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I have owned several Garmin GPS Units and the Nuvi 1690 is a good unit if you are willing to pay the annual cost for the NuLink service after the expiration of the two year service that is included with the unit. NuLink is comparable to the now defunct MSN Direct service previously offered, except that NuLink includes Google Local Search. In my opinion, the Google Local Search feature is worth well more than the $5 monthly cost ($60 annual cost) for NuLink because of its ability to find businesses not in the Garmin POI database. Local Search can even do a reverse search for a name and address using only a telephone number. However, given the affordable price of the 1690, I have found that it is actually cheaper to buy a new 1690 at the expiration of the NuLink service period than to renew the NuLink service with Garmin. NuLink is required for traffic information to be received by the 1690. Navigation is good on the unit (as I have found it to be on all Garmin units) and includes Junction View (the original Junction View) and Lane Assist, which are both great features, but it does not include newer features offered by Garmin, such as split screen Junction View, Traffic Trends, or My Trends. My preferred Garmin is actually the Nuvi 1695 (which includes NuLink with a 5" display and newer features than are included with the 1690). The Nuvi 1695's larger display is clearer and easier to see than the 4.3" screen on the Nuvi 1690. The cost of the Nuvi 1695 isn't that much higher than the Nuvi 1690, but the 1695 only includes one year of NuLink service (one year less than the Nuvi 1690). On an older Nuvi 1690 that I have, I found that some archived files were stored in the unit's solid state memory caused serious problems with the operation of the unit. When the files were deleted, the unit worked great again. Also, the touch screen for entering locations when using Google Local Search seems to have a delay between the time that characters are entered and subsequently displayed. The delay does cause me to have some difficulty when using Google Local Search while driving. I use the Nuvi 1690 as an extra GPS unit which I use only when traveling and need a GPS for a rental car while my wife uses a Nuvi 1690 in her vehicle. The 1690 is a good unit for the money and the Google Local Search is great when looking for a particular business by name. The bottom line is that I prefer my Nuvi 1695 over the Nuvi 1690 but the 1690 is a great unit at a very affordable price, which offers features that are easy to use. The Nuvi 1690 (available now at under $120 when on sale) is a great value.Read full review
My husband works in the IT field and was waiting to purchase a GPS until he had a chance to research all the options and reviews. After a lot of research and debating over special features, we decided on this one. He thinks the FM traffic services will be fading out eventually, so we wanted a unit with nuLink services and traffic. The traffic data has been useful but we've also found it to be a couple hours outdated sometimes which is not useful. The lane assist feature is very useful but we with it had junction view for more areas. The gas prices feature is great and the information from Google Live is great too. The bluetooth speaker phone seems to have trouble picking up our voices so we haven't used that much. Overall, we are happy with the purchase.
It had the highest rating from Consumer Reports and I felt safe buying it without extensive research. I was pleased with my relatively recent Magellan Maestro, however it needed map upgrading to bring it up to date. That process through Magellan was too expensive to consider, given that a variety of new GPS units could be purchased for just a little more than the cost of an upgrading through Magellan. I have had my Garmin for a couple of months and I like it very much. I like the bells and whistles that were not available on my previous unit. I particularly like the instant traffic alerts and available detours. I have used the POIs and the airline arrival/departure functions. I like the clear display with alerts regarding lane selections. I also like the longer battery life of this Nuvi 1690. Like my previous unit, I enjoy the blutooth voice commands and cell phone pairing. Transmission is a little fuzzy, but understandable on both ends. The Nuvi lacks the capability to select numerous pre programmed destinations, and I miss that ability. I purchased the optional weighted dash mount which allows me to quickly and easily set the unit on the floor out of sight whenever I leave the car - and it leaves no tell tale signs to an outside observer interested in theft. The Nuvi 1690 was a good choice for my needs and was easily mastered out of the box, even by a novice like myself.Read full review
I got this Garmin Nuvi about a month ago for a cross-country trip. For the most part, it functions as expected, giving directions that are useful and sensible. When you happen upon a "bridge closed for construction" and have to turn around, it seamlessly recalculates the route without any "complaints" to "return to mapped route" as some others do. On the way northeast, it randomly rebooted a few times for no apparent reason. On the way southwest, the sun hit it more often, and in addition to randomly rebooting, it would often just shut down completely. It had to be removed from the windshield/dash for several minutes to thoroughly cool before it would come on again. Eventually I made a "hood" of aluminum foil to keep random reboots and shutdowns to only several a day. If the unit is incapable of being mounted in the sun, why do they include a suction cup for windshield mounting? Maps are quite out of date. My street isn't included even though the house has been here at least 20 years. When I enter my street, I get "No matches found." When I'm sitting in my own driveway, the map shows me "off road." There are supposedly some sort of updates to download, but they require Garmin software incompatible with my computers' operating systems. You'd think they'd use something universal like Java rather than requiring specific OS/versions. There are a LOT of dead zones for the cell connectivity. This means that the fuel price, weather, and traffic features are all inaccessible. Heading east, we had ZERO connectivity the entire length of I-40 across Oklahoma. Strangely, on the return trip some 10 days later, connectivity was hit or miss on that same stretch. Rest areas should be easier to find... possibly even with a feature to have them displayed on the map by default. Instead, the Nuvi requires you to navigate several menu levels to find them: Where To -> Points of Interest -> [down] -> [down] -> Auto Services -> [down] -> Rest Area or Tourist Info -> [specific rest area]. I find that to be extremely cumbersome. Overall, I'm happy with 90% of the functions, but the problem is that it just isn't reliable. Between connectivity problems and overheating/rebooting, we only have 100% functionality maybe 50% of the time... AFTER insuring the unit was shaded from the sun. Definitely would NOT buy this model again. 01/23/2012 At some point, called customer service. There was a known problem with the charging rate when mounted in the vehicle... which had a software fix. Had to borrow a Windows machine to upgrade the software. Once upgraded, the reboot / overheat problem disappeared. I'm a lot happier now, (upgraded overall rating from 2 to 4 stars) but still wish there was a more universal upgrade/maintenance path than the way they do it now. Why not a direct upgrade over the cell network? Why not Java/Python that would work on any OS?Read full review
I tested it on local trips where I know the quickest route. To say the lease it came up with some strange routes and always wanted to send me thru the busiest part of town I like to stay away from. When I have used the traffic avoidance on the freeway, it’s alternate routes have been a nightmare. Kinda like out of the frying pan and into the fire. I have used it on trips from NJ to Boston and I usually don’t use it’s suggest routes, except when I don’t know where I am going. The route it chose to avoid traffic on I-93 into Boston put us on local streets with signals every 500’, construction at most signals, loads of pedestrian traffic and parking cars, the alternate route was much longer than the freeway delay. It’s use of terminology can be very confusing, like with keep right vs take the exit ramp, it is not consistent so when it says to keep right at an exit ramp I never know if it wants me to turn right. When on freeways it gives directions to the next junction, so when you get there it says to keep left or right even though you have no options but to continue. So keep right can mean anything, turn right or take fork to the right or continue. I have made a lot of mistakes at ramps and had to recalculate my trip, the problem is the time to recalculate is longer than the time to the next turn when in cities so you never catch up and if you stop to let it catch, the road rage behind you can get you killed. So it gets me there with a lot of confusion and recalculating. I guess that is better than not getting there at all. I think I could have paid alot less for a lesser model and got the say results.Read full review
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