Garmin nüvi 680 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
by Garmin
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Our Price: $444.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $72.49 (click here) Category: GPS or Navigation System See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nüvi 680 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Well designed GPS, but too expensive w/ useless features
Summary: 3 Stars
The Nuvi 600 series GPS's have very clear and bright widescreens. They're the perfect shirt-pocket size. The menu's are intuitive and the touchscreens make using them easy. Navigation is generally very good. Overall, they are well designed products that are highly useful.
The negatives: The MSN Direct feature on the 680 is worse than useless. It routes _to_ traffic jams by sending you off major roads to even more severely clogged secondary roads. I've been repeatedly stung by this and finally gave up and turned off the navigation option to bypass heavy traffic. Also, the MSND data is untimely and erroneous: it'll show heavy traffic ahead that has already cleared or won't show it when it's there.
Weather data is also untimely: I've experienced two storms (one quick and fierce where it'd have been good to get off the road) and the 680 showed a weather alert _after_ these storms had passed! Listening to the radio or looking at the sky provides far better weather info.
The FM audio output is also useless. There are rarely usable frequencies in major metro areas, and if you travel any distance, you'd have to fiddle for a long time on the side of the road to get a frequency in a new area. Listening to static gets annoying real quick. And of course, you can't listen to the radio... just static.
I haven't used the bluetooth.
Save a couple hundred $ and get one of the cheaper 600 series Nuvi's, like the 650. I'm a techie who wants all the features, but, this is just being honest. Europe's Galileo GPS stuff is coming on line in a year or so, and better traffic data services will also arrive soon (i.e. HD radio). Apply the savings towards the next generation of GPS.
Customer Review: How did we ever live without it?
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a fantastic product. We have used it in multiple parts of the country and there is simply no better way to navigate unknown places. You can tell it where to go or you can search for a restaurant by name or type of food. My only complaint is the MSN service-- I am no convinced it is all it is cracked up to be. The accident notices are delayed, so you really can't avoid a traffic delays early, but it can't be perfect! It takes a while for it to download current data if you haven't used it in a while. Other than that-- it is a wonderful addition to our travels. Minor other issues: sometimes it cannot decide what to call an exit with two names (i.e., exit off one interstate to another interstate North/South-- it will randomly chose one then instruct you to take whichever one you need once it forks again), sometimes the route choice is not the best. Nice loud voice and clear instructions. Warns you nearly always (yes, every now and then it forget to say turn in 300 feet or whatever) BEFORE a turn. Recalculates quickly if you miss a turn. Saves recently found places as well as home address. Has a PIN option to keep it locked as a theft deterrent. We recently moved from Boston to California-- it was a godsend during that nightmare move. We would have never found a couple of our hotels without it. I would not give this little device up for anything in the world. Switches to night mode to reduce the light at night but still very clear, easy to see screen. Great verbal instructions so you don't always have to look at the map. Four stars because it is not perfect-- but I think it is the best GPS device made right now! Definitely buy it.Customer Review: One of the best!
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this product 4 weeks ago and love it! It is a very capable GPS unit with all the features one could ask for in a stylish package.
PROS:
-Compact, attractive design
-Efficient routing engine
-MP3 player with integrated FM transmitter is great
-Long battery life
-MSN Direct traffic steers you clear of accidents
CONS:
-FM transmitter does not work well in my area (central NJ)
-MSN direct coverage spotty
-Bluetooth phone does not sound good
-No playlist creation in MP3 player
-Only allows 2 destinations in a route
CONCLUSION:
This is one of the best GPS units out there. It looks great and has pretty much all the features that are offered. The FM transmitter makes listening to MP3s great and pauses for turn-by-turn directions. However, in several vehicles I had trouble getting the signal to come in strongly. It seems to work best with front-mounted antennas. The directions were always accurate and got me where I was going quickly. The MSN direct feature with weather, gas prices, and traffic is cool but I didn't get a very strong signal in most of the places I traveled. I hope this network is growing and service will improve. The The screen is big and bright and quick to respond to each touch. Overall, this is a great unit offering all the bells and whistles but a little pricey. I was really looking forward to using this as a handsfree phone in my car but the poor sound quality has generated many complaints from the people I have been talking to so I have stopped using it for that.
Customer Review: great product
Summary: 5 Stars
We took this GPS to Hawaii and it exceeded our expectations. We entered our destination addresses, and it guided us there with voice prompts that were timely and clear. It lets you know how far you will be going on a given road, which direction you'll go when you do turn, and it tells you when the turn is coming up. It also tells again to turn when you come to the intersection. It tells you the name of the street you are turning on, too. It also gives you them in writing at the top of the screen. This is all particularly helpful when the street names are unusual and many are similar to each other (as the Hawaiian ones are to me). At night it is not always possible to read street signs, and the GPS is helpful here because it lets you know you are approaching your street when you are. The map also gives you a pretty good picture of the roads, so you know how sharp a turn is, etc. This can be especially useful on winding roads.
If you don't follow its instructions, it is quite prompt in recalculating and telling you how to get back on track.
It was also very helpful for finding restaurants and shopping.
We haven't used the MSN much yet, as Hawaii didn't have coverage where we were (Honolulu does though). In covered areas, it seems to work fine (though I have yet to be in an area that has traffic reports).
Before I got the device, I was not sure if it was Macintosh compatible; it is. Also, the product info I saw didn't tell me you can set it to pedestrian mode, but you can. I'm not sure how much difference it makes, but we tried it off road, and it seemed to work.
Customer Review: long time gps user - nuvi is a major failure
Summary: 1 Stars
I've used magellan tech for years. Garmin has been all the rage, so I got the 680. My first take was possibly prejudiced by the magellan, but I could only choose fastest way, not most or least use of highways. OK, it's different. Took it on a road trip to DC. It always skipped the freeways. Always. I could understand skipping due to traffic, but it took us in one way and out another, and they weren't even close to each other. Took 45 minutes and 45 turns to leave dc. Leaving it took us the wrong way down a 1 way street. A clearly marked local access only during 3 hours of the day street. One of the times I missed the turn (there is an occasional delay and it can be hard to tell where to turn with lots of smaller blocks) and went behind our hotel. We still had a circle and some other 1 way street issues to get to the right place. Waiting for the light, I steered away from the hotel in my lane and it said I arrived. Frequently it had us following the route for several (up to 10) seconds when we had made an obvious wrong turn. Accuracy was generally around 300 to 500 feet and start up time was up to 5 minutes. This was with the external antenna and no line of site issues. The msn traffic and other info is useless. It is only good for yesterdays info, takes hours to download and is only useful in major metro areas. Pass on this technology for a good while. Pass on garmin software as well. This lost on start up, accuracy and routing. Oh, and it gets mad when you make it recalculate route. It was actually funny. Like I was frustrating it. I could almost hear it mumbling and swearing.