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Travel throughout North America without loading any more maps with the Garmin nüvi 680 Personal Travel Assistant with MSN Direct. Plus, you can receive door-to-door directions while staying on top of local weather, traffic, and more with nüvi 680. The device features a colorful widescreen, hands-free calling, and an FM transmitter, then takes it up a notch by adding dynamic content from MSN Direct, as well as a convenient digital travel kit that includes an MP3 player with sample MP3s, audio books, a picture viewer, a world clock, currency and measurement converters, a calculator, and more.

This pocket sized personal travel assistant has a super bright, sunlight-readable color screen. See side view.

Easy control via the simple touch screen.

Weather reporting available with bright, colorful graphics.

Despite being loaded with features, the nüvi 680 still allows you to navigate with ease. This unit comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded NavTeq City Navigator NT street maps for North America, and includes a hefty points of interest (P0ls) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel stops, ATMs and more. Simply touch the super-bright, sunlight-readable color screen to enter a destination, and the 680 takes you there with either 2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. This navigator voice even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road, and can concentrate on your driving to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. ln addition, the 680 accepts custom points of interest (P0ls), such as school zones and safety cameras, and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming P0ls that require your special consideration such as speed zones and safety cameras.

Speaking of keeping you safe, the nüvi 680 lets you make hands-free calls so you can talk freely during your worry-free driving. By integrating Bluetooth wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker, you can pair your nüvi with any compatible Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free while staying focused on the road. You no longer have to fumble with your phone's handset to answer a call or dial a number, just tap the 680's screen and you're instantly connected. And with 1-touch dialing for your P0ls, you can quickly and conveniently call ahead to make reservations or get needed information.

Simply insert a memory card to enjoy pictures, songs, and audiobooks.

You can also use the mini-USB port for tranferring files directly to the memory card.

The new nüvi 680 lets you get localized information with dynamic content from MSN Direct, making it one of the most resourceful navigators available. Using the included receiver and free trial service to MSN Direct, you can check your local weather, avoid traffic backups, compare local gas prices, and even check movie times and locations, all while you travel. Easy and virtually fool-proof to use, the MSN Direct receiver is plug-and-play portable so you can quickly connect to your navigator unit when you are out and about. All of which can be customized with configurable vehicle icons that let you choose individual car-shaped icons in a variety of colors that show your position on the map.

ln additional to all this functionality, the nüvi 680 includes many must-have entertainment and travel tools such as an MP3 player, an audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), and a JPEG picture viewer so you can take your favorite music and pictures with you wherever you go. This unit also features a world travel clock with time zones, a currency converter, a measurement converter, and a calculator so that wherever you travel it will be easy to know what you are getting and keep track of your costs. The MP3 player lets you browse music by artist, album, and/or song, while the optional audio books may be purchased from Audible.com which features over 70,000 hours of audio programs. What's more, the nüvi 680 allows further customization via optional software such as a travel guide, savings programs and language translation on plug-and-play SD cards for all your travel needs.

The Garmin nüvi 680 comes with a built-in, high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver, and lets you view and operate it via its bright, LCD TFT touch-screen, wide-screen display that measures 4.3 inches (diagonal) and has a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels with 64,000 colors and a white backlight. As a whole, the nüvi 680 measures 4.9 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches (W x H x D), and weighs only 6.2 ounces for easy portability. This unit provides you with from three to seven hours of battery life (depending on use) via its rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and comes with Garmin Lock, which is an anti-theft feature to protect your investment. While you can add software via the SD card slot, the Garmin nüvi 680 also lets you interface via high-speed USB for loading data, though users should note that, like most USB mass storage devices, this unit is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.

The nüvi 680 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including a hefty points of interest (P0ls) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel stops, ATMs, and more.

What's in the Box
Garmin nüvi 680 with MSN Direct, City Navigator NT maps for North America (preloaded, full coverage), MSN Direct receiver with integrated vehicle power cable, 1 year of free MSN Direct service, vehicle suction cup mount, an AC charger, vehicle power cable, dashboard disk, a USB cable, leather carrying case, quick reference guide, and owner's manual.


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Piece Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Buyer's feedback: - * Easiest to use ~ very inuitive ...
I purchased this model NUVI to replace a 2008 Toyota NAVS system. It has found addresses when the Toyota's could not. The instructions are clear, it recalculates fairly quickly. I cannot compare it against more expensive Garmins because they have features I did not need.

PRO's. It takes an SD card which can be loaded with MP3's and Pictures. Interestingly it provides good background music in a hotel room when we travel so long as we use a power cord. Because the battery lasts so long we use it as a hand held rather then a mounted unit. (Our choice)

CON's. The voices that guide the traveled route are not as clear as they should be, however they do give you several choices of voice to use.

All in all I am glad we bought this unit. Rather than fight over who gets to take it for the day my wife bought her own NUVI 680 :)

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Buyer's feedback: - Not My Favorite GPS
I have owned by Nuvi 680 for about six months, and it gets me where I want to go. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes me the worst possible route. I have the most recent map updates (which cost way too much). Recently, on a trip from Las Vegas to San Diego, it wanted me to leave the freeway to spend five miles on a frontage road and then return to the freeway. There was no obstruction or traffic that would justify this. In San Diego, it frequently sent me the long way around. In one case, it wanted me to turn left when I could clearly see my destination on the right. On more than one occasion, I was directed to leave the freeway, when there was an exit closer to my destination (even though I had programmed it for fastest route.)

