Hasta La Gadget!

Sure, when we first caught wind of Garmin’s nüvi 885T a while back it seemed like the hotness (if your measure of hotness begins and ends with a GPS), but how does it really stack up? GPS Magazine just got their hands on one of these bad boys, and they’ve been kind enough to share their thoughts with us. “Great,” they say, “if speech recognition is your number one priority.” Besides voice recognition, the reviewer was really into the Enhanced MSN Direct (traffic, fuel prices, flight statues and more), the ever-useful Where Am I? feature, MP3 playlist support, lane assist, and well behaved Bluetooth. Problems? For starters, MSN Direct for this model costs $50/year (or $130 for life), while many cheaper nüvis get it gratis. Additionally, a few oversights — there is no way to exclude a specific road from a route, for instance, and a very limited detour function — and this reviewer thinks that some users would be better served by another Garmin, such as the nüvi 7×5. But don’t take our word for it — for the exhaustive review hit the read link.

Update: Then again, maybe it is too much to ask for users to get free, unlimited MSN Direct. According to Garmin tech. support: “No Garmin unit receives MSN information gratis. Some do have a free trial period, but Microsoft does not give the information out for free.” Thanks for the heads up, guys!