Garmin nüvi 1690 4.3-Inch Portable Bluetooth Navigator with nüLink! Services

Reviews

1. Great GPS Unit

   by M. Hoak

   I have been using the 1690 for about two weeks now and I am really impressed. The routing is solid and the nulink services are very useful. I find that I never use the built-in POI database, because the Google Local search is so much better. I also like the send to GPS feature that allows you to send an address from Google Maps down to your GPS wirelesly.

   I have also found that the traffic information is far more accurate and real-time than my Garmin 755T. As an experiment, I had both running for two days while commuting from Northern Virginia into Washington, DC. The 1690 traffic was leaps and bounds better than what I was getting on my 755T.

   I also purchased the new Ecoroute HD device which wirelessly feeds engine data from your car’s OBD port into the GPS. It gives you an amazing amount of data on fuel consumption. It can also read diagnostic codes and reset warning lights.

2. Garmin travels

   by Michaelaroosa

   Wonderful little machine. Uploads quickly. Even with the new updated maps some streets like Rt 1 north in central New Jersey says Exit on Oak ave and that has been moved. It no longer exists. This change happens over one half years ago. Easton ave New Brunswick has changed. Some one way streets have not been updated.

3. multiple reboots

   by pa

   So far, don’t like the sporadic nature of the google service. I get a can’t contact the google server quite a bit, even when the edge network is active. Secondly, and a potential deal breaker is multiple reboots during a recent trip.
   
   The only way I could get this to stay on, was to reduce the amount of data fields on the screen.
   
   I am hoping the upgrade to the latest system will solve this.

4. Does anyone else have trouble with the touch screen?

   by RW

   I like this GPS, but the touch screen works badly. Either it doesn’t sense the touch, or it’s over-sensitive. I had a previous Garmin for four years, & had no trouble with that.

   Does anyone else have this problem, or do I just have a defective unit?

   If not for this, I could give it 4 or 5 stars.

5. Died in 1 week

   by P. Becker

   This is my second Garmin I bought. My first one died 11 months after I purchased it. I decided to try it again as I liked how it functioned when it worked. I had this one for just over a week when I took it on vacation. I was traveling alone with my 5 kids and the unit just went dead. Panick! This unit did exactly what my old one did. Just died. I called customer service and (after a very long wait) they told me to mail it back. I’m on vacation in a strange big city and I should just mail it back? Needless to say, it ruined a lot of my trip. I was stressed out trying to find everything. Garmin devices are not dependable. Google Garmin wont power. There are tons of listings. I would never buy a Garmin again. Terrible unit and awful customer service.

6. Nuvi 1690 compared to Dash Express

   by V. Fridman

   I’ve been using Dash Express for last couple of years, but alas their live connect/live traffic service is being discontinued at the end of this month. So I just got Nuvi 1690.

   Where Nuvi is better than Dash Express:
   
   - Much smaller unit, Dash Express looks gigantic in comparison
   
   - Live traffic on major highways seems better on Nuvi
   
   - Everything is faster on Nuvi
   
   - Live traffic is free for 2 years and cheaper after that

   Where Dash Express is better than Nuvi
   
   - Map looks better on Dash
   
   - Navigation on side streets is better
   
   - Choice between several routes
   
   - Shows live traffic on map when navigating or just driving

   All in all I wish that Dash was still in business, but Nuvi seems like it is close and better in some respects.

7. Grate Gps

   by Larry Reynolds

   I don’t know why some people give the nuvi 1690 such bad reviews.This is one awesome Gps.I guess the just doin’t how to use a Gps.

8. BEST GARMIN I HAVE EVER USED!

   by S. Palatucci

   THIS UNIT IS VERY EASY TO USE FROM IT’S TOUCH SCREEN TO THE LARGER THAN USUAL STREET READ OUTS.
   
   IT IS JUST THE BEST UNIT OUT THERE. ONLY NEUTRAL FINDING IS THE ACCURACY OF THE TARFFIC INFO.
   
