Garmin nuvi 3790T

This unit is sexy, Iphone of the satnav world, Yes the software upgrade and map upgrade was around two hours on a 7mb adsl connection, once this was done the unit required a another software upgrade only this was around five min of download time, i suscribed to the Cyclops safety camera data base this again was fast download and works wonderfully all for £19.00 updateable any time for the year.The units voice activated navigation works a treat also mapping is accurate TMC is slow on startup but once found worked well the unit found the satellite instantly for navigation upon power the only down side is that the subscribtion for TMC Premium services is not described very well as it happens this device is all ready enabled so a saving of £30.00 every year

Tom Tom subscriptions are all too expensive in comparason over all the unit does what it says on the tin, four out of five stars for me because of the slow TMC reception.

Well, bought it on Monday, arrived on Wednesday & returned on Thursday, so I think that sort of tells you what I think of this unit.

I paid £263 delivered from Handtec, never used them before, so gave them a shot & very happy with their service.

As for the unit, open the box & you get the very slinky & slim 3790T, a Windscreen mount, USB cable, A monster car charging cable, which has a receiver unit (non removable) + headphone wire used for traffic information to plug into the receiver unit + a very small instruction booklet + 8 others for varying languages.

Please Note: NO MAINS CHARGER OR CASE is supplied.

When you get it you'll need to charge the unit up, it has very little if any charge in it, you'll need to use your PC for this or a phone charger with a USB socket on it.

The instruction booklet is poor, you can download a slightly better one.

The unit once charged, turn on via a fiddly little button on the top, takes quite a while to start & annoyingly you have to acknowledge all of the copyright warnings & safety warnings each time you start it.

The screen is beautifully clear & sharp with an initial two options, where to & browse map.

There's also a tools button at the bottom, from which you access the settings & navigation + loads of other menus.

You'll need to register the unit & download a large update, this can be upto 3Gb! So you'll need a very good ADSL connection & understanding ISP otherwise they may think you're downloading films or something else. To install POIs you need to download POILoader.

This is where the problems lie. If you have a subscription to "safety" camera sites & install them into the system, then activate them, then set a route up, you'll find that they won't appear, because the system has deactivated them, the same applies to other Custom POIs as well. Which sort of makes the unit next to useless if you want to install your own POI lists.

Then there's the problem of satellite acquisition... S...L...O...W!

It took my unit 15 mins to find any satellites under clear skies & brilliant sunshine!

When I restarted it, it still took 5 mins to relocate them, which is ridiculous.

So with the ridiculous start up routines, slow satellite acquisition times & the refusal to show my custom POIs, I returned it to the supplier for a refund.

Oh.. I forgot, the voice commands, very good, maps are very good too, but you need to consider when you get it the very large amount of data that you're going to have to download before you can really use it, something to bear in mind if you're on a low usage ADSL contract.

I would recommend it if all of the units foibles are fixed by soft/firmware updates, however until such time that they are I CANNOT RECOMMEND this unit.