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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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin nüvi 680 4.3-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
Customer Review: Don't leave home without it
Summary: 5 Stars
2,500 miles into a summer driving trip, our new 680 has transformed our route planning, swept away the challenges of navigating unfamiliar territory and unexpected detours, and has made exploring side roads enjoyable. The user interface is very well executed, with lots of convenience at your fingertips. It relegetes the book of maps to secondary importance.
Tapping in a bunch of favorites for a trip, directly into the GPS can be a bit tedious. So I entered all our key stops (Points of Interest) for the entire trip into "My Places" on poi-factory, and downloaded them as one file, first onto the PC, then onto the GPS. The Bluetooth interface with your cell phone is slick, making the GPS a hands-free speakerphone, with your entire cell phone directory displayed on the GPS screen, and voice dialing intact.
While driving along, if someone needs to make a pit stop, just search for fast food restaurants or a gas station, and it'll list them in order of distance from you, and indicate whether you're approaching or have passed them. Choose one, touch the "Go" button, and it'll guide you directly to it, then put you back on the road to your destination.
The MSN Direct service functions only in major metro areas and is imperfect, but can be a time saver. One time, because of a construction zone traffic tie-up, it routed us off an Interstate for about 4 miles, then back on. It's not perfect, but it's amazing. Every once in awhile, it gets confused, but then, so do I. If you don't need the MSN Direct service, get the 660 for less money, but otherwise the same features.
Customer Review: Love this GPS
Summary: 5 Stars
This review is actually for 660 nuvi.I waited for a while to do a review because I wanted to test it on a bunch of long trips as well as local trips. I have had it for almost 3 years and have to say it does everything it is suppose to do. We have used it to travel from LA to Texas and back then this past year we used it to travel from LA to South Dakota then on the Montana then back home. We used it to find rest stops, gas stations and motels along the way. I had to upgrade the traffic after the first year but it's now lifetime I don't have to pay another penny. I also upgraded the maps last year and now all my future upgrades are paid for life. Sometimes she seems to want to take us on a longer route locally, but when we follow her directions she actually knew what she was talking about. Because we live in California and can't attach her to our windshield we got the bean bag mount and it is perfect. It's very sturdy and doesn't slip and it's easy to move her to the floor when we go in to eat a bite or visit the rest stop. We can't imagine not having our nuvi when I try to locate new place. The bluetooth worked beautifully when we had motorola phones, but now we have LG Shine and the calls come thru perfect but it doesn't recognize our phone books so unless we recognize the # we don't know who's calling. Not a big deal. We hate our LG's so we will be changing back to motorola or some other phone once our contract is up. All in all we love just about everything about the 660. A lot less expensive models have come out but this one has never given us a minute of trouble.
Customer Review: Garmin Nuvi 680
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this Garmin Nuvi 680 about a month ago. I've been using it almost everyday going to and from work. It has shown me many alternate routes at different points in my trip to and from work (80 miles roundtrip) that I didn't even know existed. The directions have been perfect, and when they say you can use it straight out of the box they weren't kidding. I ran across some backed up traffic due to an accident and simply turned off to a different street and the Garmin lead me around the accident and recalculated my trip so that I didn't have to spend 20 to 30 minutes waiting to pass the accident site. The MSN direct function for finding the cheapest gas in the area is a plus, as is the weather alerts. I could personally do without the area movie listings an theatres, but I could see how it could be a plus as well. The only problem I have with the MSN Direct is that it takes a while to load and you lose some of the information when you disconnect it. The only problem I've found is that the suction cup mount (to the dash or window) isn't always effective. Nothing worse than driving and having it fall down by your feet. However, there are alternate mounts to buy or you can have it in the seat next to you. I personally plan to attach some industrial strength velcro to the mount and no longer worry about that problem. I would definitely highly recommend this device. Another outstanding plus is the abilitly to download audio books from audible.com. If you have a long commute, this definitely aids in making the trip seem to go buy that much quicker.Customer Review: Garmin Nuvi 680 GPS
Summary: 5 Stars
I have three hand-held GPSs and two cars with factory installed GPS. The Nuvi 680 beats them all.
Once you get hooked on using a GPS, it becomes indispensible.
I like the 3D cartoon-like display on the Nuvi 680. It is much easier to read at a glance. The 2D displays on the other GPS units cannot display the names of all of the cross roads because there is not enough room on the display and they are written along the road at odd angles. The Nuvi 680 gets around the problem by showing the name of every road as you approach it on the banner bar at the top. That way it does not need to show every minor road, only the major ones. This is a great improvement.
The other features on the Nuvi 680 are: Bluetooth hands-free cell phone (my factory-installed GPS units have this also - a great feature), MP3 ( I have over 300 hours of music recorded on the SD card), JPEG ( I have not used this, and I am not sure this is a safe feature anyway), POI ( These are easier to access on the Nuvi than on other units and are very helpful), and MSN Direct( It displays storm warnings automatically- this was helpful in Chicago while I was there), Sound output on the car's speakers (this is good, but you must select an unused frequency and it is is very hard to find one in large cities. I would like to see Garmin extend the frequency range below the FM band like my car is capable of to get highway messages).
If it was not for the fact that GPS is bundled with many other good features in factory-installed cars, I would opt for the Nuvi 680 as the preferred GPS unit.
Customer Review: Nice travel companion
Summary: 4 Stars
The Garmin 680 has proven an excellent navigation tool. I am in the business of field sales and the 680 has found every location I have thrown at it. The bonus, contrary to expectations of poor performance, has been using the 680 as a hands free phone interface via bluetooth. I have the 680 paired with a Blackberry Curve phone and the handsfree, contact lookup and voice dial features on the phone are nicely integrated into the 680 user interface. I have yet to get a complaint about the sound quality from anyone on the other end of the phone when using the 680 handsfree feature. On occassion, I have to reset the 680 to see the phone once I have left the car and returned.
I have a Toyota Prius with a line-in jack to the car stereo. Using the line-in feature for the sound output of the 680 has produced excellent audio quality for both phone and MP3s played from the 680. Surpisingly, the audio quality of the 680 is every bit as good as my iPod nano. The auto mute for phone is very convenient. Even when blasting music, the 680 will mute the music to provide you navigation voice prompts.
The MSN feature is a nice novelty but not something I have found useful for real life driving and navigation. I did download red light and speeding camera POIs which have proven useful. When approaching a signal with red light cameras, the unit beeps and the screen displays a red alert dialog box.
All in all, I am pleased and recommend the 680 for those that can take advantage of the feature set.