Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black)

by Garmin

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 6.4 x 3.3 inches ; 1.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001PN37LA
• Item model number: 010-00577-23
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,926 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Simply speaking, nüvi 850 is one advanced navigator. It features voice-activated navigation, a widescreen display, preloaded maps, an FM transmitter and more. Like the rest of the wide nüvi 800-series, just speak a menu option and nüvi obeys your command.

Speak Commands
nüvi 850 not only tells you where to turn but listens to your spoken commands. With nüvi’s innovative speech recognition, you safely control nüvi’s interface with your voice — allowing you to keep both hands on the wheel. Simply press the button on the remote (which attaches to the steering wheel) to activate speech recognition and begin speaking menu options. nüvi even recognizes shortcut phrases for popular functions. Tell nüvi "Find Address" and speak an address to start navigating.

View map detail, driving directions, photos and more in bright, brilliant color.

See More
With nüvi 850's widescreen display, you'll always get the big picture. View map detail, driving directions, photos and more in bright, brilliant color. Its sunlight-readable, 4.3-inch display is easy to read — from any direction.

Navigate With Ease
nüvi 850 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator® NT street maps and millions of points of interest (POIs) such as hotels, restaurants, fuel stations, ATMs and more. Speak a menu option or touch the color screen to enter a destination, and nüvi takes you there with 2-D or 3-D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. In addition, nüvi 850 accepts custom points of interest, such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs.

Where am I?
Keep track of yourself and your car with nüvi 850. Just speak or tap "Where Am I?" to find the closest hospitals, police stations, fuel stations, nearest address and intersection. Also see your exact latitude and longitude coordinates. nüvi 850 even remembers where you parked. It automatically marks your position when you remove it from the windshield mount, so you can navigate with nüvi on foot and find your way back to your vehicle. Perfect for unfamiliar spots and crowded lots such as amusement parks, stadiums and malls.

Plan Ahead
nüvi 850 includes advanced navigational features to take the worry out of traveling. With route planning you can save 10 routes, specify via points and preview simulated turns on the 850's wide screen. In addition, nüvi 850 automatically sorts multiple destinations to provide an efficient route for errands, deliveries or sales calls. It also displays speed limits for highways and Interstates. A trip log provides an electronic bread crumb trail of up to 10,000 points, so you can see where you've been on the map.

Take It With You
nüvi 850's high-sensitivity internal (non flip-up) antenna gives it a sleeker, thinner design than the nüvi 600-series, making it easy to slip in your pocket or purse. Its rechargeable lithium-ion battery makes it convenient for navigation by car or on foot.

Go Beyond Navigation
Navigation is just the beginning. nüvi 850 includes many “must have” entertainment and travel tools including MP3 player, audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), JPEG picture viewer, currency converters, Garmin Games, alarm clock and more. With the included wireless FM transmitter¹, you can hear audio, including voice prompts, MP3s and audio books, through your vehicle's stereo. It's also compatible with optional FM traffic alerts or optional MSN® Direct content. With photo navigation, you can download pictures from Garmin Connect™ Photos and navigate to them. The 850 features Garmin Lock™, an anti-theft feature, and is compatible with our free Garmin Garage where you can download custom vehicles that show your location on the map. Enhance your travel experience with optional plug-in microSD cards such as Garmin Travel Guides for detailed data on attractions.

What's in the Box
nüvi 850, Preloaded City Navigator® NT for North America, Remote for voice activation, Vehicle suction cup mount, Vehicle power cable, USB cable, Dashboard disc, and Quick start manual

Compare all Garmin nüvis
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Visit Garmin.com at https://www8.garmin.com/support/download.jsp to get the latest firmware updates for your nüvi to keep it current and performing at its best.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It should get you there, but could do it better, September 8, 2009

By 

sevenseeker "sevenseeker" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black) (Electronics)

I have owned the Garmin nüvi 850 for a couple of months, and have made several trips with it. I find it to be a mostly reliable GPS navigation unit, and recommend this product, with some reservations.

Its principal benefits are:

* Voice recognition works under most conditions, at least where substantial noise is not an issue. It is necessary to interact at the speed of the unit, waiting for your turn to speak, which is indicated both visually and audibly. The voice-activation remote control is a clever tool for accessing this feature, although placement of the remote on the steering wheel in such a way as to avoid accidental activations is difficult. Once voice recognition is active, the unit does not always understand commands on the first attempt, but I found that reducing fan speed on the vehicle's air conditioner (to reduce background noise) usually helps with this.