I am also disappointed in the points of interest. We recently asked for a list of nearby restaurants. We found one about a mile away and found out that there was a well-know restaurant within walking distance. We have had other experiences where major restaurants are not listed.

I previously owned Magellan GPS units, and they gave more helpful directions and showed more useful information on the main screen. My next GPS unit will probably be a Magellan.

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Buyer's feedback: - * Love the books from Audible.com for long trips ...
I've owned 5 other GPS receivers and this is by far the best one yet. It's operation is very intuitive. Although I don't live in an area covered by the MSN service I activated the free trial period for a long trip to Florida. It saved us a hour delay through Atlanta taking us through city streets and dumping us back on the interstate on the other side of the traffic jam. While in Orlando it warned us of an impending strong thunderstorm and told us what was playing at all the area movie theaters starting with the closest. Just wish it was available where I live.
I love to eat, so the POIs, specifically resturants are a very important feature on the GPS. Very often the POIs are way out of date, but so far only one POI no longer existed when we searched it out.
My favorite feature is the ability to store audio books. Nothing seems to shorten a long trip more then listening to a good book. I use to listen to them on CD which required changing CDs all the time and often missing instruction from the GPS or part of the book because they were playing at the same time. With the book on the GPS the story pauses and even steps back a second or 2 when the GPS gives instruction, so nothing is missed.
On the negative side, people on the receiving end of a phone call through the Blue-tooth connection couldn't understand my mumblings because of the road noises.
I think this GPS will last me awhile.

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Buyer's feedback: - Garmin NUVI 680
I bought this unit for a trip to the Washington DC area and a trip to the mountains in W. North Carolina and on to Savannah. Overall I am pleased with the performance. One address that we entered for Arlington, VA it could not locate. At other times it didn't know where the address was located on a street when the address was new. In the first case, we knew an address that was close and we knew how to find the address from that point. In the second case, it was a simple task of looking for the name of the business as we drove down the street. The Garmin worked very well in taking us through a maze of twisting streets to our location. On the freeway it would warn which side of the road to exit or which lanes to be in for a split. The MSN service worked well for traffic congestion in metro areas and we didn't use the service for gasoline prices. The blue tooth would not work with our LG phones. Garmin nüvi 680 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator

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Buyer's feedback: - * Garmin Garbage ...
I bought the Nuvi 680 expecting a significant step up from my few years old Mio C310X. Let's jump to the one positive thing about the Nuvi, it uses Navteq maps. Now on to the reasons I find it unacceptable. The suction mount will not stay fastened to the windshield. I tried everything, cleaning first, dry install, wet install, and so on. It stays perhaps an hour, then it falls off. The 680 has a flip up antenna; great except that when the antenna is down it turns the gps off. Dumb. So you can't really put the unit in your pocket and use it when walking around town. My Mio gets great reception without needing such a silly protruding antenna. The unit is slow to start up when powered on, and then you have to tap an annoying "I agree" button before it will go to work. There is virtually no useful customization available in the software. Either Garmin decided this would be a GPS for dummies or they created this dumbed down design to cut down on customer service calls. My 5 year old Garmin GPSmap 60cx has far more customization capability than this thing. Why would one need that? Well, for example, with Garmin's design, your speed is not displayed on the map when you are in navigate mode. You see time to destination instead. Curiously, speed is displayed when you are in map mode, not navigating to anything. This is stupid. I always want to see my speed. I can easily configure the 60cs or Mio to do this, but not this "sophisticated" Nuvi. Another thing, the instructions say you can search for a city by postal code, but it does not work. Any attempt to enter a zip code just brings up Search All. The MSN direct antenna is built into the power cord, which is very bulky.

So how does the routing work? Not very well. Going from Newport News, VA to a business near the VA Beach Expressway took us through the I-64 tunnel. I thought that strange because the tunnel and I-64 past it was showing a lot of red on the MSN Direct traffic, and the other way around via I-664 is only about 10-15 min longer. The Nuvi is suppose to take traffic into account when it calculates the route. I decided to trust it, and found myself in stopped traffic 2 miles before the tunnel that would have taken at least an hour to get through. I managed to bail out at the downtown Hampton exit. Okay I thought, I'll let the Nuvi get us back to I-664 and we'll go that way. I used the touch screen to locate a point on I-664 South of Hampton, , verified the little tag that came up did say "I-664 S", and pushed Go. The route was calculated, and it was clearly wrong. It was taking us in the wrong direction to a ramp for I-664 North, directly opposite of what I asked for. It was no help at all. The MSN traffic is disappointing because the traffic highlighting is not displayed on the Garmin map. You have to switch to a separate MSN map. How dumb is that? As we went along I-664 we ran into a couple of moderate backups. Neither was called out by MSN. The places it did show are the predictable rush hour backups one experiences every day in the Norfolk area. I did not see a whole lot of value add. I used the unit to check for gas stations. It found a bunch, listed prices and distance, but the name of many stations were listed as "unknown". What good is that? Map zooming is frustrating. The switch from 2D to 3D view is clumsy, and the zoom level is never correct.

I summary, I found this Nuvi to be a clueless design that has not been thoroughly tested and does not deliver on its promises. I am looking forward to returning it for a refund.