Introduction:
Garmin is one of the leading manufacturers of GPS devices. It has now released its new GPS device Garmin Nuvi 1690 with the NuLink service working together to bring the turn by turn directions, Google Local White Pages searches, live fuel prices and data on traffic to the dashboard.
Design:
The design of this device is similar to almost all PNDs and Nuvi devices having a touch screen and a cradle cup design. The perceptible alteration in this device is the black glossy casing with chrome trim which environs the 4.3inch touch screen and also have some delicate changes too. There is a microSD size card slot at the left of the device which opens up the inner space. There is a simple switch on top of the device which acts as the power button.
There is no screen lock but by tapping this power button, the onscreen menu opens up with many options like power, screen brightness and screen lock too. When this is selected, the screen locks up and the screen is unlocked by pressing the power switch again. The system can be shut down or booted again by holding the power switch for 3secs. There is a sole speaker at the rear side of the panel and all along the base edge is the 10pin connector which interfaces with the cradle included with this device and a mini USB port. There is a burly lever actuated suction cup featuring the cradle which is also equipped with a Mini USB port for making the connection of 12V car charger.
Nuvi can be removed with single hand from the charger port. Mini USB port allows charging without the cradle thus increasing the portability. Some of the software is also changed in this new device. Menu icons are graphically refreshed and have become more colorful with reflection effects and finer gradients. The Menu button on the left lower corner is tiny on the map screen and has been relabeled Back. There is a new inclusion of the top status strip which displays the status icons for GPS signal strength, navigation mode, Bluetooth connectivity, current temperature, current time, battery state and NuLink signal strength.
Features:
The major and important feature of this Nuvi 1690 is that it has NuLink service for data. This service is operated on AT&T’s EDGE network and is free for 1st two years of subscription. There is no free service for data offered by the Garmin for its users. This NuLink service brooks the fuel prices, White Pages search, traffic and incident data, movie show-time and local events, weather forecast, airline flight information and Google Local POI search on the 1690’s screen.
There is a built in wireless antenna in the unit and thus functionality will not be vanished even though it is taken out of the cradle. For hands-free calling there is a wireless Bluetooth connectivity offered in this device but the audio streaming from A2DP is omitted. Bluetooth can be harmonized with the phone only with a 4 digit PIN and after that the access is given to the dialing from the POI select, voice dialing function and to a 10key phone pad. Contacts are unable to trade in.
Some of the other imperative features of this device are the graphic lane guidance which shows the highway intersections visually with suitable lanes highlighted, TTS turn by turn directions which read the POI names and street names loudly and EcoRoutes which is an anthology of green driving tools counting the series of green driving challenges, fuel economy assessment and routing algorithm which calculates the most fuel efficient route from spot A to B.
Performance:
The performance of this 1690 Nuvi is good and better than its precursor. This device speedily boots up and locks onto the signals of satellites within 2mins of switching it on with a very lucid vision of the sky. There is a relative swift Google POI search feature in this device. Searching for the result with the help of this feature takes only few seconds. The main fault in this Nuvi 1690 is its colored touch screen.
It’s less receptive and pressure requisite to take inputs is bit more which is really exasperating and also is infuriating while inputting the addresses using the onscreen keypad. The screen sputters vaguely while downloading the data via AT&T’s NuLink network. Guess this is the main reason for the sheathing retort of the screen.
Outline:
This is a concrete handy routing gadget from Garmin. Performance of this device is pretty good but some of the features are missed in this device like the dead reckoning tech and cellular triangulation i.e. tracking the location of the vehicle albeit the signal from satellite is wobbly. These are some of the top edge GPS technologies which a GPS device should have in it. Thus, this device is recommended curtly for the people.