* The menus are generally user-friendly, although there is a learning curve that requires some practice for less frequently used areas. The menus are not always intuitive. For example, having user-defined routes as an item separate from favorites, rather than as a sub-menu under favorites adds a memory component when trying to access that feature.

* The directional voice prompts are timely, and match the visual cues provided on screen. I found the male British voice to be the most easily understood under most road conditions.

* The low-glare screen is consistently viewable in a variety of lighting conditions, although somewhat less so in the brightest light. It is, however, difficult to keep clear of fingerprints and smudges that produce their own glare and can interfere with viewing.

* Routing and re-routing is fairly quick. The initial route calculation tends to take several seconds, and slows for more complicated mapping. The closer you are to the destination, the more rapidly the calculation or re-calculation seems to take place. Most routes seem quite efficient, with only an occasional questionable route selection offered.

My principal complaints with the unit are:

* Battery life is short. Expect to run this unit under car power for trips much longer than an hour. Also, removal of the battery between trips was the only means I found to reliably keep the battery from draining with the unit off, even in as little as a couple of weeks on the shelf. The inability to charge the unit via USB with the unit turned off is not a great concern, but does lengthen the charging time requirement.

* Maps that do not reflect current information. Usually this was most noticeable for highway speed limits that had changed, sometimes several years earlier, and for points of interest that did not match actual conditions. Routing can sometimes be misleading as well. For example, when trying to locate a Post Office, I was routed to an adjacent highway from which there was not a direct entrance.

* FM transmission is a feature without much reliability, given the constantly changing nature of radio signal interference on trips of more than the shortest distance. However, the audible prompts are loud enough to be heard from the unit directly, and sound even better over headphones.

* While rare, I have experienced lengthy (several minute-long) delays in satellite acquisition on system start-up. When it happens, it negates the value of the product, but the nüvi 850 still outperforms an earlier GPS unit that frequently dropped satellite connection while in transit. At least I have not experienced that problem with the nüvi 850 yet, and most of the time, it acquires satellite information in a matter of seconds on start-up.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Durable, Reliable and pays for itself in the end., August 8, 2009

By 

C. R. Goulding "I do it for a living.. lol" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black) (Electronics)

Well my original monochrome Streetpilot was called back into action but I couldn't get new maps for it. That unit still works perfect after 10 years and is used frequently on canoe trips since it's waterproof to 3ft and can use batteries.

So I needed a GPS that could handle 100hrs of usage per week and have a replaceable battery with good routing and a music player that transmits to the car stereo would be nice.

After 4 months/1600hrs usage I have not been disappointed. Maps are great, it's found 895/900 addresses in the Chicago suburbs and never complained of sitting in the direct sun all day. I have a deep voice and the voice recognition works surprisingly well for me with the windows up in a noisy van. A nice feature would be able to increase the priority of highways, quite often it suggests me taking a more direct route that is slower, since traffic usually moves well over the posted speed. I am happy that the unit offers Flat Map Viewing with the option of Track Up or North Up, the 3D view just isn't for me. The FM transmitter sends my music nicely to the radio and has a volume mixer that will announce directions while playing the music and gives me a heads up about when approaching heavy traffic (MSN Direct receiver). Another nice feature is that you can use the button on the steering wheel to control all the functions of the gps including changing the volume or skipping to the next track or play list. My dashboard is fairly free of clutter since there is only one wire that plugs in the cradle. Another routing feature I use frequently is the ability to avoid Tolls. You Can detour by roads in the route or by distance, a few reviews posted said that it wasn't an option. Apparently Garmin listened and implemented it for free with it's painless updating.

You can change the vehicle that moves across the map (changed mine to a canoe lol) and the voices for free. Tom Tom wants money for it. The MSN Direct Receiver pays for itself by showing gas prices in the area. The games even the demos are good enough to keep the kids busy for a while. The calculator comes in handy at times but the best feature about this GPS is it's reliable. :-)

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible technical support, May 12, 2009

By 

Bob (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator with Voice Command and FM Transmitter (Soft Black) (Electronics)

The product works well enough, but you will need divine assistance if you ever try to update the maps. Technical support on the telephone is both rude and completely unhelpful. The software does not function correctly and e-mail support crashed on the Garmin website (generated an unable to send error message). If you never need to update (i.e., do not plan to keep the unit long enough to need to update the maps) and are technically proficient with GPS devices and will never need technical support, then this is not a bad choice. If you are not an engineer or expect to keep your GPS unit for more than a few years, then buyer beware.