Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Speech Recognition
Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Speech Recognition see short title
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User Reviews
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Review Date: 2009-11-21
This unit works just fine, I haven't looked into all its features, but so far its done well, in FL, NJ, NY and NC.
User: Bernd M. Seidenthal
Rating:
Summary: Never Lost Again
Helpful Votes: 0
Total Votes: 2
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Review Date: 2009-11-19
Was okey in the beginning. Usual problems - drains battery overnight (even if turned off)), sometimes very slow to start in the morning.
Completely stopped working 3 months later. Asked if Garmin can downgrade to a lower more reliable model, they don't want to do it. TO bad, I will get a refurbished piece of junk again. BTW, I will be paying for shipping the product for repair. Do yourself a favor, buy something else.
User: Joe Jazz
Rating:
Summary: 855 is a piece of junk
Helpful Votes: 1
Total Votes: 1
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Review Date: 2009-11-19
The Nuvi 855 is my first GPS unit. I did alot of homework and read reviews on MANY Garmin and Tom Tom units before I selected this model. After receiving my unit, I sat INSIDE my house at the kitchen table, opened the box and immediately put the GPS to work. The enclosed battery comes with a full charge, and within 20 seconds of boot up, I had four green bars in the display, showing me a more than adequate satellite acquisition. I then proceeded yo go through the necessary initial programming, which took no time at all. Today was the first road test while I used it around town. The unit, although not much larger than my iPhone, has a large, colorful LCD screen, which occassionally got washed out by the morning sun. I found the voice prompts loud enough to be heard, but used the FM radio feature to hear them on the radio. The choices for the voice are limited and sound mechanical, but are able to be understood. I found the voice activation (one of the reasons I chose this model) to have a huge learning curve when it comes to the voice commands. If there's ANY background noise (kids in the backseat), or the radio playing at the same time your giving a voice command, you might as well save time and just use the touch screen. I also purchased the Garmin GTM 20 traffic receiver, which also doubles as the unit's power cord. I live in the NY metro area, and I "think" it's working, as I see different colors on main roads when I press the traffic icon. Being that neither comes with a users manual, I don't know if I have it set up right. The cable's a little pricey, but there's no subscriptions to worry about. I also purchased the Garmin Portable Friction Mount, which really keeps the unit in place. As far as the "freezing" issues are concerned, I did a firmware AND map update without any problem. Put aside a good hour or so (I have a cable modem) to take care of this task. I did notice that the POI's (points of interest) had no text labels on the map, and icons are kind of small. There's no bluetooth ability, and uploaded music on a SD card seems to play out of order, even when it's not on shuffle mode. I really don't know why this unit got less than 4 stars in any review. It may or may not stop working in the future, since it is possible to get a lemon with any purchase. But overall, this model is loaded with features and has the GREAT Amazon price.
User: Michael Gerbasi
Rating:
Summary: Read the reviews, do your homework...
Helpful Votes: 0
Total Votes: 0
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Review Date: 2009-11-17
I like the Garmin Nuvi 855 very much. It has gotten me out of a potential jam when options like Map Quest or BIN made it sound confusing on back roads to get to our destination. I took out the Garmin and plotted in the destination address from where we were currently at and it plotted the rest of the route for us. I also like all the features Garmin has to offer. Thumbs up for this realiable Gizmo. Mark Ward
User: Mark A. Ward
Rating:
Summary: Wave the checker Flag!!
Helpful Votes: 1
Total Votes: 1
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Review Date: 2009-11-14
We purchased this unit in late October, for an upcoming trip to Las Vegas we were taking in early Nov. This was our first GPS, and we were looking forward to putting it to the test. As it turned out, it put us to the test! Right after we arrived, and got our car rental, we used it to navigate to an In & Out Burger place. That went pretty well. After lunch, we decided to use it to help us navigate to a couple of ghost towns. On our way there, it locked up, but we removed the battery and we were on our way again after we put the battery back in. The following day, we used it to help us navigate to a local museum. Halfway there, it locked up again, and this time, I couldn't even get it to turn off! Finally, we got it to behave, and we just put it in the glove box, since we knew where we were going by that time anyway. We didn't use it much after that. Fast forward to the other day, when I had several errands in town to run, and not a lot of time to accomplish my task. Thankfully, our son was with us, looking at the map as we moved along, because it told us we were 8 miles from our turn off, and the next thing I know, I drove past the turnoff! While I am busy navigating us back to where we needed to be, our son couldn't get it to turn off, and when he finally did, it wouldn't come back on! We removed the battery, and put it back in, and that worked. It worked fine for the balance of our day.
I need a GPS unit I can trust. If he hadn't been with me, and let's say I was in unfamiliar territory this could be really bad for me, since I am somewhat handicapped. I understand no unit will be perfect, but this one is WAY off the mark as far as we are concerned! We only tested it in relatively familiar territory at first, so we could see if it would be reliable or not. I would definitely put this one in the category of not reliable!
We are returning this unit, and i have purchased the Garmin 780, and we will see how that goes! Hopefully, I will be able to write a glowing review after putting that one through its paces! We really wanted to get the 7200 Street Pilot, but the issue of not having an internal battery was a problem for me, since my car has one plug in up front, and another WAAY in the back. If I ever needed to charge both the GPS and my phone, one of them has to go way out of my reach, behind the back seat.
As a side note, I cannot say it has been fun researching and reading TONS of info. on all things Garmin for several days! To begin with, there are features on any given unit that I might like that someone else might not like, so with every review you read, you kind of have to take what info. works for you, and toss the rest. I don't know if it is doable, but it would be kind of cool, if you could kind of "custom" order a GPS, that has only the features on it you want. For example, an Mp3 is useless to me. I have a really great Mp3, and I know that what they put in these units cannot compare. I also have no need for the bluetooth feature. I realize that the 760 is the same unit, but without the bluetooth feature, but it is also about $34.00 more at the moment. Hmmm..., it costs more, but has less features. Yep, that makes sense!
I hope this review has been a helpful one to you, if you are seriously considering getting this particular unit. Was it locking up just a weirdo thing, and perhaps another unit wouldn't lock up? That is entirely possible. I just don't want to have to keep trying the same unit over and over again.
User: Carol Lugg
Rating:
Summary: What a Dud
Helpful Votes: 3
Total Votes: 3
Product Details
- Sleek, ultra-slim design fits in a pocket; High-sensitivity GPS receiver for fast satellite lock
- Pre-loaded with City Navigtor NT maps for North America, including more than 6-million name-searchable points of interest
- Speech recognition--speak menu options and keep your eyes on the road
- Multi-destination routing--enter several destinations and get the best route to all of them; "Where am I?" and "Where's my car?" features
- Full feature set--text to speech for spoken directions with real street names; MP3 player, and Photo viewer
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