Garmin Nuvi 1690 Traffic Satellite Navigation System with UK & European Mapping

Dr. M. Cinnirella

at 2:50 am

CAPSULE REVIEW: Read this for the quick low-down:-

+s: Good, large and clear display/screen; reception of traffic info is now more reliable due to nu-link service using mobile network instead of FM radio signals; useful new speed limit information; Google local search useful; simple, well-proven interface; generally good routing; Excellent form factor – feels good in the hand.

-s: traffic info now classed as a nu-link subscription service (will cost approx. £70 per year after first 12 months); limited nu-link services; no MP3 playback; no FM transmitter to connect to car stereo; still some screen lag/slow redraw issues; traffic service is still Traffic Master and no equivalent to TomTom HD traffic or IQ routes; some users report reliability issues.

INTRO: Garmin v TomTom

What are my Garmin ‘credentials’? I’ve used their hiking units and avaiation units, and have ‘graduated’ from i3, to 200, 250, 265 and now Nuvi 1690 car units. I’m not a die-hard fan and open-minded about the whole Garmin v TomTom issue. Garmin have a long history in the satnav business, being well known for their excellent hiking, aviation and marine GPS products. When it comes to in-car sat navs they have become a bit of a niche choice in the UK and Europe, lagging behind TomTom when it comes to sales. This is not necessarily justified, since Garmin’s experience in GPS design has meant that over the years they have released some excellent models (255W for example).

ENTER THE 1690

The 1690 is the latest model in the Garmin UK line-up, but despite it’s fairly hefty current price, it does lack some ‘top of the line’ features that other Garmin in-car models possess. For example, while it has a generally excellent junction view feature, it lacks the 3D building feature present on other high-end Garmin units. It also lacks voice command control (can be useful and is safer in the long run) and an MP3 player. The latter might appear gimmicky, but bear in mind that some of the interesting third party products that offer guided tours and itineraries rely on this MP3 feature to provide audio commentary, so you would get text only with the 1690 – a shame. It is also odd that in a unit that costs more than the lower-spec 1490 model, you get a SMALLER screen that appears to be less bright and clear. Odd.

NU-LINK – the 1690 is a ‘connected’ Sat Nav

So what is new about the 1690? Well, it features Garmin’s new Nu-Link ‘connected technology’. Inside the unit is the guts of a mobile phone, meaning that it can connect to various mobile services and thus provide real time information of various sorts via the mobile connection. One major gripe about this is that over here in Europe, we only get 12 months of Nu-Link free of charge (in the US they get 2 years !). So after 12 months it would appear that all Nu-Link services will stop working on the 1690 unless you pay to subscribe to them (I believe about £70 per year in the UK – this is currently £10 cheaper than the TomTom Live service annual subscription in the UK – worth noting !). Now while this might seem a minor headache, bear in mind that it looks like Garmin class the traffic info on this device as a Nu-Link feature, so it will probably stop working unless you keep up the subscription. So what do we get in the UK with Nu-Link. Well disappointingly we don’t get a useful feature that our US cousins get – we do not get live entertainment info – so in the US you can look up cinema times and what movies are showing, as well as local concerts and theatre listings. Not so, in the UK. We do get ‘live’ weather info for our current destination – I have found on the whole it isn’t as accurate as the Met Office web site though. We get updated petrol prices – these seem pretty accurate and useful. We get the ability to do a Google local search – useful and this provides many more points of interest than any in-built database would. We also get the ‘Ciao’ friend finder – I found this to be useless – in theory you can see where your friends are and they can see where you are – great, except that everyone has to either have a Garmin 1690 or a nuviphone for this to work…

LIVE TRAFFIC

What is the traffic info like? Well it does seem better than the FM version featured on previous models – at least you don’t need a separate antenna/cable for it to work, as it gets the info via the mobile cnnection. Trouble is, it is the same TrafficMaster traffic as featured on other Garmins. It is less sophisticated than HD traffic on TomTom, but of course many TT users report that HD traffic is pretty useless at present in the UK anyway. So the Garmin traffi, relying on TM as the provider, only features traffic info for major roads – motorways and A roads essentially. I found it to be OK – the unit will automatically re-route you around traffic if you want it to, but sometimes you will find it doing this even though the traffic jam it THINKS is present has actually disappeared. Still, it’s better than nothing, and you are more likely to retain traffic info with this new system of it being delievered over the mobile network connection – before, with FM radio based traffic, there were spots in the UK with poor reception – this should now be less of an issue.