   IT WORKS LIKE THE OTHER GARMIN UNITS WITH TRAFFIC INDICATION… SO SO.

9. Pretty good stuff

   by Ralph J. Onesti

   I got my Garmin 1690 and it worked as advertised.

   It has a great screen; you can see it easily in high light areas.

   The volume is more than sufficient even with the radio on.

   Sattelite acquisition is quick.

   However, the blue tooth part worked great at first, then I upgraded the softward through the Garmin site, now the phone no longer works properly.

   When the traffic is working it’s great. Problem is, the traffic, weather, and google stuff is accessable about 15% of the time. The rest of the time it’s no where to be found. And I am in the Philadelphia, PA market. One would think it would work more than half the time.

   I asked Garmin several times about the nuvi connection and they have yet to address my question on that one.

   On the other hand, Garmin tech service is great and fast…except for that little traffic thing.

10. nuvi 1690

    by Michael J. Mares

    Totally Happy with the nuvi 1690. Everything works. People write reviews that some fuctions do not work. Everything on mine works. But there is one downfall.
    
    I live in northeast Connecticut. When I program in a address in a wooded area(street), the gps is about two or three addresses off. That is my only gripe. On busyer streets it is ok.

11. Compared nuvi 1690 with TomTom 740 live

    by GeneAlbert

    I bought both the nuvi 1690 and a TomTom Go 740 Live GPS systems. The 1690 was from Best Buy. It worked but had a problem with RF interference when accessing the nuLink data features (screen flicker). Otherwise it worked great and as expected. I returned it to Best Buy. The replacement unit would not access satellites. So I returned it to the same Best Buy. The third unit had a problem with the QWERTY keyboard (would not accept the letter “L”). It would space over instead of displaying the letter “L”, as if I had hit the spacebar. I could not tell if it ever accessed the satellites because I immediately returned it to Best Buy to get my money back.

    I bought a TomTom Go 740 live from Amazon. It works as advertised. It is a bit expensive to operate, if you plan to keep the “Live” feature after the initial three month free period expires. When compared to the Garmin 1690, it is not as elegant in the use of the background features (POI searches, nuLink Google searches [categorized for ease of use], the White pages searches [great search feature -- lets you plot a destination based on a phone number or name, etc.], shows more “Junction Views” than does the TomTom, at least in my experience.

    The 740 lets you do more “fine tuning” adjustments, e.g. set sound effect warnings when you exceed the posted speed limits, show the compass directions on screen while in route, and many other settings. The TomTom will appeal to “geek” type users, while the Garmin will appeal to people like my wife — e.g. love to push a single button and expects the system to do all the work, e.g. like putting a key in the car, starting it, and driving away. In other words, she does not care much for gadgets. For people familiar with the XP OS system on a computer and also the Ubuntu OS Linux based system, the Garmin is more like the XP OS and the TomTom is more like Ubuntu — lots of adjustibility, etc. Enough said.

    By the way, I am returning the TomTom 740 Live to get either the newer TomTom Go 740 TM Live or trying the new Garmin nuvi 3790T coming out July 10, 2010. Now that will be a comparison! Check this new Garmin out at either Garmin or here on Amazon. Good luck in you searches.

12. Major disappointment

    by D. Clarke

    I have used a Magellan Maestro for some time and decided to upgrade to a Garmin. All I heard was how much better Garmins were.

    I could not have been more disappointed. I am told it uses the NAVTEQ maps, however, despite paying for an upgrade and lifetime maps, this thing couldn’t map me out of my driveway.

    Locations were difficult to type in, the Google Local took a very long time to load and just was very frustrating — I could easily type in a business name on the Magellan and it would instantly pop up — it seemed everytime I wanted to do something on the nuvi it would give me an hourglass and meanwhile I missed my turn.

    I live in New Hampshire, and I tried two specific locations:
    
    * The Phanzone, an indoor soccer facility in Hampstead NH.
    
