Lost no more

INTRO:
Not having had a GPS before, I am unable to compare this to another unit. However, I have used an HP Travel Companion a few times so I was familiar with how GPSs worked in general prior to purchasing this unit.

UNIT TYPES:
The 750 is the lesser of three units that Garmin has just released - the 750, 760 and 770. All are fairly identical with these differences: the 770 has maps of North America and Europe, the 750 & 760 have maps only of North America. The 770 and 760 have Bluetooth for connecting to your mobile telephone. The 770 and 760 come standard with "Live Traffic" which is an extra on the 750.

My review will omit the extras found on the 760 and 770 - for more information on these, there is a great in-depth review on the GPSmagazine.com web site.

SIZE/BATTERY:
The unit size is 4.8"W by 3.0"H by .8"D with a wide-screen display size of 3.81" by 2.25" and the resolution is great - 480 by 272 pixels and nice bright colors. The unit weighs 6.2 ounces and has a built-in rechargeable lithion-ion battery. Life of the battery is advertised at about 5 hours which I have found to be fairly accurate. The case is plastic with a color of light grey (the 760 & 770 are dark grey.) The satellite receiver is SiRF Star III which is supposedly the best available. I can even receive a signal in my house in any room with no problem.

SPEAKING:
The unit speaks the street names, I think a speaking unit is preferable so you can keep your eyes on the road. Several voice types are available and pronunciation is clear and audible. However, I live in San Antonio in south-central Texas and many of our names are Hispanic or Spanish so pronunciation, although clear, is amusing at times. Find more on actual driving usage at the end of my review.

IN THE BOX:
I purchased the unit at Sam's Club for $500 and it came with the unit itself, a car power cord, a USB computer connect cord, a vehicle windshield suction cup, a dashboard disc for permanent mount (some states evidently do not allow windshield mount) and a quick start manual. The full manual is only available for download at the web site. At first this really bothered me so I downloaded the manual and read it in a disgruntled mood - ha! But now that I've used the unit for several weeks, the unit is so easy to operate that the manual was not really necessary after all. I must admit, they were right.

CHARGING:
I wish that it had an in-home wall charge cord, as you must connect it to a computer via the USB cord to charge inside your home. It charges okay, but the unit comes on automatically when connected in this manner and can't be shut off until disconnected from the USB cord.

The power switch is on the top of the unit. You shift to the left to turn on or to turn off. Once on or off, you shift to the right to lock - a necessary feature as it is very easy to bump and turn on or off when handling or sticking into a case (which, by the way, does NOT come with this unit. A $15 to $20 extra - not right for a $500 piece of equipment.) I bought a padded camera case at Walmart for about $8.00 that fits it almost perfectly.

The unit also has a small earphone jack and a SD memory card slot. The antenna is built-in and not a flip-out like some units I've seen. Mine seems strong enough, so no problem so far. Once I have a satellite signal, I've not lost it.

SATELLITE:
The only problem is the slow initial satellite connect. This may be standard, but first you can't be moving or it won't find a signal very easily, and second, be ready to wait at least a minute, and often quite a bit more. This seems long sitting in your drive waiting to pullout onto the road. But as I mentioned before, on the plus side, I am able to get a satellite signal anywhere INSIDE my home - not sure how that works, but the "HP Travel Companion" I used before never could do this and died in every tunnel. An inside connect often takes about 5 minutes and I only get 3 to 4 bars out of 5, but still pretty impressive.

CAR CONNECT:
When in the car, the mounting unit is where the power cord is connected. Outside of the car, there is a mini-USB plug on the bottom of the unit. Overall this is an efficient system. What is also nice, is that the unit auto powers on and off when you turn the car on and off.

The car windshield mount holds extremely tight and connects to the unit mount on a plastic ball that allows the unit to swivel and tilt to your best viewing position. It would be best described as a ball and socket style mount. The unit has no vibration; it does not move at all while driving and seems to be a very firm mounting device.

The cradle that attaches to the GPS unit itself has the power connect on one side as mentioned before and an input jack on the other side for an external microphone. This only works with the 760 and 770 units, so evidently they just make all of the mounting units identical to save production costs.

USING:
Power on the unit and you get a screen with legal language advising you that it is illegal to operate the touch-pad to enter route info or to adjust the unit while driving. There is a button that you push to agree or if you wait a bit, I've discovered it comes on anyway. If I've not said it already, this is a touch screen unit (typical) and the buttons have a light feel and respond quickly and correctly. Evidently you can recalibrate the buttons if they get off, but I've not had to do that so far.

The start up screen has 4 choices - 'Where to?' or 'View Map' are the two main choices and 'Volume' and 'Tools' are the minor choices.

The 'Where to' choice lets you enter an address, your home, a point of interest (POI), a recently found location, a pre-entered favorite, (nearby) intersections, pre-loaded extras, (nearby) cities, routes, browse map or (see your latitude and longitude) coordinates.

The 'View Map' does just that. You see your map and a vehicle placed at your current location. The upper bar is in 'Ready to Navigate' mode until you enter a location. Once a location is entered, this shows the street you are on and the upcoming street that you are to turn on. The lower left shows your actual driving speed and the lower right your compass heading. At the lower center is the main 'Menu' button that returns you to the main start up screen. There are also clear '+' and '-' buttons that allow you to zoom in or out on the map to see less or more detail and of course, more or less of the area in which you are driving. The preset zoom level on this works fine for me.

