Garmin’s not joking. The possibly oldest competitor on the market isn’t afraid of other companies, but he stands up. A few years ago we knew about Garmin that their stuff is very expensive and the Central- and Eastern-European region is not the place of which they have maps detailed enough to use them for navigation. Of course we can say, that coverage for major cities is sufficient and less important areas will do without navigation, as villages still usually have people who you can ask directions of. Well of course. These times don’t last forever and the award for putting and end to this cruel situation clearly goes to Garmin, who, together with NaviGate (founding members of TopMap), eliminated these so-called maps and have finally built a usable database.

This region is considered as a small market, so in the beginning nobody considered iGO, a company which started to become a major factor, so those who would like to make some sales on this small market, had to take the necessary steps. Well Garmin didn’t start its business today; they have recognized the problems and made some crucial changes: they have radically decreased prices, so the nüvis still remained in the high-end category, but at least they were competitive with others.

Meanwhile the competition has been extended to other platforms too, so Garmin XT was born, which runs on a quite a high number of OpenOS platforms, providing an alternative for those who don’t have a Windows-based machine. As a conclusion I think that everyone has knuckle down to the task, as Garmin has launched a serious offensive and it’s no question that this strategy will result in outmost success if they keep following the same path. The subject of our current review, however, is not Garmin XT, but the flagship of the nüvi series, Garmin nüvi 760, in which the company put all their strength in. The review of the result of these efforts follows on the next pages.