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Manufacturer: Garmin
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  • Less than 9 mm thick - about the same as a standard #2 pencil
  • Full glass 4.3" diagonal multi-touch display
  • Dual orientation capabilities allow you to use the nüvi 3790T either horizontally or vertically
  • Innovative speech recognition let's you control your nüvi with your voice - allowing you to keep both hands on the whee
  • Bluetooth® compatible with a built-in microphone and speaker
Garmin Nuvi 3790T everything I expected and more
 
Review Date: June 28, 2010
Reviewer: WildBill,
Received the Garmin 3790T four days ago. I upgraded from a from a Garmin Nuvi 760. My first comment is Wow! The size and physical design of this beauty is amazing. That's the same word that comes out of most people mouth's when I show them my new toy. Physical beauty aside this new unit really is a huge step up from my 760.
The 800 x 480 pixel glass screen is incredibly clear and a huge enhance over my old unit. The multi-point screen works great. Everything about the 3970 is an improvement from the old 760.
One interesting point is the 3790 picks slightly different routes than the 760 used to. I assume this is the nuRoute/trafficTrends in action.
Hands down my favorite feature on the 3790 is Voice Command. When I originally bought this item I had concerns about how well this feature would work. Let me tell you it works great. I can navigate to some place, add stops or phone someone without ever having to pull over or take my hands off the wheel. What a huge safety improvement.
Another seemingly small item they improved that I really like is the zooming. The map zooms in as you slow down and out as you speed up. It does it very smoothly and provides the perfect amount of data for my tastes.
The traffic data is also very useful in urban areas and well presented. However this area contains my only complaint about the product. Using the traffic feature causes small little adds to occasionally pop up on the screen. They are unobtrusive and don't happen very often so far but I would prefer to find a way to turn them off.
All in all I love my new Nuvi. It is one of the best purchases I've made in years.
Crisp Display, Super Thin, Wonderful GPS!
 
Review Date: July 2, 2010
Reviewer: Michael, Fairfax County, Virginia
I just got my Nuvi 3790 today and I must say it is by far the best GPS I have owned. I have owned Garmins, TomToms, Navigons, and Magellans.

The display is super crisp and bright. Even in bright sunlight. I had my Nuvi 1690 up next to it. The 1690 was washed out, the 3790 was very, very bright.

I transferred my favorites (waypoints) from the 1690 without a hitch. Also installed traffic cameras... no problem (UPDATE - the traffic cameras I installed were from GPS POI which I have used on other Garmin units without a problem. They did not appear on this unit. I understand there is some kind of bug Garmin is working on. I used the Garmin POI Loader, as I have in the past. I downloaded the Garmin Safety Cameras for the US, which they didn't have a while back and they do show up, but I need to see what happens when I come across them.). I tried the voice command and it worked surprisingly well. I had used a TomTom with voice control and this was far superior. You get a list of commands on the screen and I had no problem activating the feature simply by saying, "Voice Command.' Picked me up without a hitch. Only once did it seem to freeze on me and for a minute I thought I would have to do a reset, but I said another command and it cleared. (UPDATE - I really like the voice command feature. It makes things so much easier while moving. I am not a 'voice' person but this has come in very useful. Rarely does it miss a beat. If it does I just repeat and it gets it.)

The unit is super thin. In fact, I almost lost my grip on it a few times it is so thin. I bought the Garmin case for it and it fits very well. Easily fits in my shirt pocket.

I did a backup on the hard drive, which by the way is a whopping 8 GB, using a little over 4 GB -- room for expansion indeed. I couldn't select all on my mac and get them all to copy over, but I burned a DVD and pretty much everything was copied from what I could tell. It took about 25 minutes or so.

The unit did get pretty warm in use, perhaps because of the black back and the sun. I haven't used it at night to tell if that is it. (UPDATE - it doesn't seem to get as warm now even with the sun hitting it. Perhaps the electronics needed to get 'burned in' and all is well.)

I live in northern Virginia and was not able to pick up traffic. My 1690 was showing traffic in the same areas. The 1690 is cell-connected, the 3790 is FM.

In comparison with the 1690 with most detail selected, the 3790 is pretty much about the same in many areas, perhaps a bit more in others. No complaints about that at all so far.

I do like the ability to rotate the screen. I didn't think I would but I like the portrait view. It gives me more of where I am going rather off to the sides. I will need to experiment with it.

Routing is a bit different than my 1690. I will see how it evolves in its learning my routes. Calculation seems quick. It did take a while to lock in after being powered off, but nothing appreciable.

I can easily pack this, or put it in my shirt pocket and take it most places.

A great GPS. Pricey, but wonderful. This is the iPhone 4 of the GPS world. Nothing comes close to the beauty of the 3790.

_______________________
Update - 7/6/10

The Junction Views on this appear more often than they did on my 1690. Same map version, but obviously updated Junction Views. I have read that in Europe they have photo realistic Junction Views and from the pictures they look very good. Hopefully they will update the US Junction Views to photo realistic ones.... makes for a much nicer picture. (UPDATE - in portrait mode the junction view is on the top half of the screen and you still see the road and your 'vehicle' moving in the bottom half of the screen. In landscape mode junction view takes up the entire screen.)

Also, the software user interface is different in this unit and while it offers pretty much what the 1690 software does, many things are in different places. For instance the last position you are at when you remove the unit from the mount in the 1690 was found under favorites. In the 3790 it is found under parking - last stop.

Best thing is to explore all the menus and see what's there. Very nice indeed.

7-10-10... Some tips.... To power on push the on/off button and wait to hear the click. Let go at that point. To power off, you need to HOLD the power button down until you see a power off screen asking you to make a choice. Otherwise, if you hold the on/off button down briefly and let go, it goes into standby and when you push the on/off button to turn it 'on' you get a lock screen, at which point you hit the lock icon and it comes to life. This is not turning the unit off - just putting it into standby mode. For a quick return to where you left it, standby works great, but not for long periods of time as it uses up the battery. If the car power is lost the unit goes into standby, not power off. If you pull it off the mount, nothing happens. Interesting.

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