SPEED CAMERAS

The Nu-Link technology is also used to deliver up-to-date speed camera information, which is apparently updated via the mobile technology rather than the old way of connecting your unit to a PC via USB – that certainly is handy. Shame that you get no info about when the data is updated though.

BASIC NAVIGATION

Basic navigation features are similar to most previous Garmin units, and are generally sound. There is no equivalent to TomTom IQ routes though, so some routing choices can be odd at times, though for much of the time the Navteq sourced maps seem to be OK. The unit I received from Amazon had the latest 2010 maps on it and they seem generally OK but I am guessing they were actually put together early 2009 judging by what is still missing from them. One feature which is now much better implemented is the speed limit info – most roads now display this (though not always correctly) and the 1690 has the new feature of showing your existing MPH in red if you are going over the speed limit for the current road – nice. This unit shares one feature with other high-end units – you can plan multi-point routes on the unit, which is good, and missing from some lower-line Nuvis such as the 25x and 26x series. It is a real pain to plan them, though, on screen, as I find it quite hard to get the touch-screen to know exactly which road, junction etc you are pointing at/pressing at. You can use Google Maps to send locations to the unit, but sadly, it looks like you can’t use GM to send a route. You can, however, use the optional (extra) Mapsource Garmin software to create and send routes to the unit via USB.

A FEW QUIBBLES – The speaker and screen lag

I must mention the speaker on this unit – it is quite loud but could be clearer – it rattles a bit and doesn’t give the impression of a high quality component – a shame on a unit at this price point – there is no option to route the voice via your in-car stereo since there is no FM transmitter built into this unit (another omission that is present on previous high end units in the 7xx and 8xx series). Voices are generally clear although as usual, Text to Speech (TTS) voices used when you want the unit to read out street names are recorded in a lower quality than non-TTS voices, and you can hear the difference. There are fewer ‘novelty’ voices for Garmin units compared to TomTom but Garmin have just released a free voice recorder application for download from their web site that enables you to record your own non-TTS voices to put on your unit – so you can create a voice with your partner, kids, dog(?!) etc! Screen refresh seems relatively fast but there are some signs that this unit could have done with a faster processor – when you really push it to the max the on-screen position of your vehicle does lag behind the actual position a little bit, even when the on-screen detail is not set to max – disappointing.

SUCTION MOUNT

The supplied suction mount does the job, and this is a powered mount system so power is delivered from your car lighter socket via a cable direct to the mount, rather than direct to the unit – a more convenient solution than previous models although it makes it more fiddly to use a non-suction based friction mount (I still use the latter though).

NO PRINTED MANUAL…AGAIN

As usual, Garmin skimps and doesn’t provide a paper manual, instead relying on a PDF – at this price this is a bit of a cheek, but it is becoming the norm in consumer electronics.

STABILITY ISSUES & SOFTWARE GLITCHES – have more or less been nailed in the latest firmware from Garmin so ensure you register your device on Garmin’s web site and update the device software – this should mean that some previous reports of re-boots and other odd behaviour will not affect your unit (fingers crossed).

Regarding glitches – I have sometimes had my unit behave strangeely – for example, it sometimes displays wildly inaccurate speeds or the current speed display freezes for up to 5 minutes. I have also experienced one or two lock-ups requiring a re-boot.

QUALITY CONTROL ISSUES? – there have been some internet forum posts, mostly, but not exclusively, by US owners, indictaing that at least some batches of 1690s have been faulty, displaying screen flicker, for example, or with faulty on/off switches. Watch out for these issues and if you discover them make sure you return to the place you bought the unit from for a swap or refund, ideally within 28 days, the period when consumer law in the UK protects you the most. Amazon UK, by the way, are usually excellent about returns or refunds associated with faulty items.

CONCLUSIONS

Is it worth it? Only you can decide, but I believe some imminent new Nuvi models will be the true top of the line ones in the Nuvi range, so if it is the ultimate Garmin you are looking for, I would wait. If upgrading from a 2xx series then sure, the screen is larger and it does more. The traffic is better but remember you will likely have to pay £70+ per year to keep traffic functional after 12 months ! The Nu-Link features are interesting but some, like Ciao friend finder, are gimmicky and have very limited functionality. Google local search, petrol prices and weather are far more useful though.

Overall, it’s a mixed bag. A step forward in some domains but a bit of a ‘miss’ in others. I would feel more positive about the unit had Garmin given European customers the same deal as US customers, but why do our US cousins get 2 years free Nu Link and more Nu link features? So TT versus Garmin? If TomTom customer service had a good reputation, if their downloads and PC connectivity issues were sorted out, if HD traffic worked properly in the UK, it would be a no-brainer to go with TT. At least Garmin’s map updates work and customer service is OK. So I’m sticking with them for now.