    * Southern NH University

    For the Phanzone, the Nuvi took me an entirely different way. I was very excited becuase maybe it had a shortcut. Instead of an indoor soccer facility, it took me to a chicken farm. Not even close. It was awful. I entered the location by business name, not by address. When I entered the name, there were not multiple options, just one PhanZone.

    Then I entered Southern NH University in Manchester NH. The street address was correct, but it took me in by far the worst roundabout way. Google Maps via iPhone and my in car SYNC service showed the correct directions, while this Nuvi was telling me to go in the most weird direction I had ever seen.

    For $400 I expected more. I have sent it back. Garmin will not refund me my lifetime maps subscription becuase it is not refundable. So, I would just say don’t buy the map upgrade until you are sure you like it.

    Based on this experience, I would not buy a Garmin again. I will just stick with my SYNC GPS service. It uses my cell phone to download routes and if you deviate you have to call to re-update, but that is still better than this. Yes, I am frustrated.

    The kids did like the Dr. Nightmare voice for the GPS, so there’s one thing. And the currency converter is nice.

13. Not perfect, but better than my old garmin

    by Mark Gibson

    My last garmin was a pda model that would constantly lose the voice files. I have to make sales calls several times a week so it was time for an upgrade. After researching all the models on amazon and other sites, I choose the 1690.
    
    The unit arrived after a week. I decided to try it out right out of the box. The message “Not registered” kept popping up. A trip back to the house to register and download maps was easy, but lengthy. I have a 3 meg DSL internet connection. The download and install took 2.5 hours so don’t be in a hurry on the installation, it takes awhile.
    
    On the first trip out the voice was loud enough in my roadster to hear easily without being set on maximum. I love this! The turns are stated early enough with street names. There is also an indicator on stating the next turn direction and distance on the upper left portion of the screen. Arrival times are accurate and the large screen is easy to see. I purchased the friction mount for my GPS so I don’t have to worry about the unit falling off the windshield like my old unit did.

    Minor annoyances. There are times when the voice will say turn right and the screen shows a left hand turn. I will turn right and “recalculating” will tell me to do a u-turn. I can’t figure this one out. So use common sense and watch the screen as well as listening to the voice prompts. Also, the touch screen is annoying because you have to push so hard on certain parts of the screen to input information. When my garmin comes on, it syncs with my phone. If the passcode is not entered by the time the bluetooth engages, it will not accept any screen inputs. I have to power off and back on to start over with my passcode.

    I do like the google searches for gas, local events like movie times and white pages look up. The ads everyone is talking about are not annoying, and do not stay on long. In Little Rock, my only ads have been for best buy and are only visible while I’m stopped. For 2 years of free wireless connection, no problem with them.

    The traffic portion of the unit is not what I expected. Living in a smaller metropolitan area of Little Rock, there are rarely times when traffic is bad, and the unit tells me there is traffic ahead when actually there is not any. But I still try to drive with both eyes and ears open not talking on my cell phone.

    I have not been on a long road trip, but I expect it to work well in other cities I frequent like Memphis, Dallas and Atlanta. I did purchase the lifetime updates so hopefully the new streets will be there! Time will tell.

14. Disappointed Long Term Garmin Customer

    by J. cornish

    I have had Garmin GPS devices for the past 5 years. This unit just has too many defects to recommend.

    I read all of the reviews here and bought this unit with some excitement and some concern.

    I have liked the design and the features. If it worked I would say it is a winner.

    The problem is that it just freezes when I try to use it and I must re-boot. It usually occurs when I try to navigate to an address. The problem has gotten progressively worse. The unit is not usable.

    For the top-of-the-line price I expected better quality than this.

    Garmin phone support is impossible to reach. Something is amiss.

