The POI database contains all the major categories (gas stations, lodging, ATMs, restaurants by cuisine type, and so forth) and more specialized interests, including golf courses, gyms, and nightclubs. On top of the preloaded entries, you can add custom POIs, such as safety cameras and school zones. In addition, the Nuvi 880 ships with a three-month complimentary trial to MSN Direct services, which lets you get traffic updates and movie times by title or theater, and searches for nearby gas stations by fuel prices. You can also plan your trip from your PC via Windows Live Local and send it wirelessly to the Nuvi 880 as well as get the latest weather forecast for your area, news, stock prices, and local events. After the three months are up, you'll have to purchase a subscription plan, which starts at $49.95 for an annual plan or a one-time payment of $129.95. The MSN Direct receiver is built into the car charger, so you don't have to worry about purchasing an extra accessory.
Maps are available in 2D and 3D view with day and night colors, and you can change it so north is always at the top of your screen or the direction in which you are driving. A plus and minus icon on the map screen lets you zoom in and out, and there's a trip information page that displays your speed, direction, trip time, and so forth. In addition to the visual aids, you, of course, get voice-guided turn-by-turn directions with text-to-speech functionality. The Nuvi 880 also has a built-in FM transmitter so you can pipe the audio through your car's stereo for better volume.
Like the more recent Nuvi devices, the Garmin Nuvi 880 has the "Where am I?" feature, which gives you the coordinates of your location, the nearest address, and intersection. It will also list the closest hospitals, police stations, and gas stations to your position, giving you a bit of peace of mind if you're in unfamiliar territory and need access to any of these services, or if you need to give your location to a tow truck. You'll be able to call any of these services or other businesses or POI directly from the Nuvi 880 since it has integrated Bluetooth. We're happy to report that your phone's address book and call history will automatically synchronize with the GPS for easy data transfer.
Finally, the Garmin Nuvi 880 includes a host of other tools that can be useful outside the car. There's a Travel Kit like that included with other Nuvi models that consists of an MP3 player, an Audible book player, a JPEG picture viewer with a slide show function, a world clock, currency and measurement converters, and a calculator. It also comes loaded with a ton of games, including Solitaire, Sudoku, and Space Shooter.
Performance
We tested the Garmin Nuvi 880 in San Francisco, and from a cold start, it took the unit about two minutes to get a fix on our location under partly cloudy skies. Subsequent starts could take up to a minute, but more often than not, the system was able to acquire a fix within a few seconds. While running errands around the city, the Nuvi 880 did a good job of tracking our position. It did lose the lock as we drove through the Broadway Tunnel (a normal occurrence with GPS) but was able to re-establish a connection once we exited.
We planned several trips using the Nuvi 880: all originating from San Francisco's Marina district to Roseville, Calif., Sunnyvale, Calif., and CNET's downtown San Francisco headquarters. For the first trip out to Roseville (near Sacramento, Calif.), we entered the trip information using the standard touch-screen method and added several stops along the way. It may have been the extra destinations, but it took the Nuvi 880 a couple of minutes to calculate a route. Nothing horribly inconvenient, but just something we noticed. That said, we found the directions to be accurate and it got us to our destinations. The text-to-speech feature did a good job with street pronunciations, and the voice prompts were always loud and clear. We also missed several turns and exits, and the Nuvi 880 was able to get us back on track in a timely manner.
For the next two trips, we used the speech recognition capabilities and we were blown away at its accuracy. With the other systems, we had to ensure that we were in a quiet environment and even then, they were numerous errors. However, this wasn't the case with the Nuvi 880. We were able to launch the various applications and enter addresses with such ease. Even with the radio in the background, the system was able to understand and compute all our voice commands and more importantly, perform them accurately. There was no need to shout, and only once or twice did we have to repeat ourselves. It was truly impressive, and it's the first time we felt it's actually worth using the voice commands over the touch screen.
Last but not least, we were able to successfully pair the Nuvi 880 with the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8310. The setup process was easy. All our phone book information instantly transferred over to the Nuvi 880 and we had no problems making or receiving calls. The Nuvi 880 has a rated battery life of four hours. The battery is replaceable, so you can purchase an extra battery ($30) to keep as a backup.
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