Garmin nuvi 680 Car GPS Receiver

I've researched these units for weeks, bluetooth or not, FM transmitter or not, etc. etc. for the cost difference between all the nuvi models this is by far the best deal! I was torn between the 680(purchased), the 660, and the 750-780. Ebay wise the 680 when it includes the MSN transmitter is a steal, MSN alone is 90-120$, the 660 sells for around the same price as 680's but has a standard car plug, no MSN transmitter(its in the plug!!!) For me, the tricks with the FM transmitter, the bluetooth connections to your phone and the mp3 broadcast to FM all working seamlessly and are worth 3 times the sale price of any of the 680's available. You are getting a truely hands free bluetooth car kit, and a high quality mp3 player with an FM broadcast option that work in tandem with the navigation system. Listening to music, it pauses, gives you the next direction, then resumes the audio play, or if the phone rings, theres no messing with the radio or worrying about who's calling, it displays caller id on the GPS! ONE DEVICE-----REPLACES 3 loose items in the car.
The reason I chose 680 ofer the 750-780 models was price. For the number of times you would actually program a ROUTE or download a pay for service route from Garmin it's not worth the extra $100 average price difference.
I've loved Garmin for years but have been dissapointed in their product advances in recient years until now. GO GARMIN...BUY A NUVI. You won't be dissapointed.

This GPS is awesome. This is my 2nd Garmin and 4th GPS overall and this is by far the best one. The display is bright and crisp with vivid colors. The bluetooth is very easy to use and setup. The unit comes out of the box ready to use. The features are awesome. MP3 player is neat. The FM transmitter won't work well with the cars radio system if the antenna is in the back of the car instead of the front. There is a warning regarding this in the manual. But overall it is a great unit. Very happy with it.

The one i have is very hlpful!When I was driving up to Boston during one terrible rush hour with the Nuvi 680, it didn't actually warn me about trouble ahead. I was curious why. The highways were all snarled with "RED" colored traffic, and I combed the route to find that it routed me around the trouble spots right from the start. It still took me a bit to get around on the surface roads, but not nearly as long as sitting in the mess on the interstate. Pretty slick.

Despite that it is "last year's" technology AND it is a factory refurbished unit, I couldn't be more pleased. Mapping is quick and very accurate, satellite acquisition is fast, MSN traffic and weather info quite helpful on long trips, and Bluetooth works great in rental cars. Points of Interest (POIs) very helpful when on road trip in unfamiliar areas. I highly recommend the Garmin Nuvi 680 (or, one of its successors).

very helpful does all i need it too. very easy to use would buy another one if needed. The price is fair for what you get.

Perfect to travel, very friendly to use. You can track any store, Restaurant or whatever you want to go.

I love my Garmin 680!!! It is very user friendly and we got it at a very reasonable price from an Ebay auction!! My husband bought it for me for Christmas so that we would never be lost again. Also, we would never argue about what is the right direction. We used the Garmin to travel to Tunica MS after Christmas. I programed it for the fastest route. My husband said well we will go to Nashville first [the Garmin recalculated for the rest of the trip]. We arrived 2 hours later than we would have if we had stayed with the Garmin directions!!!
On our return trip I programed the Garmin to go home! We were supposed to arrive home at 6:15 pm but as you might have guessed by now, my husband took a detour because he knew of a shortcut!!! By the time the Garmin did it's recalculation, with the SUPPOSED shortcut we would now arrive home at 6:31 pm!!
Now I will not allow my husband use my Garmin 680 unless he promises to stick with the directions of the Garmin 680!!!
signed a very happy 680 Garmin nuvi owner!!!

I was a bit curious how going the rural two lane route would compare to an interstate route that I had come in on.

I tried the rural route to Midway Airport and it took almost 25 minutes off of the trip. I will now question the rural routing system offered from My GPS unit

I wanted a GPS for my car that I could bring w/ me anywhereld me that Garmin was a great brand. So I thought about what I needed in my GPS, then I decided what model to buy.