15. Great GPS

    by A. Hamadani

    this is a great GPS loaded with options (Google search if great for finding places not found on the map but most of the other options I don’t use still but it’s fun to have it on hand when I need them in the future.) also it’s very accurate and fast in recalculating as I have been in the united states for only two months now so I know nothing about roads but this GARMIN nuvi 1690 never got me lost at all (not a single time) and whenever I miss a turn it recalculates the route so quickly and gets me back on the correct one. the screen is very clear so as the sound and the voice. The only down side of it is that sometimes the bluetooth quality isn’t really good but the way around it is to diconnect and reconnect your phone as for some reason if the quality was bad first when you connect it it will remain bad until you disconnect it again while if it was good it will remain good until you switch it off so my advice is if you have bad quality connection disconnect your phone and reconnect it again. as for the other end they were hearing me fine with no issues even when I had bad quality at my end…. by the way! go buy this product it’s better than other ones… I spent days and days researching and finally i ended up buying this one although you may want to save some money then go buy the nuvi 1490t it’s nice as well but for me I just love to buy the top of the line products with all possible options as it hit the market….thanks

    P.S: I had no issues of restarting or battery problems like some other people so far and maybe because I immediately connected it to the pc and updated the software so as the free update for the new garmin 2011 map.

16. Do not buy. I wish I hadn’t.

    by BIll

    I’ve had my 1690 since Christmas, and today with Garmin technical support arranged to send back my fourth device defective device back.

    Each device I have had, all FOUR, reboot themselves while driving when new out of the box. After updating the software, each device randomly turned itself off while driving (requires holding the power button for 10 seconds to restart).

    Further, the primary reason we bought this GPS was for the NuLink services, which have worked less than 25% of the time on each of my devices. The GPS frequently loses connection, no traffic, no weather, no Google search – even though the device has good cell signal.

    For my first 3 returns, Garmin swore there were no widespread problems with the device. Finally today they admitted that they are having problems, but have no ETA on when they will be fixed.

    I’ve been using, and recommending, Garmin GPS’s for more than 10 years. This will be my last Garmin GPS. Buyer beware.

17. This a great little device!

    by J. A Winters

    I’ve had the Nuvi 1690 for a little over a month now and am impressed. You should know that this is my first G.P.S. receiver so I can’t compare it to any other one. I’m 72 so I can’t help but marvel at what this little small marvel is doing. From satellites several thousand miles up the receiver can somehow know where it is to within a few feet or so. When I adjust my cruise control it registers the change on the speed dial within a second. For that matter it tells me when the speed limit has changed at about the same moment that I see a speed limit sign on the side of the road. One wonders what Thomas Jefferson, a scientific founding father would have thought and written about this. I remember what a scientific friend of mine told me when I was working a summer job as a cab driver while attending college. My biggest challenge was knowing where to go when a fare jumped into the cab and rattled off an address and expected me to get him there in as short a time as possible. I told my friend that I wished one of these new computers would figure out a route for me in as short a time. “That would be impossible” was what said friend said. “You’d need a computer the size of the car and even then it would be impossible because it would spend a whole day doing the calculations!”
    
    Enough about the marvels. Occasionally there are delays in picking up satellite signals. These delays might be two or three minutes at the maximum. I’ve occasionally Not been able to log on to the Nulink service such as when I google the location of the nearest Best Buy store or inquire about the weather. When the service is working, which is most of the time, it’s fun to check fuel prices and then be able to drive to the lowest priced gas station even in a new city.
    
    On a recent trip to the east coast I found “Ms. Garmin” telling me once or twice that I should stay left on a freeway split when it would have been preferable to stay right. Some have complained about the ads on the screen. It took two or three days before I even saw an ad. They’re so small and insignificant and only appear when you’re stopped. Why would one be looking at the screen at that point anyway? The vital information is still visible over and around these small ads. Why should one be bothered by seeing “Next time you buy gas, buy at Shell” or “Stay at a Best Western Motel on your trip?” In my opinion the ads are very inconsequential.
    
    The pleasant and alert female voice tells me about the next turn a total of three times. One shouldn’t miss many turns with that kind of prompting. Yet, sometimes when driving on streets where the cross streets are more frequent than usual I may miss the turn anyway. Within a few seconds I hear the “recalculating response” and I know I’ll be back on my route before long even if I find myself driving through a shopping center parking lot. (My fault, not Ms. Garmin’s!)
    
