Garmin Nuvi 760 Arrives for Review

Update: I have posted my Full Review of the Nuvi 750/760/770.

A Garmin Nuvi 760 arrived for review today at the GPSLodge, and as always we are happy to try out new models before they hit the street. The Garmin Nuvi 750/760/770 line was announced at the end of August, and is setting itself up to be a high end performer just in time for the big holiday shopping season. Gone is the old flip up antenna from the legacy Nuvi line-up, and in is the sleek and slim form factor from the Nuvi 200W genre.

Building on the Nuvi 660, a very capable unit, Garmin has come out with a more full featured upgrade with a Help! Button, a traffic receiver, as well as the capability to navigate back to your car when you via the Pedestrian Mode, and the Nuvi’s built in ability to waypoint your car so you can find it after a long stroll in the city.

One thing that I am excited about is the Route Planning. This isn’t supposed to be just stringing together a list of stops, but a capability that optimizes your route so that it spits back the shortest route to all of your destinations. So, pop in several garage sales, sales call locations or shops and let it give you back the optimized route. Looking forward to trying this out to see how well it works.

Finally, the shell of the operating system has changed, reflecting a more sophisticated look and feel of the high end line; subtle changes. The basis is mainly a better use of the widescreen, so that buttons have a double row layout, but again I think it's worth noting and certainly easier to work through given more options and more configuration that accompanies a full-featured unit. The first image is of the Nuvi 760 sub-menu with a double row layout, giving you plenty of information without scrolling. Below is the same menu for the Nuvi 200W series, with a vertical layout.

What's in the Nuvi 750/760/770 Box: