a city like Atlanta or Los Angeles).

3) As a business owner or manager, or parent of driving teenagers, you will appreciate the third benefit – the ability to track your vehicle(s). As a business owner, tracking your vehicles (and therefore, your employees) can help improve productivity and accountability as employees are never quite sure if they’re being “watched.” Yes, it’s a little like “Big Brother,” but even if it’s only used to fix recurring problems it’s worth the investment. On the other hand, if you trust your employees, but not necessarily your teenager, it can benefit you at home. We know not all kids require tracking, but if yours has had some problems with curfew or even just getting lost (although the GPS isn’t being fully-utilized if this is happening), knowing their whereabouts may provide some comfort and answers on how to solve the problem in the future.

So consider a GPS device for your automobile; it’s a small investment for a big payback, and given today’s gas prices, nobody wants to drive any further or wait in traffic any longer than is absolutely necessary.

Portable GPS Auto Units Benefits

You can simply touch the screen on your device, activate the screen that allows you to type in an address and click on it to search. Next thing you know, the little computer is talking to you with its commanding voice and giving you complete and detailed instructions on how to get to your destination. Most GPS devices today will even tell you what the average speed is that you are moving at and also what compass direction you are headed for. It will even tell you if there are construction areas or a fairly new accident in the area ahead which may impair your arrival time to your destination. Take a quick turn towards your destination to avoid the obstruction up ahead, and the GPS device will automatically know that you have turned and will immediately reroute you for a quicker route.

Factory Installed Units

Many automakers today are also installing permanent, in-dash GPS units to allow the user to have the multi-function of having GPS, stereo, DVD and even air conditioning controls all at your fingertips in one screen. Although the convenience of this feature is superior to anything else out there, the safety of this device is rather that of a gray area. Most drivers are used to changing radio stations while they drive. But have you ever tried to type a street name on a screen while driving. Not an easy task to do. Another big drawback to having a permanent in-dash GPS is that you most likely wont be able to take it with you when you sell the vehicle someday.

All in all, every consumer on the planet should own a GPS device. Not only do they bring efficiency to every driver out there, they also can bring a great deal of safety to the family who is traveling out of town and winds up in a bad neighborhood. Instead of asking for directions and taking a possibly a risk to the family, you simply ask your GPS instead and get back on track safely and without headache.

Design
Like the rest of the Nuvi series, the Garmin Nuvi 880 is sleek, compact, and simple. It measures 4.9 inches wide by 3.1 inches high by 0.7 inch deep and weighs 6.2 ounces for easy portability between vehicles. The small size also comes in handy when using the it outside of the car as an entertainment device or travel aid, since the Nuvi comes loaded with games and travel tools.

Another benefit is the Nuvi 880’s spacious 4.3-inch touch screen. With a 480×272-pixel resolution, the display is bright and easy to read, whether you’re reading maps or using the other features. You can adjust the screen’s brightness and there’s an automatic mode that switches the map colors for optimal viewing during the day or night. The touch screen was responsive to our commands, and the onscreen keyboard is available in QWERTY or ABC format. The keyboard is on the small side, so users with larger fingers might have some problems. The good news is that it has predictive text, so it will automatically pull up possible search results as soon as you start inputting a couple of letters.

The user interface and software is intuitive. All the icons and menus are clearly marked, and we found that you could pretty much figure out the basic operations just by playing with the device. However, for some advanced tasks such as planning a multidestination trip or setting up Bluetooth, you might want to consult the user manual.

On the left spine, you will find a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD expansion slot, and a mini USB port. There’s a power button on top, and the bottom of the unit holds an external antenna jack and power/cradle connector.

The Garmin Nuvi 880 comes packaged with a vehicle mount (windshield and dash), a car charger, a USB cable, a speech recognition remote control, and reference material. The vehicle mount is simple to install and attach, and it securely held the Nuvi 880 in our road tests. We found it interesting that there is a separate remote control for the speech recognition capabilities. On other systems with this technology, it is simply built into the device. The control consists of on and off buttons to activate the feature, and a rubber strap so you can attach it to some place in your car, such as the steering wheel. It’s a bit of an eyesore, but we’re willing to overlook this minor inconvenience since the accuracy of the speech recognition capabilities are the best we’ve seen to date (see Performance for more).

Features
The Garmin Nuvi 880 comes preloaded with City Navigator NT maps of North America and millions of points of interest. Perhaps the biggest highlight, though, is its speech recognition capabilities. We’ve seen this technology in other systems, such as the Magellan Maestro 4250 and TomTom GO 930, but the Nuvi 880 is the most impressive with the breadth of its capabilities and accuracy. In all, you can use voice commands to perform 30 functions, including entering addresses, adjusting the system volume, activating the hands-free speaker system, playing/stopping the music player, viewing the trip computer, and accessing MSN Direct services.

