Editorial Review
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 (POIs) 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. In addition, the 680 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras, and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs 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 POIs, 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.
In 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 (POIs) 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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Customer Reviews
Great! 
2008-06-19
This is my first GPS and I am very happy with my choice. Clear/bright display and accurate directions.
4.5 out of 5 2008-06-18
Wonderful unit! Love the new features such as gas stations with prices & traffic reports. I haven't used the Bluethooth yet so I can't tell you how it works. The fact that you get 1 year of MSN free was what decided it for me over the 660.
The only drawback for me was that my old Magellan was easier to switch between screens. I suspect, given time, that it will become a non-issue.
Excellent...but... 2008-06-15
The screen is bright and very responsive to the touch. It has many options including the bluetooth technology to encourage handsfree cellphone use. The Nuvi 680 comes fully loaded with MSN Direct and all other accesories that other Nuvi models do not such as the leather case. Addresses are found with ease with some exceptions. One exception is finding FL-40 in the state of Florida. Type it whichever way you like and it won't find it. A great improvement in the future would be to copy the turn by turn routes given by services such as Mapquest. The Nuvi navigator does NOT find the most appropriate route in certain instances. Quickest route and shortest route not necesarily mean the same thing, but the Nuvi seems not to know that as of yet. Perhaps in a future update. Outside of the minor shortcomings, the Nuvi 680 is the most complete in its family vs. cost. If the fancy extras do not interest you, then perhaps you should consider the Nuvi 260W. The two models are identical in the basic features such as spoken street names and screen size. Garmin has done it right.
O.K. But not worth the generally high price 
2008-06-13
I've owned several GPS units over the years, and while I've updated models because they have evolved, The Garmin nuvi 680 is a step back.
While the GPS works fine, it has some very bad annoyances that I wouldn't expect from a unit of this price. First, it doesn't default to the map screen, rather you have to select maps everytime, otherwise it just stays in its menu mode. In fact almost all screens eventually will go back to this page. I feel, that if you don't press any buttons for an extended time, it should return to the default map display, but it doesn't.
Second, the real function of this unit, navigation, is a bit sketchy at best. There are only two navigation settings, "fastest" or "shortest" and neither really accomplish their goals.
I live about 5 miles from work, and because of obstacles, there are basically three ways that I can get to and from work; the east way, the west way, and the center way. The center way is both the shortest and the quickest, but no matter what the setting, the 680 NEVER takes that route. And the road sizes are all about the same, generally 2 lane roads.
That alone wouldn't be so bad if the 680 truly thought that the other routes were shorter or faster, but it doesn't. Let me explain. I set the setting to "fastest route" for a test, and routed to work. On the bottom of the display is an ETA screen which estimates your arrival time. One day I followed the suggested route and got there about two minutes after it predicted. Not bad.
The next day, I repeated the drive, but instead of going the recommended way, I went the "center" way. The ETA was the same as the day before, but the instant I deviated from the planned route, the 680 said "recalculating" and the ETA dropped by about 5 minutes. I eventually got there 5 minutes sooner like it projected. So, in other words, the Nuvi knew that the center route was faster because when I turned on to it, the ETA reduced by 5 minutes, but yet it never recommends that route. How stupid.
Other routing decisions are plain stupid as well. When I need to make a left, it will often tell me to make a right then a u-turn, then back!! Other times it tells me to drive past my destination, make a u-turn, then drive back, almost like it doesn't think there is a turn lane in the road.
The MSN part of this device is O.K. but I don't know if its worth $40/year. Gas prices and movie times are helpful, but the traffic is a waste. I don't think it has ever given me traffic info that has saved me time. Either it reported accidents I never saw, or it doesn't find accidents that are there, and only SOME major roads in Phoenix (5th largest city) are even mapped. Nothing other than major highways are.
Other annoyances. When driving a routed course, the 680 gives you the distance to the next turn, and your ETA, but that is it. You CAN'T display the total distance to your destination, or the length of your trip, only the time you will get there. This is lame.
Its almost like this device was designed for idiots, that were too stupid to ever want more.
Here is another example of poor design. I live in AZ and we don't change our clocks for daylight savings. When the clocks did change in the rest of the world, my 680 time was off an hour, so an easy fix, right? I went to setting and there was a "Time" setting, so I pressed it and was offered two options "12-hour" or "24-hour." It was set to "12-hour" and I wanted "12-hour" so I just pressed cancel. There was no time-zone setting I could see.
I called tech support at Garmin, and after 60 minutes on the phone, we solved the problem. On the time screen, for "12-hour" and "24-hour" if you press Cancel instead of OK, you never get to the timezone screen, you have to end it with OK, even if you aren't changing the setting. How stupid and unintuitive?
After my experience with this unit, I don't think I would buy a Garmin GPS again.
