Unit Overview

Out of the box I was immediately impressed with the device.  It was well built and compact, yet had a larger screen than my older Magellan Roadmate 700.  Aside from the size, the first thing I noticed was the screen clarity.  It was very sharp and bright.  Also, the sound coming from the device sounded rich and clear. 

I tried to access the MSN Direct features, and found that the device must be connected to the car mount/DC cable for this to work.   That's fine if you only use it in the car.  Since it has a battery, making this something you could carry on foot, it would be nice to have the movie times available while walking around the city for example.  This is one of the most frustrating points about the nuvi 680. It's designed for both in car and pedestrian use, yet they couldn't find a way to make the MSN Direct content updatable outside of the car. Not even the wall charger will get you content updates.

Roadmate 700 left, nuvi 680 right

The right side of the unit contains the SD slot and mini USB port.  The back has an antennae flap the opens up to reveal the contacts and port for the car mount to snap into.

Right side

Speaker and antenna

Navigation

The navigation abilities of the nuvi 680 were very well implemented.  It never failed to take me exactly where I wanted to go.  Whether I input an address, or selected a POI (point of interest), it would quickly generate the route and lead me there. Any variations from my established route and the 680 would recalculate the route on the fly.

An important consideration with any in car navigation system is how distracting the unit is while driving. I was pleasantly surprised that with a quick glance I could easily make out where I was and where I needed to go.  When there were turns coming, the voice prompts were very clear and easy to understand.  The audio can also be routed through your car stereo with the FM transmitter. It's not something I found a great need for, but I did test the system and found it to work well.

My kids liked the ability to select a different icon to represent your vehicle on screen instead of a typical arrow.  My son liked the green monster truck.  More icons are available to download to the device from Garmin's website via the updater software. 

Main screeen

Main screen page 2

Starting point for navigation

Active route mapping

MSN Direct Content

The content provided by MSN Direct (1 yr included service) includes weather, traffic, movies, and gas prices.  All of the content is location specific, so aside from registering online, no other user intervention is required. The service delivers content based on your location, updating it as you move about.

MSN Direct content channels

The trick to keeping all of the MSN Direct content up to date is leaving the unit plugged in to the car mount and DC power.  As long as it is plugged in to the mount, it will receive content even when turned off.  Most content delivered very quickly and accurately, though I did initially had problems with gas prices channel not showing the name of the Gas station even though the price of gas was shown.  After about 2 days, this problem resolved itself, I suspect it takes a while for the station data to download, as this issue has been replicated in other cities.

Thankfully the traffic content updated quickly.  The unit shows a yellow yield symbol with the estimated time delay on screen if there are traffic issues on your route.  By tapping on the symbol, reveals details on the traffic issues, and gives an option to route around it.   Once you get used to the symbols for traffic slowdowns, construction, and accidents, it is easy to read, but the traffic screen tended to be a bit busy.  At a quick glance, it is a bit difficult to see what is going on with traffic until you hit details. Typically there would be construction, accidents, or slow traffic on my route.

Gas prices is something else I found very helpful on a regular basis.  The one thing missing, that would add a lot of value, was the ability to sort by price.  I would have to scroll through several screens to find the cheapest one.  It was nice to see the green coloring to get a quick visual of the cheapest gas which would reduce the amount of scrolling if it was in the first screen or two.  All in all, the gas prices were always up to date as long as I left the unit plugged in to receive content.  If I brought it in the house, the following morning many of the gas stations would come up "unknown" for a good hour or two before the content would be updated.  Of course, selecting a station will bring up an option to route directly there if you need such assistance.

The movie times content showed several of the closest movie theaters, their distance, what was playing, and the movie times.  I could then tap on "Go" from the movie detail screen and I would be routed to the movie theater.  This data was always accurate though it did lag behind some of the other channels some.

Weather seemed to remain fairly current, even though there was no time stamp.  You also had the ability to enter another city to see what the weather is for another location.

 
 
Extra Features

I'm not sure a GPS device is the best used as an mp3 player or audiobook player, but the nuvi 680 does have these built in, along with several additional features.  I loaded a few mp3 files and they sounded pretty decent, but nothing to get very excited about.  There were no features typically found in other mp3 players such as playlists or an equalizer.  Basically you just select a song in the browser, and click next if you want to skip a song.  The included audiobooks sounded pretty good.  The audiobooks or mp3 files can play in the background while the navigation software is running.  As with the navigation voice prompts, the audiobooks and mp3 files could be played through your car stereo via the built in FM transmitter.  Below you can see some of the other extras included with the unit.  I at least give Garmin credit for adding some additional tools.  Their utility will largely depend on the needs of the user however.

Pros:

• Well designed
• Integrated MSN Direct content
• Very clear and easy to read display
• Good sound
• Accurate routing

Cons:

• Must be plugged into the mount and CLA to receive MSN Direct content
• Weak mp3 player
• Some MSN Direct content took a long time to update
• Expensive

Bottom Line:

The nuvi 680 is an excellent GPS Navigation device, if not the best on the market, and it is feature packed.  The features do not come cheap however and the nuvi 680 competes in a market where many competitive devices are significantly cheaper. Credit Garmin with integrating new features, like the MSN Direct service, to give themselves a competitive advantage though. The content is great and generally shows up in a timely fashion, though the required in-car connection to receive content needs to go in future units. The device is designed for both in-car and foot use, the feature set needs to support the latter mode more thoroughly.