Garmin DriveSmart 76, 7-inch Car GPS Navigator with Bright, Crisp High-Resolution Maps and Garmin Voice Assist

Why it's worth it

This is the 7-inch middle child of Garmin's lineup, and it gives up almost nothing to the 8-inch model above it. You get Alexa, live traffic through the Garmin Drive app, Foursquare and Tripadvisor listings, and Garmin's full run of driver alerts.

Seven inches is big enough to read at a glance and small enough to live with. At normal dash-mounting distance, street names, lane arrows, and junction art are all easy to pick out without staring at them. That matters more than raw inches. Garmin lists the same bright, high-resolution panel across its current DriveSmart models, so what you're really picking is footprint. Seven inches clears most windshields without putting a black rectangle where the road should be.

You're not paying less for a stripped-down feature set. The 76's spec sheet covers the same ground as the 8-inch model: Alexa built in, hands-free calling over Bluetooth, Garmin voice assist for spoken destinations, and live traffic, fuel prices, parking, and weather through the Garmin Drive app. Smart notifications mirror your calls and texts to the screen. Published reviews treat the two as siblings that differ mainly in size, and the listings back that up.

From our review of 5 gps navigation systems for cars, by Ben Carter, Tech Editor

What we like

• +Seven inches is big enough to read at a glance and small enough to live with
• +You're not paying less for a stripped-down feature set
• +Garmin's driver alerts are the quiet reason people stay loyal to these
• +The road-trip extras actually earn their space

What to know

• –Live traffic rides on your phone
• –Map updates mean plugging into a computer
• –Voice recognition is good, not great