» Garmin Nuvi 680 Car Navigation GPS Review

The Garmin Nuvi 680 is a classic exampe of convergence of capabilities in consumer electronics. As well as being an automotive navigation device, the 680 is an entertainment device, a communication device and a wireless services interface.

Some of the best automotive GPS navigation features are available in the Garmin Nuvi 680 are common across the Nuvi 600 series including:

• large widescreen 4.3 inch TFT display,
• mp3 payer,
• audio book player,
• picture viewer,
• world travel clock, currency & measurement converter, calculator,
• Garmin Lockâ„¢ (anti-theft feature),
• maps preloaded into internal memory – use straight out of the box.

TFT Touchscreen Display

A recent Consumer Electronics Association report GPS- Exploring Ownership and Interest revealed that owner satisfaction with a GPS device are strongly influenced by ease of use and display quality. The Garmin Nuvi 680 delivers display quality with a 4.3 inch, widescreen, 64K color, TFT, touchscreen display with WQVGA resolution (480 x 272 pixels).

2D and 3D perspective views are available for viewing maps. The touchscreen is used exclusively for GPS operation with an on/off switch and rotary volume control knob being the only other controls. Now that Apple’s boss, Steve Jobs, recently announced the iPhone with its finger touch operated touchscreen. Expect to see more rapid adoption of this very flexible technology in other consumer electronics products. Rather than just announcing to turn left or turn right the Garmin Nuvi 680 has text-to-speech capability for pronouncing street names so there is no need to check the display for confirmation.

If you want to plan your route while out of the car, the Nuvi 680 has an internal lithium-ion battery with a respectable 7 hour life. It comes with an AC charger and a 12-volt power adapter for in-car recharging.

Users can search for addresses and points of interest (POI) and can also upload their own POIs. A useful selectable feature is a proximity alert which notifies the driver of upcoming custom POIs. Up to 500 waypoints with name and graphic symbol can be entered. Software features include a trip computer, resettable odometer, timers, average and maximum speed outputs.

SiRF Star III GPS Receiver Chipset

All Garmin Nuvi 600 series receivers have their GPS functionality provided by a SiRF Star III chipset, a winner of PC Magazine’s Award for Technical Excellence. The SiRF Star III family was a breakthrough innovation GPS chip architecture offering impressive performance improvements to the GPS receiver manufacturing industry.

The SiRF Star III chipset is a WAAS enabled (which improves accuracy) GPS receiver. The SiRF Star III has position accuracy down to 2.0m, velocity accuracy of less than 0.01 m/s and hot and warm autonomous times to first fix (TTFF) of less than 1s and less than 35s respectively.

Its recently been announced that the SiRFstarIIITM architecture will provide the GPS-based location awareness for products based on the new Intel Ultra Mobile Platform 2007. The Ultra Mobile Device reference design will offer manufacturers of mobile devices in consumer electronics, wireless, automotive and computer industry a comprehensive, turnkey, location-enabled solution they can employ to drive down the cost and speed the development of next generation location-aware ultra mobile devices.

The SiRF Star III has been adopted by numerous GPS manufacturers including TomTom and Magellan although TomTom look to be moving to sourcing some GPS chips from Global Locate which SiRF has sued for patent infringement. The SiRF Star III offers faster fix times, higher signal locking, higher tracking sensitivity and lower power requirements.

GPS Location Based Services through MSN Direct

A 12 month free service subscription to MSN Direct is included with your Garmin Nuvi 680 purchase. MSN Direct brings location based services information direct to your GPS unit. It’s available in 100 of the largest cities across the United states (check service coverage).

MSN Direct location based services currently available include:

• Local Traffic Reports provide traffic information on accidents, breakdowns and weather related traffic problems.
• Weather Reports include current temperature, today’s high/low temperatures, three-day forecasts, humidity, and wind speeds.
• Local Gas Prices local gas prices are uploaded to your GPS unit for you to navigate to the lowest price.
• Local Movie Times allow you to find out what movies are playing – not just where.

Location based services can be expected to rapidly expand with GPS penetration of mobile consumer electronics devices - particularly mobile phones. Another automotive GPS device with MSN Direct capability is the Garmin StreetPilot c580.

Audible Book Player

With the included Audible book player you can download books to your Nuvi and have them read to you as you drive. You need to have a subscription with Audible to download from their library of some 35,000 titles.