To start planning a trip, whether by using your voice or the touch screen, you can enter a specific address, choose a POI, or select a location from the Recently Found or Favorites list. The Nuvi 880 can store up to 500 favorites/locations. In addition, it supports multidestination trips and you can add waypoints on the fly. You have your choice of three route preferences (faster time, shorter distance, or off-road) and three usage modes (automobile, bicycle, or pedestrian). You can avoid certain road types if you choose, such as toll roads and highways. There’s also a detour function if you want to avoid a certain part of the given route and if you happen to get off track, the Nuvi 880 can do automatic route recalculations. If you don’t need guidance, you can just have the Nuvi track your movements by tapping View Map.

The POI database contains all the major categories (gas stations, lodging, ATMs, restaurants by cuisine type, and so forth) and more specialized interests, including golf courses, gyms, and nightclubs. On top of the preloaded entries, you can add custom POIs, such as safety cameras and school zones. In addition, the Nuvi 880 ships with a three-month complimentary trial to MSN Direct services, which lets you get traffic updates and movie times by title or theater, and searches for nearby gas stations by fuel prices. You can also plan your trip from your PC via Windows Live Local and send it wirelessly to the Nuvi 880 as well as get the latest weather forecast for your area, news, stock prices, and local events. After the three months are up, you’ll have to purchase a subscription plan, which starts at $49.95 for an annual plan or a one-time payment of $129.95. The MSN Direct receiver is built into the car charger, so you don’t have to worry about purchasing an extra accessory.

Maps are available in 2D and 3D view with day and night colors, and you can change it so north is always at the top of your screen or the direction in which you are driving. A plus and minus icon on the map screen lets you zoom in and out, and there’s a trip information page that displays your speed, direction, trip time, and so forth. In addition to the visual aids, you, of course, get voice-guided turn-by-turn directions with text-to-speech functionality. The Nuvi 880 also has a built-in FM transmitter so you can pipe the audio through your car’s stereo for better volume.

Like the more recent Nuvi devices, the Garmin Nuvi 880 has the “Where am I?” feature, which gives you the coordinates of your location, the nearest address, and intersection. It will also list the closest hospitals, police stations, and gas stations to your position, giving you a bit of peace of mind if you’re in unfamiliar territory and need access to any of these services, or if you need to give your location to a tow truck. You’ll be able to call any of these services or other businesses or POI directly from the Nuvi 880 since it has integrated Bluetooth. We’re happy to report that your phone’s address book and call history will automatically synchronize with the GPS for easy data transfer.

Finally, the Garmin Nuvi 880 includes a host of other tools that can be useful outside the car. There’s a Travel Kit like that included with other Nuvi models that consists of an MP3 player, an Audible book player, a JPEG picture viewer with a slide show function, a world clock, currency and measurement converters, and a calculator. It also comes loaded with a ton of games, including Solitaire, Sudoku, and Space Shooter.

Performance
We tested the Garmin Nuvi 880 in San Francisco, and from a cold start, it took the unit about two minutes to get a fix on our location under partly cloudy skies. Subsequent starts could take up to a minute, but more often than not, the system was able to acquire a fix within a few seconds. While running errands around the city, the Nuvi 880 did a good job of tracking our position. It did lose the lock as we drove through the Broadway Tunnel (a normal occurrence with GPS) but was able to re-establish a connection once we exited.

We planned several trips using the Nuvi 880: all originating from San Francisco’s Marina district to Roseville, Calif., Sunnyvale, Calif., and CNET’s downtown San Francisco headquarters. For the first trip out to Roseville (near Sacramento, Calif.), we entered the trip information using the standard touch-screen method and added several stops along the way. It may have been the extra destinations, but it took the Nuvi 880 a couple of minutes to calculate a route. Nothing horribly inconvenient, but just something we noticed. That said, we found the directions to be accurate and it got us to our destinations. The text-to-speech feature did a good job with street pronunciations, and the voice prompts were always loud and clear. We also missed several turns and exits, and the Nuvi 880 was able to get us back on track in a timely manner.

For the next two trips, we used the speech recognition capabilities and we were blown away at its accuracy. With the other systems, we had to ensure that we were in a quiet environment and even then, they were numerous errors. However, this wasn’t the case with the Nuvi 880. We were able to launch the various applications and enter addresses with such ease. Even with the radio in the background, the system was able to understand and compute all our voice commands and more importantly, perform them accurately. There was no need to shout, and only once or twice did we have to repeat ourselves. It was truly impressive, and it’s the first time we felt it’s actually worth using the voice commands over the touch screen.

Last but not least, we were able to successfully pair the Nuvi 880 with the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8310. The setup process was easy. All our phone book information instantly transferred over to the Nuvi 880 and we had no problems making or receiving calls. The Nuvi 880 has a rated battery life of four hours. The battery is replaceable, so you can purchase an extra battery ($30) to keep as a backup.