I've been buying (and a little selling)on ebay for over 10 years now. Almost all of my buying and selling experence has been postive.
My purchase of the nuvi 680 GPS by Garmin was no exception.
The seller offered a quality product at a great price and followed through with quick shipping.
The communication was perfect. I knew when the product was mailed and when I should expect to recieve my purchase.
I liked the seller so much I purchased another 680 from them for my dad.
I've had the GPS system now for about 3 months and have had no problems with it. When I registered the item I was told that I qualified for a map update so I took advantage of that. I have sense updated other software improvements from Garmin to keep my nuvi 680 as up to date as possible.
The MSN Direct is a nice feature IF you live in an area that offers the service. Atlanta is our nearist area that the service is offered. We were over there last week and the system worked great! I hope they expand their coverage area this would make the system perfect. I have a one year subscription at this time and if they expand I might continue if not...I'll let it expire.
I did purchase a second party case for my Garman through ebay. It keeps everything together and out of sight. These GPS units are major theft items. You don't even want to leave the mount on the windshild or dash. People will brake in just to look for the GPS system. This happened to my daughter over in Atlanta several weeks ago...so "out-of-sight" means "out-of-mind". The case I got was perfect for this and it protects the GPS unit perfect. I think the case came from Japan or China and only cost $20 including shipping. I highly recommend the case as well as the product as well as the seller.
In these touch economic times I always look on ebay before I buy.

This is a great Gps with lots of easy feature to use. It is user freindly. It has a nice large screen for viewing map. It has a average cost for all the feature it has on it. I would buy it agian if I was to buy another one right now.

Great clear bluetooth, very accurate GPS. Easy to use. Headphone jack as line out into stero make phone calls and mp3 crystal clear.

I waited until taking a trip before writing this review. You will not be disappointed. Easy view screen in day or night, super fast in calculating your route. It only took seconds to recalculate a new route when a turn was missed. Easy to hear voice guided directions, bluetooth hooked up instantly with my cell phone. Know one knew the difference between talking on cell or gps. Never once had to stop and look at a map. Just punch in your destination and it will get you there with no problems. Msn feature also worked great when in an area it was available. Warned me of a 45 minute delay ahead and ask if I wanted to be rerouted around it. Said yes, and in seconds had a new route figured. The time of arrival at your destination it gives you is dead on. FANTASTIC GPS !!!

2nd GARMIN, the mapping and menus are not near as nice as TOMTOM, no querty keyboard, feel that tomtom has more features for the money, the mapping is very
accurate when coming to an instersection, if signal is lost or have to reroute then takes much longer than the tomtom. many times with tomtom when approaching an instersection to turn it says 80 yards when I am in the middle of the intersection, I have never had this problem with the GARMIN, shows me exactly at the intersection with plenty of warning to turn on time. The tom tom is bigger with its oval like back, the flatter and small garmin with same size screen fits better on or in dash openings, garmin mounts are vastly superior to tomtom, which for me for the money the tomtom is cheap and greatly degrades product as a whole.for now I am using garmin hopefully garmin will realize that the format for navigating thru menus etc. tomtom is miles ahead.

Excellent travel assistant, with great features that make its use enjoyable. I like the FM transmitter feature, with the MP3 player. Also you enjoy the 3D wide screan view.

Hands free phone calls, MSN direct...lots to say. The best thing is to try it yourself

Well after my son figured out why this darn thing kept trying to take me off the freeway all the time, it turned out to be quite a great buy. It now works great and I would not be without it for all the unknown locations and I don't have to ask for directions.

By the way we fixed it by correcting the avoidance menu and unchecked freeways.

Oh well after everything else fails "READ THE INSTRUCTIONS".

I've had a Garmin Street Pilot III since '02 and finally decided to upgrade. I love this new unit. It's small, get's traffic updates, reads books and gets the best gas pricing. Too cool! The direction/route blows away my husband's Magellan by 3-5 min every time ha ha and the window mount works way better than his dash mount system. All in all I couldn't be more pleased with my Garmin nuvi 680

There have been lot's of reviews regarding the GPS side of the Garmin Nuvi 680. Here's my review of the Bluetooth features:

With California banning the holding of a cellphone to your ear while driving, you're stuck with either a headset, a hands free Bluetooth unit, or using your phone's built-in speaker. I don't want to try and put on a headset in time to catch a call or try to hear the speakerphone over all the road noise. Plus the Bluetooth hands free sets are currently overpriced in my opinion.

This is where the Nuvi 680 shines.