UPDATE (27 Jan 2010) – The Nuvi 1490TV is coming to the UK in April – note that this new model will offer a 5 inch screen and an in-built digital TV/Radio tuner – interesting. No indication as yet how the exact feature list will stack up against the 1690 though…

UPDATE 2 (April 16, 2010) – current Amazon price of £199 is very competetive and has come down a lot since the launch price – at this price it is a good buy if you are a Garmin fan.
Rating: 3 / 5

Mr. David H. Rowlands

at 6:46 am

Garmin Nuvi 1690 Traffic Satellite Navigation System with UK & European Mapping

I bought a Garmin nuvi 1690T on 15 April having owned a very reliable Garmin 250W (widescreen European mapping) for a couple of years. My current mapping was a couple of years old and instead of paying Garmin £99 for map updates for life I thought I’d treat myself to an upgrade, to take on holiday for our road trip from Bristol to Cote D’Azur, France, about 1,000 miles each way.

I bought it from a well known supermarket chain which beat Amazon on value when the clubcard points were taken in to account!

Unit:

The device seemed slightly less well built when taken out of the box than my 250W with fashionable plastic piano black casing – which, as other reviews have said, attracts finger prints. The unit just feels slightly less sturdy than my old one. This was the case when I updated my Sony camera with the newer (same) model a few years hence – I feel that manufacturers think they don’t have to try as hard to flog the same models so they get more flimsy.

Updates:

It took several hours on the Garmin website to update the maps to the current 2010 versions which I found frustrating since it should have had all the current maps on it. The data transfer seems to takes ages, a real pain. Not sure if you have to do this for every update in the future.

Functionality:

The nu-link services including google search, petrol prices and weather are all excellent, throughout the UK and France (and Italy) as long as you have a signal, which most of the time we did – even inside some buildings when the satellite signal is lost. This is because it uses mobile phone signals and not satellites to do the nu-link stuff.

Navigation:

When you convert it to kilometres from miles to drive in Europe the voice and the speed camera alerts remain in miles which is a bit odd, and would have thought this was not the intention. Eg. when approaching a junction it will say “… in half a mile turn left” and the screen will say in “…in 800m turn left”. Not major but could be better.

Voice and maps are pretty clear and a slight improvement to my 250W but no major advances (I thought were fine anyway). Garmin seems to think that everybody wants maps which keep scrolling when your finger comes off the screen (iPhone styly). This is really annoying because when you want to zoom in somewhere which is off-centre, it is really hard to move the map and for it to stop on the desired spot!

Spec:

QWERTY keyboard option (can have ABC also) is great and much better than the ABC-only on the 250W and the 1690 has numbers and shift key so entering names/address is generally much quicker and easier.

Traffic feature seemed OK but we never needed to use it so no further comment. It’s got a few extra bits like different voices (male & female) including naming street names (using Text to Speech technology) which was a nice touch compared to the 250W. This didn’t work very well in a foreign country as the pronunciation was terrible – so we switched off that feature!

I thought in general it was a good product having given it 2 weeks of solid testing driving around France in areas we didn’t know very well.

My girlfriend didn’t seem to get on with it very well but I think that is because she is used to the 250W and didn’t like the different procedures to do things – this I felt would change over time – I got used to the differences pretty quickly.

Recommended updates:

A recommendation would be for Garmin to add toll prices to routes. It knows the toll roads because it can avoid them so I would expect the prices to be available on the database too – especially as petrol prices are (and fairly accurate).

Reliability:

A large problem however (and why I have returned the unit within the 28 day period for a full refund) is because 3 times during our lengthly journeys the unit packed up completely and without any indications. Just driving down the motorway and it would switch off (with or without incar charger plugged in). I could live with this but not if it can’t be re-started for several hours (when in hotel room on mains charger). This was very odd, and didn’t always seem to be battery related – as once it switched off after only an hour or so of driving from a full charge (I think we got about 2-3 hours of normal use from a full charge). Very luckily, I took my trusty 250W with us too as a back up, and did we need it?!

The interesting thing is the chap at the returns desk where I returned it said he had had a few of these same models back recently for similar problems. And this is at a major retailer with lots of makes and models on offer! I assume it must be a software glitch.

So overall scores are:

Functionality and spec good;

Quality and robustness medium;

Software low (due to low download speeds and random switch off) I’m afraid.

I’d probably buy another Garmin product as I like the brand and they seem to offer good products but as they are US based, us Europeans get a worse deal on some of their products – only 1 year free nu-link/traffic instead of 2 years in the US.
Rating: 3 / 5