    Somewhat more disconcerting is that Ms. Garmin has on more than one occasion taken me back a different route than it took me to my original destination. Others, who may be using different manufacturers have mentioned this fact as well. Usually the elapsed time is the same for either route but this can be disconcerting.
    
    Ms. Garmin does not know my home by address. If I type in my address the receiver shows my home about a block to the east of my real circle cul de sac. Depending upon the direction I want to go she also wants to route me down a road which no longer exists! This is not the device’s fault. It is Navteq’s fault. Garmin relies on Navteq’s mapping efforts so when Navteq is wrong so is Garmin. I know, because I’ve lived in our home for nine years, that this aforementioned road has been closed and planted over into a walking trail for at least that long. I also wrote Navteq about it three years ago as well as the last month! I wonder how many errors alleged to the G.P.S. receivers are actually due to faulty mapping!
    
    In one of our cars the Garmin automatically shuts down when the ignition is turned off. On the other car the Garmin stays on, so one has to manually power down the device. I’ve finally learned where to press the power key so this action can be quickly done.
    
    I give the Nuvi 1690 a four because there are a few things I’d like it to do better but it is a high four and I have no hesitation about recommending this G.P.S.

18. Good overall but not stable

    by Eric Varsanyi

    I’ve had this unit for a couple of months and generally like it compared to my older 760 (with the now defunct MSN traffic service). I like the unit enough I’m going to buy another one for our other car (to replace a 7xx in it), please take my negative comments below in that light.

    Likes:
    
    - Most all good aspects of the Nuvi family are in this unit, overall I really like Garmin (I use their auto, pro aviation, consumer aviation, and boating GPS’s) and the Nuvi line has pretty good sw and a clear voice. Its dumbed down for ‘consumer’ use and not very configurable, but that makes it easy for anyone to use out of the box.

    - The ‘eco routing’ thing is actually pretty cool, I tell it the amount (gals, $$$, miles) at each fillup and it estimates the cost of each trip when you shut the car off. It does make you think (“wow, going to costco to pick up milk just cost me 0.75 round trip”). It would be nice if it logged the details of the fillup data in a csv file so I wouldn’t have to keep a separate fuel log as I do now.

    - Unlike older Nuvi’s you can actually display several items down the right side of the map and customize what each one shows; it is finally possible to directly have ETE displayed (“how long to get there”) rather than always having to figure out in your head current time – ETA like the 7xx series.

    - The occasional ads are very unobtrusive (but sadly totally useless, I wish they had some real advertisers onboard with this) and I haven’t been annoyed by them yet (normally I hate ads). If they actually had coupons for places nearby (esp food) I would likely actually use them.

    Now the issues, all of these are infrastructure and software and if the past is any guide Garmin will hopefully address these issues while this is still a ‘current’ product.

    - The unit got into a mode recently where any search involving an address would cause it to hang dead. No auto-reboot, just hang with the last thing on the screen stuck there. It seemed to be some problem looking up addresses that caused this, if I use google local and hit ‘go’ or if I tried to enter an address when I chose the ‘city’ it would just get stuck forever. It would reboot (hold down power button style) and work fine until the next search. After a couple of days I reloaded the same (latest) firmware to the unit and that cleared the problem up.

    - When dealing with busy traffic (snow storm or rush hour here in MN) the unit frequently freezes then reboots. It takes about 2 minutes for it to come back up and display the map and acquire enough traffic enough to make a route. Not horrible but a bit annoying if its leading you through some back street route (because the freeway is a parking lot in a snow storm say) and you lose guidance and only have a general idea where you are.