Added features worthwhile 
2008-06-12
I have several other Garmin Nuvi GPS devices that are smaller and do not have the MSN features. All are excellent GPS devices and have become essential in finding meeting locations and baseball fields where my son plays, especially when the directions provided by the other coach are flawed or sketchy. The 680 is larger and easier to see, but the best addition is the MSN traffic. We live around a large metropolitan area so it is helpful and has already allowed me to avoid certain roads because the Garmin indicates there is a high traffic volume. If you live in a remote area of the country it is not much value. All in all I would prefer this device over the smaller 350 and 360 because of the bigger screen. It is not heavy though so it can still be carried around for walking tours.
Excellent product 2008-07-13
We are very happy with this product. It is easy to operate and has many capabilities. We shopped long and hard before deciding on this particular Garmin, and we weren't disappointed!
nuvi 680 great, mapping software is not 2008-07-10
I bought a Garmin Nuvi 680 quite a while ago. Prices have plummeted since then, and probably will continue. This is a great device, and has helped me many times. We even took it on a trip to Baltimore and Philly (we're in SoCal), and it is totally portable when you buy a beanbag (friction) mount. It took us to every historical site, and even to the local Baltimore McDonalds (you can take it on walks, by setting the Pedestrian mode, and it will route you even the wrong way on one-way streets, since you're walking). It did its best to figure out the bizarre maze of streets in older sections. It knew the layout of Valley Forge and Fort McHenry. It took me right to my mother's birthplace in Washington D.C., and Babe Ruth's birthplace in Baltimore. The Marine Memorial at Arlington is hard to find, but it found it. I would have never found half of these places without it. It even knew where every alley was, and called them "alley".
The 4.2" touchscreen is great, and the text-to-speech very clear. It interfaced via Bluetooth to my cell phone effortlessly, and downloaded the address book automatically. Makes a great hands-free device. In simulation mode you can tell it to go cross-country, and it will start out on its trip, and just keep going (until it runs out of power because it's sitting on the bed, not plugged into the car).
I have one criticism, and it's a big one. Garmin doesn't really care about you after the sale. I fell for the Garmin email that told me to update my mapping software "today!" No mention that within a week their distributors would be selling it for $15 less than their $70 price. When I got the software and loaded it, I found that this "2009 Update" added next to nothing. A Marine Air Station which had been leveled, and turned into a major shopping center over two years ago, was still listed as the air base. Major streets which had been extended through there were not shown. A local shopping center which has been here for five years is not shown, even though other, smaller shopping centers are. Garmin's only comment to this was that they depend on the same source of mapping information as everyone else. I though these companies had people keeping their software up-to-date, and that you could keep updating your maps for much less, if not free. So much for their industry leadership. If I find that something I need to find is not on my Garmin, I'll be checking out Tom Tom and others to see if they can do better. Hopefully they try harder.
I agree with the reviewer who liked the Garmin friction (bean bag) mount. That and the car power adapter/MSN receiver work well (even if every time there is a drop of rain, MSN lists a flash flood alert in the OC). But the mount did slip off my dash several times, and so I fashioned a simple little metal hook and attached it to the mount, and that hooks into a defroster vent to keep it from sliding. Easy to do.
I love "Miss Garmin" (as we call her), even if she does sound a bit put out when she is "recalculating" (when you don't follow her directions to the letter). She won't let you get lost, even if some times she takes you in strange directions.
there are a couple lacking features but it works well 2008-07-08
The 680 works better than a few other gps's i've used and had alot of features but needs some work on the usability. If garmin had just made the menus customizable so you can decide what is shown on the map screen and put a "go back to map button" on every screen i'd likely give it a 5, for example, if your deep in the menus you have to hit the back button over and over to get back to the map. Also, you can't see the speed or the time when in route to a destination. I am still happy with my nuvi but would probably not buy it again unless (cough cough to any garmin guys reading this) garmin makes a few simple software changes.
I love this device 2008-06-26
I've had my 680 for quite a while now and it has served me very well. Even the movie times and weather feature which is sort of a gimic has come in handy on several occasions. Roads are a mess in the area I live in but the maps have always been enough to get me to my destination. I've also used it on several trips around the US with much success. The wider screen is nice and the interface is easy and intuitive.
Great Product 2008-06-23
Works great, the MSN direct works exactly as they advertise and the software is very intuitive. Yes the FM transmiter is weak-guess what they all are weak and yes the navigation will do some strange routes- again they all do.
My cons are price of unit and then still will have to pay for subscription when free period expires. The traffic portion on MSN works well but is not intergrated with rest of system as well as I think it should be. And lastly materials used on unit could be little nicer, I also have a Harmon/Kardon 810 that is beautiful and feels more solid but the Garmin is easier to use.
