Garmin nuvi 3790T

Overall, the software tweaks are much appreciated, and the overall speed of the system is laudable. But there's one issue we simply can't shake: the guide. We've been listening to the same female robot tell us where to turn and just how flustered she is to be "recalculating" once more for years, and for all the improvements Garmin has made on the coding front, we would've loved a more fluid robotic voice that can enunciate street names with the intelligence of an 8-year old. Those who had a nüvi now will be all too familiar with the factory installed voices, and while they definitely get the job done, they certainly aren't a big leap forward. We should also mention that the Voice Command feature is pretty solid. Microsoft's SYNC system has always left us sorely disappointed, and Garmin's implementation is markedly superior. You still have to speak slowly, and it's really only useful for finding nearby places or addresses that you've already got saved (i.e. you won't be using your voice to spell out a full address for the first time or anything), but it's a nice extra. If we could speak at a normal rate and have it recognize us, it'd be perfect; as it is, we'll just pretend that we needed to work on our public speaking skills, anyway.

So, our other major gripe? The speed at which this thing finds a GPS fix. We tested it out in a number of cities in a number of states, and we never could get it to find a solid lock in under a minute or three. That may not sound like a lot, but when you're buckled in and ready to roll, watching that "Acquiring Satellites" bar sit for any number of minutes is really annoying. Making matters worse, the 3790T seems to lose its fix far more quickly than our trusty nüvi 350, forcing us to see that message pretty much anytime we switched the ignition off and then back on. It also seemed to take its sweet time when calculating routes, but once it was finally ready to direct, everything else was lickety-split. 'Course, we could be spoiled by the overall quickness of the system when becoming frustrated by the lack of speed in the GPS lock, but hey, there it is.

Garmin throws in a simple car mounting kit, a USB cable and a car cigarette adapter, but it's on you to locate a screen protector of some sort if you think this will end up in your pocket, backpack or purse on a semi-regular basis. We should also mention that the battery life here is rather great given the lack of room for a bulky cell and the fact that it remains on the entire time while navigating; Garmin claims that you can see four hours on a full charge, and on two test occasions we hit just south of that. As for the actual navigation? We still think Garmin's software is the best around, and while we did grow frustrated with its choice of road a time or two when avoiding a street closure near ESPN's campus, it managed to get us where we needed sans fuss the vast majority of the time. If you've used a nüvi before, the navigation functionality will be extremely familiar, but aside from the refined pedestrian options, lifetime traffic alerts and built-in EcoRoute functionality, there's not a lot here software wise to encourage an upgrade.

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