Comments on: Garmin nüvi 680 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

By: Odell

Odell — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:38:04 +0000

5.0 out of 5 stars
The Referb Garmin is Excellent
The Garmin is in excellent condition. No issues with the referb. Not even sure what was wrong with it in the first place. No scratches or screen issues.

By: Udell

Udell — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:51:14 +0000

4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Product but beware, Garmin may not honor free MSN Direct trial
I bought mine used and the reseller was great. I like the product too but there was supposed to be a 1 year free trial of MSN Direct.

By: Fuller

Fuller — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:42:06 +0000

4.0 out of 5 stars
A great gadget. But a few frustrations.
The NUVI 680 is leaps and bounds beyond our beloved c320 which was stolen. I got this unit specifically for the combo of the mp3 playerand the fm xmitter and for the bluetooth…

By: Chogan

Chogan — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:15:32 +0000

5.0 out of 5 stars
Garmin nuvi 680
This is a good value for what you are getting. The audio sometimes is hard to understand, but you can change the voice to one that is more understandable.

By: Babette

Babette — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:09:58 +0000

5.0 out of 5 stars
Nuvi 680
I purchased two for Christmas gifts for my son and daughter. They love them. I have a Nuvi 660 and would not go anywhere without it.

By: Odele

Odele — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:29:30 +0000

4.0 out of 5 stars
Impressed
I recently purchased the Garmin Nuvi 680 GPS for my fiance as a Christmas gift. We just used it on a trip to Rhode Island and we were both very impressed with it.

By: Frida

Frida — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:06:09 +0000

5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Product
I have been using a Mio C220 for almost two years now and it is a piece of junk compared to the Garmin 680. My unit came with 2008 maps even though 2009 maps are avalible.

By: Valley

Valley — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:41:40 +0000

This is a nice little unit. I used to program GPS applications so I have used a few. The software running this unit is great. The GPS algorithms for finding the shortest or the longest route work excellently. I tested with 4 separate routes. When you deviate from your route the unit is a little slow to pick up on it, 2 or 3 seconds depending on how far you have moved, but then it starts recalculating and gets you back on track.

The maps are easy to read and the views (2d and 3d) are easily switched and zoomed.

The MP3 player works great. It plays music and when it needs to give a voice command it pauses the music and tells you what it needs to tell you. The FM tuner works well too. Although if you come in range of a station the station takes over.

The hands free calling works great. As soon I as I get in the car it finds my phone. If music is playing, it is puts it on pause until you are done on the phone and then turns it right back on.

The user interface is very intuitive and user friendly. I have hardly needed to use the manual or help.

The MSN direct features work good also. They take some time when you first turn it on to download all the information. The traffic feature has worked well. The data has been up to date so far. If it tells you a road is closed, LISTEN TO IT!!!!! We decided not to and sat in 4 hours of traffic because we thought "No way could the turnpike be closed." We could have totally avoided it.

The movie data in my area have all been up to date and have included some theaters I didn't know existed. The gas feature usually has data (prices) that is a day or 2 old, but it did list all the gas stations in my area.

At first when I used the suction cup mount I thought it was defective because it kept falling off. After reading the directions, I discovered that I need to clean all the dust of the window before trying to use it. Since I have discovered that little trick it has worked great. We have used it in our 2 cars and truck.

We do yard sales on Saturday and my girlfriend had to make maps with MapPoint every week. Now we just put the addresses in as we go.

Having a GPS like this definitely changes the way you travel. Running errands is great. I type in the name of the store I want to go to and go to the closest one. Then type in the next one. I have discovered a lot of store locations I didn't know about.

Over all the purchase was definitely worth it.

By: Nuha

Nuha — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:13:38 +0000

2.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre Routing, Map Updates A Nightmare
Garmin nüvi 680 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator
I can’t really mention any positives of this GPS over others.

By: Fuchsia

Fuchsia — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:51:12 +0000

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.