I needed a GPS for my vacation and so I have been comparing many GPS by reading reviews lately and decided to buy a Garmin Nuevi 780. I’ve bought it in August 2009 and used it all September. I’ve traveled all across the U.S.

First I connected it to my computer, registered with Garmin and it downloaded updates immediately. The process of downloading takes a while (big file) but I did some chores and so it didn’t bother me at all.

Right now I live in the U.S. because of my job and I live in the desert. GPS signal is strong and quickly found.

Battery charged while updating maps and it lasts long enough for me to sit on my bed and put in every destination and location that I knew I would visit on my trip and it is all very easy to do. I’ve put every friends address in it and to my favorites as well and tested the GPS while I was still in my area. No Problems.

Then we started to travel. It has always helped me through big cities and found every location I was looking for. If there was a mistake it was usually mine. I have to get used to work with a GPS (I am a beginner) Everytime I made a mistake, it gave me a new route immediatly. I’ve mostly done a wrong turn because the pink line on the map looked like the next turn is far away and then all of a sudden it was right there. I had to let go looking at the pink line which shows you the route. I started to read the next turn street’s name and that was much better then.

One street in Dallas (at the Cowboys’ stadium) was closed due to construction work. This was the only time the Garmin really got confused. Wanted to retour me back to the street over and over again. I had to ignore this and find my own way for several minutes and then everything went back to normal.

Whenever we felt a little hunger, I pressed the POI button and let the GPS show me what restaurants are around us. Amazing. One day we wanted to eat at Chili’s and it found me one right away. Same happened with a Walgreens store when my sister got a headache. Post Office? No problem! If you are a stranger in a city or area it helps you a lot.

The mp3 and audiobook player is something that I wanted but after testing it I decided to use my iPod over FM Transmitter instead. The Garmin sounds a bit out of an aluminium can. I put a 16 GB SD card in it full of music but it is only for emergency. I’m gonna use my iPod!

The Picture function is nice, I’ve downloaded a bunch of pics to the Garmin but I’ve never used it while driving.

The screen is great and big enough. It changes to night or day modus if you chose so. It is absolutely satisfactory even in the brightest sun.

The Garmin nuevi is very slim and fits into my purse or pocket easily. It is also very light. I got me a nice hardcover case “EVA” over eBay which I love and paid 6 Dollars for.

The only minus in my opinion is that you can only safe the state but not the city. If you are in the same city and you want to put an address in you always have to type the city’s name