Nuvi 680’s MP3 Player

Garmin have included music player functionality into the Nuvi 680 with a built-in MP3 player. It has some useful menus with users able to see album art and able to browse music by the artist, album, song or genre. Music is loaded on the SD card and can be dragged-and-dropped. For better sound it’s possible to wire your Garmin Nuvi into your car sound system using an audio output jack.

Bluetooth Wireless Technology

Bluetooth wireless technology enabled cellular phones can be combined with the Garmin Nuvi 680 for safer hands-free mobile phone operation allowing your eyes to stay on the road. Incoming phone calls are displayed on the 680 and a tap of the display accepts the call. As with other systems, any other audio is automatically muted during phone calls. Calls can be made using the nuvi’s touchscreen keypad. A handy convenience is being able to access phone numbers associated with the POI making it simple to call ahead.

Operation and GPS Maps

Getting started with the Nuvi 680 is easy as it comes preprogrammed with highly detailed City Navigator® NT street data of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico or Europe. The European version includes a preloaded safety camera database containing the location of safety cameras for parts of Europe. The detailed maps contain information on highways, interstates, business and residential roads with attributes such as turn restrictions, speed categories and other navigation features There is an SD expansion slot for adding other maps. The map database features some six million points of interest including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, attractions, entertainment, shopping, emergency services, post offices, camp grounds, movie theaters and ATMs.

One way to navigate is to select a POI by touching its icon on the display screen. To make life even simpler Garmin has provide their free POI Loader software (which can be downloaded from their website) for you to import customized POI. It provides the ability to upload POIs created by others from your PC to your Garmin unit.

Having selected a destination from the touch screen interface, one is directed by Garmin’s text-to-speech functionality which tells users the name of the street, when to turn, and in what direction. Missing a turn is not a major problem as the Nuvi 680 automatically calculates a new route to the selected destination.

The Garmin Nuvi 680 comes with Garmin Lock which is an anti -theft feature that disables the unit from performing any functions until enter a specific 4-digit PIN or take the unit to a predetermined location.

Integrated Traffic Receiver

Real time traffic information is one of the services which will drive the uptake of automotive GPS navigation devices in the years to come. To access these services the Nuvi 680 incudes an FM TMC traffic receiver. Users see congested areas color coded on the map displayed. Avoiding a traffic delay is as simple as pushing a button to calculate a new route around problem spots.

The traffic receiver is a small, FM-band traffic receiver which is connected to the car radio/antenna system to provide real-time Traffic Message Channel (TMC) data. TMC data provides swift, accurate notification of situations impacting traffic such as accidents, road construction, police and emergency services. Because traffic broadcasts are received via a “silent” FM data channel, you can still listen to music or news programming on your car radio without interference from incoming FM traffic data transmissions. Digital traffic data is available from specific FM broadcast stations in a fast growing number of major metro areas throughout the United States and Europe. Traffic alert service subscription costs vary with different locations.

A three month traffic service subscription is included for the USA and European models. You do not need to activate the subscription that comes with your traffic receiver. It starts receiving traffic information automatically.

Garmin NUVI Features Demo (CeBIT 2006)

Comparison of Garmin Nuvi 680 v

Other models in the Garmin Nuvi 600 series include the 600, 610, 650, 660 and 670.

• The 680 is the top specification model in the Garmin Nuvi 600 series.
• Only MSN Direct is missing from the specification if you should choose the Nuvi 670.
• The Nuvi 600 and 610 have regional maps only and the 670 is the only model with Europen maps version as well as US + Canada version.
• The Nuvi 610 does not have text-to-speech capability for reading street names.
• Both the 600 and 650 miss out on Bluetooth for hands-free calling.
• An FM transmitter is built into the 660 and 670. The 680 gets traffic condition updates through its MSN Direct subscription.

If you like the features of the Garmin Nuvi 680 but, can do without the widescreen display then have a look at GPSTek’s review of the Garmin StreetPilot c580

Garmin Nuvi 680 Package

Included in the Garmin Nuvi 680 box are:

• Garmin Nuvi 680
• Preloaded City Navigator NT North America and Europe (full coverage)
• FM TMC traffic receiver with vehicle power cable
• Real-time traffic services with free 3- month trial subscription (U.S.) or free lifetime subscription (UK) or free 3- month trial subscription (France)
• AC charger
• SD memory card slot
• Dual internal speaker system
• Suction cup mount
• Dashboard disk
• USB cable
• Leather carrying case
• Owner Manual on disk
• Quick-reference guide

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Specification Garmin Nuvi 680