    - The traffic routing is something of a work in progress. Its much more useful and sensitive than the routing from the MSN or FM traffic sources alone but it frequently gets the idea that smaller local streets are ‘yellow’ or ‘red’ and tries to send you on wacky tiny back streets to avoid them. The main county road going by my house (2 lanes each direction, 45 MPH) is almost always listed as yellow or red (and the routing algorithm tries to avoid it desperately) but it has the usual normal traffic running at 45-50mph between (far apart) lights.
    
    A major n/s road (same class as the county road) which actually does get very clogged up with traffic at rush hour trying to avoid a parking lot on the parallel freeway never shows that it has any traffic even though you might end up stuck for 20 minutes going 1/2 a mile at rush hour.
    
    The idea of using people with gps’s to be the traffic sensors is great but I think their backend software needs a *lot* of work before its trustable.

    Sadly UI wise its a real pain to turn off traffic based routing so when you’re on the road and it gives you a bogus route (and you know it) you can’t easily say ‘reroute w/o traffic input’ (or better, ‘reroute w/o some traffic input’ where some is determined by the user somehow).

    - The auto zooming feature is a little too enthusiastic for my taste but I generally want it on anyway. Sometimes I really do not want it on, I just want the zoom level pinned. There is no way to turn it off, you’re stuck watching the thing throb in and out continuously with no option. The marketing guys who told engineering to ‘remove all options because they’re confusing’ went too far on this one.

    - The shared location service (ciao) is pretty flakey. In theory it should update garmin(ciao) then any social networking site you have attached to them (they only support gypsii right now) every 5 minutes or so. It works about half the time, the past couple of days it didn’t update gypsii until I rebooted the unit and went to the ‘ciao’ menu and viewed my friends. Maybe this is some way to save on data usage, but it makes it pretty much useless for someone (say your spouse) to keep tabs on where you are while running errands or whatever (you can turn it off of course if you want — that works fine).

    - The MSN news and stocks pages were kind of nice when you’re stuck someplace waiting and have nothing else at hand. They also entertain pax on long trips, I miss them.

    - You should be able to get current WX radar overlaid on the map like on the 7xx line, animated and up to date. This is about the best info you can have when out cycling and trying to avoid bad wx.

    - For some reason if you attach external power via the only ’simple’ connector on the unit (the mini-usb connector) it thinks there’s a PC attached and goes into PC file sharing mode. So you can’t really power the thing from an external battery (say on a bike so your spouse can keep track of your progress). You get whatever time you have on the internal battery then you’re done.

    - The could spend another 0.04 and get a slightly faster CPU along with a little work on the firmware and make it so typing on the on screen keyboard doesn’t have a 1-2 second lag when the unit is otherwise busy (which is usually). Typing on the thing is an exercise in frustration and danger (if you’re driving) because you have to stare at the key and wait 0-2 seconds for it to ‘light up’ before typing the next character. Not that I would ever type on the thing while acting as the vehicle driver of course.

19. Good but not perfect GPS solution.

    by Thomas A. Kehoe

    The product is a sturdy well built unit that works at about 95% as advertised the only faults i have found in about 2 months of use in varied environments from country roads to city streets are first that the speech of the unit is not that great even words such as “Left” seem garbled. Not horrible but you’d think it would have been worked out before release and the other issue I had was while traveling in boston going into tunnels and as the unit would loose satellite signal and then not be able to direct me to the appropriate exit ramp while underground caused a lot of extra driving. This was the biggest issue and the reason I think my next GPS will be one with an onboard gyro that can nav without signal for these situations as being in cities with all buildings and tunnels will cause this unit to scream “recalculating” over and over. For the cost however unless you are primarily in a huge metro area this unit works very well and the Egde system from AT&T used with Google search really makes it easy to find anything on the go from food to hospitals almost anything or any body in transit.

20. Great product, but needs more internal memory

    by J. Hales

    The product works great and as advertised, but the internal memory should be increased so there is sufficient to hold any updates, maybe a few different voices, and a few car icons without running out of space. Alternatively, it should be able to get any combination of the above from the SD card slot so that space would be more useful. Otherwise, great product with integrated search, lane guidance, etc.