Best GPS For the Money 2011

My Garmin Nuvi 855 is absolutely the best GPS for the money. It is an amazing value since Garmin reduced the price to under $150! I recommended it on my website as the "best GPS for the money" and followed my own advice and I bought one. It is also the safest GPS to use.

When I received the Nuvi 855, I could not open it fast enough to try the voice command feature. The Nuvi 855 and the Nuvi 3790T are the only current Garmin units that have voice recognition.

I have used other products that have voice recognition so I expected to have to train the Nuvi to my voice. Was I surprised when it immediately recognized what I told it and performed correctly. I was even more surprised when my wife used it and it obeyed her without any problems.

How does the Nuvi 855 know when you are giving it a command and not just talking? It comes with a Speech Recognition Remote Control. This is a small device that straps to the steering wheel. It contains a large and a small button. When you want the Nuvi 855 to listen for a command, you push the large button. When you want the Nuvi to stop listening for commands, you push the small button or you simply say "Stop Listening".

When you push the large button to give a command, the Nuvi 855 beeps and a green icon show in the upper right corner of the screen. When you speak the command, the Nuvi gives one beep if it recognizes the command and a double beep if it does not recognize the command. When the GPS is processing a command, the icon turns red indicating that it will not accept a command at that time.

We looked for the volume control and realized it does not have a mechanical volume control. I pushed the command button and said "Volume". The answer was "Volume at 100 percent". I commanded "Volume down" and the Nuvi lowered the volume by ten percent and responded "Volume at 90 percent".

The Nuvi 855 recognizes any text on the screen so if the screen has the words "Back", "Map", etc. you can speak them and the Nuvi will follow the command.

Here are the shortcut commands the Nuvi 855 recognizes:

Audible Player

Cancel Route

Detour

Find Address

Find City

Find Favorite

Find Place by Category

Find Placed by Name

Find Recently Found

Go Home

Help

Main Menu

Music Player

Stop Listening

Tools Menu

Trip Computer

View Map

Volume Down

Volume Up

Where Am I?

Where To?

It has a few additional words that it recognizes that are not on the list. I gave it the command "Speed" and it displayed the trip computer screen and told me to "See trip computer". It did the same for the command, "Time".

In this article, I have concentrated on the voice recognition for the Nuvi 855, but it is a full featured wide screen GPS and has virtually all the features available on a Garmin automotive GPS except for Bluetooth.

Communicating with a GPS without voice recognition is extremely dangerous since you must take your eyes off the road to touch the screen to enter information. The Nuvi 855 recognizes the necessary commands to let you safely navigate hands free. As you would expect, it speaks the name of the street on which you need to turn so you do not have to look at the display to read the name of the street. I can truly say that the combination of voice recognition and speaking the street name makes this a hands free GPS.

With the voice recognition and all the other features and benefits at a very low price, the Garmin Nuvi 855 truly is the best GPS for the money. For more information about the Garmin Nuvi 855, read the resource information at the end of this article.