Garmin nuvi 3790T
It may look good, but uglier satnavs navigate better for less
Price: £188 (£226 inc VAT)
Supplier: www.amazon.co.uk
Maps: Lifetime European updates, £63 (£75 inc VAT)
Performance: ★★★
Features: ★★★★★
Value for money: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★
Garmin claims this little wonder is the thinnest sat-nav in the world, and we wouldn’t contest that. It measures an almost impossible 8.9mm from the front bezel to the rear panel, and looks lovely in its brushed-aluminium casing.
Garmin has squeezed a lot into those tiny dimensions. The 4.3in 800 x 480 display has a glass-fronted multitouch capacitive screen and is the brightest display on test by a mile.
There’s Bluetooth for hands-free speakerphone use, TMC-RDS traffic with a lifetime subscription, voice control that works, European mapping, and compatibility with Garmin’s ecoRoute HD module. The nuvi 3790T’s speaker is a little quiet, but Garmin includes a louder one in the mount, so it’s audible on the road.
As with the nuLink 1695, the nuvi 3790T is a competent sat-nav. It’s responsive, so planning routes and finding locations was frustration-free, and we didn’t have to wait long for a satellite lock. However, voice instructions were often delivered too early, and we found it tricky to judge the distance to the next turn. Garmin’s nuRoute technology, supposedly a rival to TomTom’s IQ Routes, seemed to have no effect on route choice; in our tests, it failed to deliver the ideal route.
There’s plenty packed in, and the nuvi 3790T benefits from the same lifetime map subscription price as the nuLink 1695, but when it comes to performance out on the road, there are better devices around. The TomTom Via Live 120 is both cheaper and more effective at the core job of navigation.