When a call comes in, the Nuvi 680 shows the number. And even better, it will show the name I've assigned it in my contacts. A simple press of the touch screen and you're talking hands free. I use the FM transmitter to beam the conversation over a radio station so I can hear over the outside noise. It also handles a second call coming in (like the flash option on your home phone) so you can switch between callers easily.

You can also use the on-screen dial pad to place calls. If you're on a call that requires the pressing of an extension number, the dial pad screen works for that too.

But Garmin didn't stop there.

When you use the points of interest (POI) to find a place (restaurants, hotels, stores, etc.) and there's a phone number for that place, you can call it just by hitting the phone icon on the screen. I've used this feature many times to get things like movie times, place food orders, and see when a store is closing. I found this feature very handy when I'm traveling.

Another feature I liked is how my contact list from my cell phone shows up on the screen. This is a nice feature as I don't have to re-type them into the unit. Simply press the 'Phone Book' icon on the screen to access the phone numbers on your cell phone.

The Nuvi 680 also supports voice dial tags. It will use the voice tags that you created on your cell phone. This could be a mixed bag depending your cell phone's voice tag quality. I use Microsoft's Voice Command 1.6 which has the ability to simply say the phone number I want to dial. This is handy when I can't press the individual numbers to dial out. My only complaint is the screen doesn't show what's happening until the call starts. This can be a problem if the cell phone misinterpreted the voice tag and starts dialing the wrong number.

There are other options on the Nuvi 680 like a quick call home button. I also like the Call History button as it shows calls I've missed, dialed, or received. Again this information is gathered from your cell phone so it's always available whether the Nuvi was being used or not.

The Nuvi 680 can also handle text messaging if you're phone supports Bluetooth 2.0 too. I could not test this feature as my phone doesn't support bluetooth 2. I currently have the Cingular 8125. It's a little old but you can't beat the battery life compared to other smart phones!

Overall I've been very pleased the phone options on the Garmin Nuvi 680. I don't have to use a headset! Plus having the phone conversation beamed to the radio for increased loudness is great. While Bluetooth Hands free systems are nice, the high price you pay for one can be applied to the Nuvi 680. You'll get far more features than a simple speaker attached to your sun visor.

I have learn to set the display to AUTO mode, and at night the unit swicth to night mode....GREAT!

I also use this in my truck which do not have a CD player or MP3, it's GREAT!

I just bought my first GPS for my wife and she was very happy. It's very friendly device. Very easy to use. It saves her time to get to her destinations. I will definitely buy another one for myself. We were very impressed!!! Would recommend to anyone needs a GPS.

I've owned a Garmin Nuvi 680 for 1 year and logged around 10,000 miles on it. I purchased it for 2 drives cross-country this past fall. The first being from VA to CO to WA, and the second from VA to NY to ND to WY and ending in WA.

These were 2 very, very long drives and I must say I was exceedingly impressed with the performance of the Garmin.

Here is a quick summary of my experience:

Pros-
1 Easy to use.
2 Accurate GPS w/ quick start up.
3 Easily understood voice commands.
4 Reliable thus far.
5 Very solid build - Survived a couple falls b/c of mounting system.
6 Incredible peace of mind when in the middle of no-where.

Cons-
1 Some mistakes in mapping (can be updated for a fee online).
2 Battery time not 7 hours as advertised (3-4 hours max).
3 Windshield suction mount will fall off on a hot day & possibly damage unit.
4 Screen is a little small if you have big hands.

The bottom line is this is the best brand in GPS right now. If you are looking for a very small (about 1 inch thick) and portable unit then you should buy this thing. I feel it is worth every penny. If however, you don't mind a larger unit or if you have big hands then you should really consider a unit with a larger touch screen.

Hope this helps,
Justin

shipped an empty box and blammed on usps.shipped an empty box and blammed on usps.shipped an empty box and blammed on usps.shipped an empty box and blammed on usps.shipped an empty box and blammed on usps.

The unit has a problem with the antenna. The acquiring a satellite always stems from the flip antenna unit. There is a diode which fails and thus causes this. Pretty much causing the unit to be obsolete. This is a common problem with these models. Garmin has not addressed this issue to date.

Street names are not spoken as written in the details.
Car charger is so cheap it is falling apart.