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Paul Lester, Personal Computer World, Friday 18 January 2008 at 00:00:00

Can the new Nuvi range raise the bar for in-car sat nav?

We've been impressed by past offerings from Garmin's Nuvi range of sat navs, which has recently been refreshed with the new 700 series. The Nuvi 710 is effectively the entry-level model, but retailing at a little under £300 it's not exactly shaped to compete with capable budget solutions from its rivals. However, it's feature packed and has a 4.3in widescreen display with a silver-grey design and slimline build. A power switch is the only physical button, but there's an SD/MMC slot to upgrade the built-in UK and Ireland mapping. Garmin has also ditched the flip-up antenna from its 600 series in favour of an internal design. On startup you're presented with a simple menu display that allows you to plan a route, view the map, adjust volume or access the various tools and settings. Getting started on a journey is therefore very simple, with typical postcode and address navigation to accompany Points of Interest (PoI), favourites and city selection if you just need pointing in the right direction. On entering our first test route we were a little disappointed by a time to first fix of just under five minutes from a cold start, although things improved once under way and warm-start fix times were typically less than a minute. Garmin claims to have enhanced the user interface, but we couldn't see much difference in the mapping software, which has always been pretty clear and straightforward to follow. You're shown just about the right amount of detail, with clear road colourings for the current route and arrows giving you a good degree of notice before the next turn-off. Routing and re-routing calculations were fast and audible directions clear, although we were a little disappointed not to see text-to-speech capabilities here for verbal confirmation of road names and locations. Advanced waypoint warnings to clear up tricky interchanges are also absent. You're provided with a safety camera database with verbal and visual warnings en route and TMC traffic alerts. A nice touch is that the TMC antenna is cleverly built into the in-car charger, which helps reduce the mess of wires polluting the dashboard of your car. As is typical of past models in the Nuvi range, we found the 710 very easy to use on the move, thanks to an effective menu structure and one-click access to a trip computer and current route itinerary from the main map. Volume control is a couple of clicks away, but it's close enough to...

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