I won't get into the particular details, but the unit is very easy to use and adding destinations and favorites are quick and easy to do. Once you are going, you can quickly get info on estimated arrival time, the street speed limit is indicated on the main screen and you can find nearby gas stations, restaurants, lodging, etc at any point while driving.

One feature I like is the 'Where am I' button that shows your exact longitude and latitude, closest street intersection, street address if there is one and three buttons for finding nearby Hospitals, Police Stations and Fuel. This could literally be a real life saver in case of an emergency.

VOLUME:
The volume level is great however if the windows are down (hey, I live in South Texas and our Fall, Winter and Spring are open window season!) or if the radio is up at all, it drowns it out pretty quick. You can connect it to your radio which is cool, but your radio is only set for the voice now - you can't listen to a station at the same time. However, you can load MP3s into the unit and listen to them. I found the FM connect works better when I'm out of town, but as I like my radio or CD player, I don't use this feature much anyway. (The 760 and 770 allow you to connect your Bluetooth phone to this unit as a speakerphone - the reviews for these units I've skimmed seem to like this feature, but I prefer my Bluetooth earpiece)

MP3:
The built-in MP3 player is fairly decent and on the map screen is a little musical note that you can quickly touch to go to the MP3 player. If you are listening to a book on tape, the book reader and the map voice compete for your attention if you are going through an area with a lot of turns and different road changes. It's best used on a long stretch of road.

SCREEN:
Outside screen viewing is still pretty good. If you wear sunglasses it is still readable but naturally not as clear. Overall better then some others I've studied - in other words, if this one is hard to see, you probably won't do better elsewhere. One company sells a sun-screen, but I'm sure you could make one it if really is a problem for you. I can cut cardboard for cheaper than $25! I found a web-site where you can take an office plastic notebook binder and cut it up and Velcro it on for a few dollars - an interesting work around.

I've placed a plastic screen protector on the face which I thought would hurt readability, but which seems to have actually cut the glare a bit. I'd recommend this anyway, as one scratch will make a $10 plastic screen protector seem like cheap insurance.

MODES:
You can set the unit for Car Mode, Bicycle mode or Pedestrian mode. Neat features and handy when walking or bike riding. You can also set to off-road mode if you are 4-wheeling. Again, this unit has lots of flexibility.

You can change almost any of the features including the vehicle on screen, the map to 2 or 3 dimensional, the talking voice, the detail of the map, a ABC or QUERTY input keyboard, selection of shortest or quickest routes, etc. Great features and lots of ability to customize! You can even install your own start up picture.

WAY-POINTS:
You can also set way-points which is pretty cool. This means you can preset places you want to go through when going from your start point to your destination point. For example, when going from San Antonio to Jopin, Missouri, the unit will want to take you through Dallas. But you can pre-set it to go through Fort Worth or another city that might not have been on the normal route. Or I can set it to hit 4 job sites and then end up at my office, going to all locations in a particular order. This is a great feature that only appears in a few GPS units.

MAPPING:
The mapping Data is from NAVTEQ which is used by Garmin and Magellan, whereas TomTom uses Tele Atlas. I've read multiple reviews and I prefer the NAVTEQ. In summary, the NAVTEQ mapping system is considered more accurate and more complete for North America.

BUILT-IN ITEMS:
Other items in the unit include: (1) an MP3 player - fairly decent, but remember, this is not an IPOD so don't expect the same sound or flexibility of operation. You can store MP3s internally or on the SD card that slips in the side; (2) A picture viewer - you can store as many photos as you want limited only to the size of the SD card. It automatically puts black space around the photo, so don't worry about cropping to a certain size beforehand. You can also use a picture on your start up screen; (3) a world clock - show up to 3 world locations and times, a clock showing your time and date and a button to go to a world map showing the sun/shadow movement - pretty cool; (4) a language guide - language conversion but only partial words come with the unit - go to the Garmin site for more detailed conversion downloads; (5) a nice basic calculator; (6) a world currency converter AND (7) a unit converter between metric and English for distance, speed, area, temperature, volume and weight.

REAL LIFE USAGE:
Last of all, how does it actually work? I found it to be fairly accurate. In south Texas we have a lot of frontage roads. These are roads that parallel the main highways that allow you to enter and exit side roads without slowing down traffic on the main highway roads. The unit gets confused with these at times and thinks I'm on the main highway when I've exited onto a frontage road. Or it thinks I've missed my exit when I'm on a frontage road. I have to be careful, as it tells me to turn around when I am actually doing just fine.

I also like how fast it recalculates your trip if you decide to change the route a little, or miss an exit or just have to pull over for some reason. One example, from my house to my church there are two main routes; when I leave my subdivision I can turn right or left on the main road. The routes are almost equal, but it knows the shorter route and correctly tells me which way to turn. If I go the other way though, within moments it gives up the old route and gives me new, correct directions the way I'm headed.

With routes not quite so even, it will continue to get you to turn around until it hits that point of no return and then it goes the new way. Overall, I've found it to be extremely accurate.

Once last comment on this, in San Antonio we have LOTS of new growth and many new streets, subdivisions and shopping centers are not on the map. Strangely, some 1 year old places are shown and some places several years old are not. But again, this in only a problem one time out of a hundred, and I've observed it only in newer areas. Overall, I found the unit accurate and if it a location is not on this unit, it is definitely not on my paper map.

CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, I've found this unit has a lot of great features for a good price.