Cutline Speaks

Techie Toys

posted by Erin on January 26, 2009

At Cutline we spend a lot of time talking about (and playing with!) the latest and greatest gadgets. Our love for shiny new toys is insatiable. Since we also love to share, we decided to start a new series on Cutline Speaks: From the Tech Toybox of [insert geeky Cutliner here]. This isn't intended to be a comprehensive review by any means. You can get the super charged reviews over at CNET or other sites. Instead, we're sharing what we consider to be the cool (aka chic) and not-so-cool (aka eek!) features of different products. And to inject a little fun, we'll rate products on a sliding rubber duck scale. One rubber duck = not our favorite. Five rubber ducks = run out and get one! As a self-proclaimed lover of all things nerdy, I'm delighted to kick this off!

From the Tech Toybox of Erin: Garmin nüvi 880

The Garmin nüvi 880, announced at CES 2008, is a widescreen Bluetooth-enabled portable navigation system. While Garmin has discontinued the 880, it's still available online. And the latest model, the 885T, appears to have the same bells and whistles. Click here for more information on the 880 and here to read about the 885T.

Chic: Pairing my phone through Bluetooth was a snap. Setting up the MSN Direct services was super simple. And mastering the speech recognition functionality took no time at all. It's an incredibly useful feature and works really well, too. The screen is big and beautiful and very clear. And, if you happen to fancy accents, like me, you can set it up so that your directions are spoken with a British accent or a number of languages besides English. My nüvi recently embarked on a trip from San Francisco to Houston and never failed to provide just the right amount of traffic, food and lodging information.

Eek!: While I happen to love that I can use the nüvi as a speaker, there's often too much background noise for it to really be effective. It's OK in a pinch, but I tend to only use it when the battery in my Bluetooth headset dies. The only thing I wasn't completely crazy about: the price. Retailing at $799, this thing will set you back a few dinners but if you are geographically challenged, like me, or if you take a lot of road trips, it's definitely worth the hefty price tag.

Rating: On the sliding rubber duck scale, the nüvi 880 is definitely a five!

Tags for this post: gadgets