Garmin nüvi 765T

Pros: Seems to be dead on accurate so far. Turns on and aquires a signal much faster than my old Garmin (680). POI data base seems very complete and up to date.

Cons: Now takes about 3 screen taps to get to the mp3 player. On my 680 there was a dedicated button on the main screen. No easy way to get out of the POI database if you decide not to press "Go". You have to keep pressing "Back".

Summary: The 765t seems sturdy and well made with it's rubbery coating. No antenae to break off. I walked out of Best Buy, installed it to my windshield with the suction cup and tapped "Home". I entered my home address and it almost instantly had the route to go home. Right out of the box it had a signal within seconds. My old 680 would often take several minutes to lock in the signal. Since I was hungry and to test the unit out I used the POI data base to search for a resturant near my destination in this case near my home. It found the Bob Evans that had been missing from the data base of my 680.
On the way I got to see the lane assist feature. This is only a static image of the interchange or what ever but it is very accurate and even shows the exact signs that you will see. If you tap the screen to see it again it seems to stay there till you dismiss it even though you are long past the area.
Does not have a Truck route Preference like the 680 had but the 680 did not give usable truck routes anyway. Not sure what they were thinking with that one. The Garmin 680 would have been the Trucker's GPS Holy Grail if the Truck Preference actually gave a usable truck route but it did not.
But the 765t in my opinion has the best feature set for the price of all the Garmin products for Users in the USA. Get the 775t if you plan to use it in Europe but it's $200.00 more. The 880 gives you voice recognition but personally I would rather just tap the screen. If you position it right you only take your eyes off the road for a second. Probably safer than fiddling with the radio on the dash. Plus I plan to to use it a lot in a noisy truck. Not sure the voice thing would work well there.
A new feature that I think would be particularly usefull to truckers is the ability to customize your route though I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I hope to be able put in a route like normal and then use a Trucker's Atlas to make sure none of the roads are truck restricted. For example if it routes me on the Garden State Parkway in NJ that's a no no for trucks. I can customize the route to stay on the Turnpike or whatever works.
Not as nice as having a real Trucker's GPS but better than my old 680. On that device I would just make a mental or sometimes paper note not to take a certain exit then let it recalculate. Sometimes I would have to ignore it for a while because I knew it was trying to turn me around and put me back on the no no route. Eventually it would get the hint.
With the new 765t I can alter the route on the device so I can just relax and turn when it tells me to.
While sitting at the table in Bob Evan's I pulled the 765t out of my jacket pocket along with my Treo 755p phone and with no manual or instructions of any kind I easily made the Bluetooth pairing of the two devices. The hands free works great in the car. Not sure how well it will work in the noisy truck though.
I pulled the SD card full of mp3 music out of my 680 and poped it into the 765t. It did not recognize it right away. After some trial and error I think I found the trick. Make sure the 765t is off, then insert the card and turn it on. Once I could browse and select songs I found I had no music audio on either the line out jack or the FM transmitter. I had navigation audio but no music. Went to the mixer and boosted the music to 100% but still no music audio except through the internal speaker when I switched to that output but on FM output no music, only Nav voice. A reset done by holding the power switch to the left for 8 seconds solved this problem. Worked fine after that.
Is it my imagination or does the FM transmitter work much better than the 680 and way better than the Tom Tom Go 910 I had a long time ago. On my Garmin 680 I had to constantly change the frequency even around different parts of my home area (Pittsburgh, PA) but with the 765t I tuned my radio to the frequency it was already set to (87.3 I think.) and it worked all the way to Bob Evan's and then home with only one tiny static pop that quickly went away.
In my opinion you can't go wrong with any Garmin product but the 765t rocks!

See you on the road.