With the nüvi 800 series, Garmin adds smooth speech recognition to its bestselling line of sleek portable GPS navigators. As with all nüvis, you get a slim, pocket-sized navigator with a gorgeous display, detailed NAVTEQ maps that let you search by name for more than 6 million points of interest like stores, restaurants or hospitals, and an easy, intuitive interface. All of the 800-series navigators also feature a rich array of features including spoken directions in real street names, integrated traffic receivers, MP3 player and photo viewer, and an FM transmitter that will play all the nüvi's audio, including voice prompts, MP3s, audio books, and more, directly through your vehicle's stereo system. The top-of-the-line nüvi 880 adds Bluetooth for hands-free phone calls, an integrated traffic receiver and enhanced MSN Direct content with traffic data, reas-time gas prices, movie times and more.

New features for this line of GPS Units

• Voice Recognition -- Just tell it what you're looking for

• Enhanced MSN Direct Content -- find the cheapest gas nearby, see how fast traffic is moving, get local weather forecasts, event information and more

• Photo Navigation lets you upload geo-coded photos from a phone, geo-coding camera or photo site and navigate to them.

• Send addresses directly from Google Maps or Mapquest to your Garmin

Standard features

• Where Am I? Where's My Car? At any time, with a single tap of the screen, drivers can display their exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations. To help you remember where you parked, all nüvi 800s automatically mark the position in which they were last removed from the mount

• Multi-Destination Routing Plots the fastest route through several destinations. 

• See Better, See More. The super-bright, 4.3-inch touchscreen display is anti-glare for ease of viewing. 2d or 3D perspective views.

• First Rate Map Data All nüvi 800s come preloaded with highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps for the entire United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

• The widescreen display, lets you view map detail, driving directions, photos and more in color. Its sunlight-readable, 4.3-inch display can be read from any direction.

• Detailed City Navigator® NT street maps, preloaded, nearly 6 million points of interest (POIs) and features digital elevation maps that give you a big picture of the surrounding terrain. You can also upload custom points of interest (POIs).

• Integrated Bluetooth® wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker. Pair it with your compatible Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free. Simply speak or dial numbers with nüvi's touchscreen keypad to make a call.

• FM Transmitter lets you hear spoken navigation prompts, MP3s or audio books through your car's stereo system

• Entertainment and travel tools including MP3 player, audio book player JPEG picture viewer, currency converters, Garmin Games, alarm clock and more.

• Garmin Lock™, an anti-theft feature, and is compatible with the free Garmin Garage where you can download custom voices and vehicles.

• microSD card slot stores extra maps, travel guides, photos or MP3s

Reviews:

• Cnet Reviews Editor's Choice 4 stars Excellent by Bonnie Cha, Jun 30, 2008
  The bottom line: As we've come to expect from the Nuvi line, the Garmin Nuvi 880 offers an impressive feature list and solid performance, but it's the accurate speech recognition that really pushes the Nuvi 880 over the edge and makes it one of the best GPS we've tested to date.

• PC Magazine, Editor's rating Very Good, by Craig Ellison Apr 24, 2008
  What really sets the nüvi 880 apart is that you can perform almost all of its functions using your voice—in fact, only a few tasks require the touch screen. I found it a truly amazing (albeit expensive) device that works surprisingly well. When searching points of interests for restaurants, instead of scrolling through categories I just said "Italian" and the GPS immediately jumped to a list of appropriate eateries. Then, with my cell phone connected via Bluetooth, I could dial listings directly.

• Consumer Reports 78/100 (highest ranked GPS system)
  The Garmin Nuvi 880 is a premium, full-featured navigator with few overt flaws. Many of the same qualities can be found in lower-priced Garmin units. The voice recognition of the 880 is what makes this model stand out. It is fully integrated allowing the user to operate all menus, different from most voice recognition systems that are typically limited to address entry. Average user rating based on 8 reviews.

• Amazon.com 78 Customer Reviews
  Excerpt of the review rated most useful by readers
  I have been using the Nuvi 880 GPS for a couple of weeks now, and it is the best Garmin unit to date, and possibly the portable/handheld/car GPS available at this time...The speech recognition is about 90% accurate, but this may be due to the higher amount of road noise in my car (and/or the air conditioner fan noise). When it's quiet, however, the voice recognition is surprisingly accurate.

• Buzzillions, 47 Customer Reviews, 4.4 stars
  Excerpt from typical review. "Everything you expect a garmin to do. GPS navigation is great. Speaks street names clearly. Voice recognition is pretty accurate, definitely good for truly hands free operation because anything you see on the menu you can speak it and it opens. I found the blue tooth speaker phone function to be not so great because the person on the other end had difficulty hearing me...I dont trust the traffic on it because i dont know when it's from."

• Epinions.com 1 Customer Review
  Pros: Screen, voice control
  Cons: Price
  The Bottom Line: If you are looking for the best, and willing to pay for it, you can find it in the Nuvi 880.

Specifications:

• Unit dimensions, WxHxD: 4.8 x 0.8 x 2.8 inches

• Display size, WxH: 4.4 " diag

• Battery: Adapter, Battery

• Battery life: up to 4 hours

• Preloaded maps: City Navigator(R) North America Nt

• Data Memory: SD/MMC

• Waypoints/favorites/locations: 6 million +