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The Garmin nüvi 710 is a worthy successor to the nüvi 300. First off, there’s a 10cm widescreen display for which one will have to sacrifice some battery life. A single charge should keep the unit going for almost five hours. In contrast to the 300, the 710 maintains a track of routes, permits routes with multiple destinations to be set up and integrates a screen capture tool into the menu.

The 710 comes with the latest South African streetmaps published around March of this year on a 1GB SD card. Since the maps require less than 150MB of storage, there’s plenty of space for additional maps, music and photos. As with most nüvi’s, support for JPEG photos, MP3 files and Audible content is provided by the relevant players and viewers selectable from the menu.

The unit itself contains 400MB of storage and has both an integrated Bluetooth radio and an FM transmitter. The Bluetooth radio connects to a compatible mobile phone and permits handsfree telephone conversations. Coupled with the FM transmitter, the nüvi 710 is able to speak to the driver through the speakers connected to the car stereo. If a telephone conversation is taking place, or an MP3 is being played, the audio for that is similarly transmitted over the FM band.

I constantly use an FM transmitter to listen to podcasts whilst driving and have tried a number of them. The nüvi 710‘s FM transmitter is by far the clearest and has no trace of the excessive noise and hissing I’ve noticed with other FM transmitters. Full marks for that! As an aside, I would caution against using this feature for telephone calls. As the audio is transmitted on an open FM channel, anyone in close proximity tuned to that channel will be able to hear the audio too! Spread the love with some podcasts and music, but be aware that your private conversations may no longer be that private

The menu interface and operation method will be familiar to all nüvi owners and should be easy to understand by most everyone else.

The Bluetooth connection is used to initiate a connection with a compatible mobile phone to permit handsfree calling. The setup is very simple: Bluetooth on, phone discoverable and enter the authorization code. With the E90, the nüvi 710 is unable to read the contacts in the phone’s memory, which is a pity.

This feature is supported with a wide array of other phones and makes phone calls as simple as selecting a contact on the display. I hope Garmin will include support for the E90 in a firmware upgrade sometime soon. There’s a tiny microphone visible on the left edge of the bezel. In my three test calls, I had excellent reception and no problem making myself understood (or at least, no more problems than usual!). That feature seems to work very well. I’m sure the Bluetooth and FM transmitter will further reduce the available battery runtime, but these are very handy features to have.

In the box is the nüvi 710 unit, windshield and dashboard mounts, USB cable, cigarette lighter charger cable and SD card containing the local map set.

The nüvi 710 is a great GPS device for automotive use that includes many useful features to make commuting that bit more manageable.