Garmin nuvi 805 Series | 855 and 885T Auto GPS Navigators Review

Garmin’s nuvi 805 series of automotive GPS navigators and personal travel assistants consists of just the two models, the Garmin nuvi 855 and Garmin nuvi 885T where the T at the end signifies the model has a traffic receiver. Apart from the 885T having a traffic receiver, the only other difference is that the 885T also has Bluetooth wireless technology for connecting a compatible cell phone for hands -free phone calls. The 885T comes with 3 months free MSN Direct service.

Garmin Nuvi 805 series

Notable common features of the Garmin nuvi 805 series include speech recognition, lane assist (helpful lane guidance on junction views), preloaded street maps for North America, travel tools geotagged photo navigation, text=to-speech 4.3 inch widescreen, FM transmitter, MP3 player and route planning functions. The nuvi 805 series are portable GPS with a small form factor (slim) and will fit comfortably in your pocket or purse if you wish to use it for pedestrian navigation. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery gives 4 hours of charge on average.

Widescreen 4.3 Inch Display

The 4.3 inch widescreen WQVGA (480 x 272 pixels) TFT touchscreen of the Garmin 805 series gives 70% extra display area than a 3.5 inch screen. This means map displays and menus are clearer and navigation icons and instructions can be larger and more numerous. For easier daytime viewing the display is anti-glare and automatically changes its color profile for easy viewing at night or in dim light. Maps can be displayed in either 2D or 3D perspective views.

Travel Assistant Features

Travel tools include; world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter, calculator and more.

Automatic Time Zone Transition is a handy feature for regular travellers automatically resetting the GPS unit to the correct time zone once it has acquired a GPS satellite position fix.

Travel Guides and GarminSavers Guide can be loaded via SD card for detailed data on attractions and information on nearby merchants offering discounts.

Travel Guide - includes reviews and recommendations for restaurants, hotels, shopping, nightlife, sporting events and tourist attractions. Travel Guides for Europe and the United States (includes US, Canada and Mexico) is are available.
SaversGuide - gives over 45,000 discounts from participating FV Entertainment listed businesses throughout North America.

Navigating with the Garmin Nuvi 805 Series GPS Navigators

Through the Where to? icon Garmin has provided numerous ways to enter your destination through numerous category and sub-category choices including; searching for or entering an address, searching for or selecting a POI, using a favourite, selecting home, an intersection or a geotagged photo (see below). It’s possible to set waypoints (Garmin refer to them as via points) and request a reroute while navigating your plotted route.

At any time it’s possible to find exactly where you are by tapping the Where AM I? icon on the GPS display. You can display your exact coordinates, nearest address and intersection as well as the closest service selected from a menu. It’s a handy feature for an emergency.

If you often have trouble finding where you parked your car then you will appreciate the nuvi 805’s feature which remembers the position where it is removed from its mount so it can guide you back there if necessary.

Speech Recognition – Garmin Nuvi 885T and 855

The speech recognition on both the Garmin nuvi 805 models feature allows you to speak to your nuvi to find destinations, select options and perform other functions. The remote control (attaches to steering wheel) is used to start or stop speech recognition when required.

Four methods of speech recognition are utilized;

Speak any text on the screen
Speak shortcut commands
Speak the name of a popular place
Speak an address

Text on the screen might be “back” to go back to previous menu. Shortcut commands skip menus and go straight to where you want to be. Some shortcut command examples are; Go Home, Hands Free or Volume Down. There are even shortcut commands specific to MSN such as; Show News or Show Weather.

You can say Find Nearest to search a location category (from POI) for example you may say Find Nearest Gas Station.

You can say Find Place by Name then state the name of the place. You can only speak the names of very popular well-known locations. Otherwise you have to use the Were To? Menu categories

The Garmin video below is for the Garmin nuvi 880 but it gives and idea of how Garmin’s speech recognition works in real life.

While Garmin’s speech recognition is a useful tool it requires the use of a structured voice instructions and cannot cope with conversational enquiries as can Pioneer’s recently announced AVIC-F500BT. The Pioneer AVIC-500BT is a hybrid auto navigation device which will fit in the dash and can be removed to become a personal navigation device away from the car. The AVIC-500BT uses VoiceBox’s Conversational Voice Search Platform. A detailed review of this speech recognition software is included in our review of the AVIC-500BT.

Geotagged Photo Navigation

Garmin Connect Photos is a free service from Garmin for customers to search for photos by address or location from a large collection of geotagged photos on the Panoramio website. Once downloaded and transferred to a compatible Garmin GPS navigation device they can be used to enter a destination for turn-by-turn directions based on the geotagged with location coordinates.

GPS users can also make use of a feature available with Google Maps and Mapquest which lets you to download a location you’ve found (GPS coordinates and address) directly to your TomTom or Garmin GPS navigator.

Preloaded map coverage (NAVTEQ) includes the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Also preloaded is a database of some six million points of interest (POI), including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs and attractions. The Garmin nuvi 805 models have a microSD card for loading extra mapping data or for extra storage.

Lane Guidance

Lane Guidance is a recent and popular feature with GPS navigator shoppers. This is probably many have first-hand experience of the frustration of finding oneself caught in the wrong lane shortly before your exit. Lane Guidance provides a 3D Lane Assist Junction View with the recommended lane shown so that you can move into it well before you need to exit.

Multi-Destination Routing

Sometimes a trip requires a number of stops which can be handled by the Garmin nuvi’s Route Planning feature which allows you to save up to 10 different destinations and work out the fastest route to visit them. It’s a handy, time saving feature for running errands or making deliveries.

Hands-Free Calling - Bluetooth Wireless Technology (nuvi 885T)

Garmin nuvi 885T users can keep their eyes safely on the road by making hands-free cellular calls utilizing Bluetooth technology. Incoming phone calls are displayed and a tap of the screen accepts the call. As with other systems, any other audio is automatically muted during phone calls. Calls can be made using the nuvi’s touchscreen keypad. A handy convenience is being able to access phone numbers associated with a POI making it simple to call ahead. Numbers from your personalized phone book can be dialled and you can even tap into your cell phone’s call history log.

Multimedia Features

As well as being GPS navigation devices the Garmin nuvi 705 models are also well equipped entertainment devices with features such as;

JPEG picture viewer.
MP3 player for listening to your music collection (music loaded from a USB or SD card via drag-and-drop).
Audiobook player for playing books (subscription required from audible.com).

Theft Prevention

As a theft deterrent Garmin’s prevention system disables the unit from performing any functions until the user types in a specific 4-digit PIN or takes the unit to a predetermined secure location. It’s not just the GPS unit which is kept safe as thieves have been know to use the Go Home function to make steal while the owner is away.

Included in the 805 Series Garmin nuvi Box

nuvi 805 series GPS navigator
Preloaded City Navigator NT for North America
MSN direct receiver (885T only) with vehicle power cable
3 months free MSN Direct service (nuvi 785T only)
Speech recognition remote
Vehicle suction cup mount
Dashboard disc
USB cable
Quick start manual

Resources

The less expensive Garmin nuvi 205 models have a smaller 3.5 inch screen, no FM transmitter, lane assist, multiple destinations, 3D building view, garmin locate, MP3 player or audio book player.

User Manual for Garmin nuvi 805 Series – 850 and 855T

Garmin nuvi 805 Series Quick Start Guide