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Technical Details

- Sleek, ultra-slim design fits in a pocket; High-sensitivity GPS receiver for fast satellite lock
- Pre-loaded with City Navigator NT maps for North America, including more than 6 million points of interest
- Speech recognition allow you to speak menu options and keep your eyes on the road; Bluetooth-ready for hands-free use of compatible phones
- Features text to speech for spoken directions with real street names, MP3 player, photo viewer, multi-destination routing, “Where am I?” and “Where’s my car?”
- NOTE: Model number on the box is 885T because the traffic receiver is included; however, the model number on the device itself is 885 as the “T” in 885T refers to the additional component
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“Great GPS” 2010-01-26
By TMG AZ (Arizona USA)
The Garmin 885T is a great GPS. Everything works as advertised. Volume is not an issue, seems adeguate for announcing direcrtions. All features worked out of the box. Only negative is that the on/off switch doesn’t really turn the unit off, i.e. the battery drains to zero within one or two days of non-use. The 885T is now discontinued, probably due to the MSN feature being withdrawn by Jan 2012. But the 855 is essentially the same unit less the MSN component.

“Nuvi 885/885T” 2010-01-26
By Anna
Bought as a gift for daughter who lives in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. She enjoys the voice recognition and uses it a lot. The maps are very accurate and directions are clear and concise. Great value from Amazon!

“Best GPS Yet” 2010-01-24
By Jeff (Venice, Fl USA)
I have owned several GPS and none of them compare to the nuvi 885. This thing has it all and is so easy to use. The bluetooth is clear and the voice activation button on the steering wheel makes it so easy to navigate. The lane assist is a nice feature, and being able to program multiple stops in one trip is nice. The display featuring the speed limit and the speed you are going is great. I love this thing and I would recommend it to anyone.

“Makes driving safer.” 2010-01-23
By J. Callaway (Phoenix, AZ USA)
I bought one of these for my wife who had been using the GPS in her phone. She has difficulty seeing small letters, and the larger display makes a world of difference. Plus, we don’t have to pay the monthly fee anymore.

Overall, we are both very happy with our purchase. The display shows a lot of information and it’s very bright and crisp. Of course it has a nice map just like everyone else has. Having the current speed and speed limit (although it’s sometimes wrong) and estimated ETA makes quick checks on progress easy.

The touchscreen responds well, but I find myself using the remote button on the steering wheel to activate the voice recognition system for most things. It is tedious to enter addresses, but for muting the volume, selecting addresses, and finding businesses it’s pretty easy. It doesn’t like having the radio on though, so for that it gets a mark down. It also won’t let you speak a string of commands like ‘menu … audio … mute’. You have to say one thing, wait, then the next when it’s ready. It takes a little bit to get used to the audio cues.

I suggest anyone getting this unit (or any other for that matter) to practice driving to places they already know at first. We did this for almost a week after we got it, took it with us going to the store and work. It was nice not having to depend on it and just play with using it before we took a trip New Year’s eve down some dark country Arizona roads and already knew how to use it. One weekend I had dropped my wife off at work while I ran some errands. When I got done, I selected her work and headed there. On the way, I noticed I had some time based on the estimated arrival time so I used the voice recognition to find a Fry’s Electronics so I could ‘browse’ for a bit. After I selected it, it asked me if I wanted it to be a new destination, or a way point to my current one. I would never have discovered this without just playing around going to places I already knew how to get to. Ok .. I could have read the manual. But I’m a guy that that’s not going to happen…

The lane assist is pretty well spot on, my wife has difficulty at night reading street signs until she is right up on them and having the unit tell her which lane to get in ahead of time makes her feel more at ease. One thing though, if two turns are pretty close together it sometimes is ‘too late’ for it to tell you what lane to get into for the second one.

We have not used the MP3 player or the picture viewer, and have no desire to. We bought this for the GPS and not anything else.

“My Rating” 2010-01-22
By E. Pettit (San Diego, CA)
The Garmin nuvi 885T is an excellent GPS device. It gets me where I want to go with ease. The text to speech and speech recognition is excellent. The one time I had to use Garmin tech support was a very good experience and my problem was resolved very quickly. The tech that worked with me on the problem was very polite and helpful. The Bluetooth works very well with my cell phone. I’ve never had a problem with anyone hearing or understanding me. Having a soft voice, I usually have these problems when not using the Bluetooth function.

The lane assist is lacking from what I expected, but is still useful. A picture is briefly displayed showing the lane information, and a bold arrow shows which lane I need to be in, but it then disappears before I reach it. What’s good is that it continuously displays the direction of the next turn, and distance to the next turn, on the upper left of the screen.

The Doppler radar hasn’t shown anything but clear conditions. Whenever there is inclement weather the Doppler radar gives me a message that no information is available, and that it may take several hours to receive the information, even though the MSN receiver is always powered on via the accessory socket in the car.

The sound output is not very loud, and is easily drowned out, even when set to 100%. A work around would be to set the audio output to the FM receiver on your car radio, but then you can’t listen to the radio. In this case if you buy and install a micro SD card in the Garmin nuvi 885T, you can load your favorite music on it and use the music player in the nuvi 885T to play them. The music, too, will then be output to the FM receiver. The music is automatically muted when GPS audio information is given, and resumes when the GPS audio information is complete. The other work around is to buy a 12V DC to 115V AC inverter and a set of speakers that uses 115V AC for power. Plug the speakers into the inverter, for power, and into the audio output jack on the Garmin nuvi 885T. I did this with one of my cars, using 14 Watt PC speakers and it works great!

I recently purchased the Garmin nuMaps Lifetime(TM) for a little less than $100.00 that allows me to update my maps up to 4 times a year for the life of the GPS. The map update takes several hours to complete and has multiple steps. Other than that, the update went well. Make sure you have high speed internet access to do this.

Ed 01/21/10

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