Garmin Nuvi 660 experience?
Discussion
AMG Merc said:
Thanks negative creep!
Has anyone experience of using the speec camera locator feature?
eg: how clear are the warnings on the screen and does it compare your speed to the camera limit?
Has anyone experience of using the speec camera locator feature?
eg: how clear are the warnings on the screen and does it compare your speed to the camera limit?
I have had this for 3 weeks now and I have to say that it does everything that I wanted it to do.
The speed camera notification is clear and it comes up with a red banner and pings at you regularly until you are past the camera. It doesn't compare your speed to the camera settings, so even of you are going at a snail's pace, you will still get warned. The traffic notification and rerouting is also very good and I tested this in Belgium while trying to get to just south of Brussels just last week.
I now use it for playing my music, making and receiving phone calls calls as well as traffic and camera alerts. I use a car stereo jack to connect the 660 so I get the effect of my BOSE for the music as well as all of the direction changes, alerts and phone calls coming through my stereo, which all interrupt the music when necessary.
Also it is very fast at route calculation - I tried to get a rout to the Vatican City for the hell of it, and it took about 20 seconds to find it. Pretty good if you ask me.
Well worth the expense.
Chris
A good friend of mine was a TomTom fan for years. Decided to get a 910 for a Euro trip he was doing but had no end of problems. However, the biggest one was the mount. It never seemed to stay in place and every time he went over a bump it disconnected. Took it back and got a refund. Didnt know what to get so went for a Garmin (but no the 660 - which is the widescreen one isnt it?) Anyway, got the standard screen size one with Euro mapping etc.
Have to say that he is over the moon with it. Says its better and faster than the TomTom and the screen is bright and easy to read. Instructions are good and its the nice little features that impress - Ok, its not much but the automatic switch from day to night screens is good - no poxy sensor or manual setting for this one - its a GPS device so its got accurate time, so all it does is work out where it is and what timezone, and then when dusk is..... hey presto automatic day to night swap over....
He's not done so well with the software for the PC, but its not bad though. A bit clunky but cannot complain. So far he is really pleased and loves it. Comes highly recommended.
Have to say that he is over the moon with it. Says its better and faster than the TomTom and the screen is bright and easy to read. Instructions are good and its the nice little features that impress - Ok, its not much but the automatic switch from day to night screens is good - no poxy sensor or manual setting for this one - its a GPS device so its got accurate time, so all it does is work out where it is and what timezone, and then when dusk is..... hey presto automatic day to night swap over....
He's not done so well with the software for the PC, but its not bad though. A bit clunky but cannot complain. So far he is really pleased and loves it. Comes highly recommended.
bridgland said:
AMG Merc said:
Thanks negative creep!
Has anyone experience of using the speec camera locator feature?
eg: how clear are the warnings on the screen and does it compare your speed to the camera limit?
Has anyone experience of using the speec camera locator feature?
eg: how clear are the warnings on the screen and does it compare your speed to the camera limit?
I have had this for 3 weeks now and I have to say that it does everything that I wanted it to do.
The speed camera notification is clear and it comes up with a red banner and pings at you regularly until you are past the camera. It doesn't compare your speed to the camera settings, so even of you are going at a snail's pace, you will still get warned. The traffic notification and rerouting is also very good and I tested this in Belgium while trying to get to just south of Brussels just last week.
I now use it for playing my music, making and receiving phone calls calls as well as traffic and camera alerts. I use a car stereo jack to connect the 660 so I get the effect of my BOSE for the music as well as all of the direction changes, alerts and phone calls coming through my stereo, which all interrupt the music when necessary.
Also it is very fast at route calculation - I tried to get a rout to the Vatican City for the hell of it, and it took about 20 seconds to find it. Pretty good if you ask me.
Well worth the expense.
Chris
Thanks Chris sounds great - can't wait to play over Christmas (assuming santa brings me one - as requested!)
Tell me, you say you connect the 660's jack-out to your car stereo and it interrupts the music for satnav speech/MPS3 music/phone - that's interesting as how would the unit know to do this - very smart! I also have the Bose option on my Merc but no jackout (it's the older 208 line)
Thanks for the info.
off_again said:
A good friend of mine was a TomTom fan for years. Decided to get a 910 for a Euro trip he was doing but had no end of problems. However, the biggest one was the mount. It never seemed to stay in place and every time he went over a bump it disconnected. Took it back and got a refund. Didnt know what to get so went for a Garmin (but no the 660 - which is the widescreen one isnt it?) Anyway, got the standard screen size one with Euro mapping etc.
Have to say that he is over the moon with it. Says its better and faster than the TomTom and the screen is bright and easy to read. Instructions are good and its the nice little features that impress - Ok, its not much but the automatic switch from day to night screens is good - no poxy sensor or manual setting for this one - its a GPS device so its got accurate time, so all it does is work out where it is and what timezone, and then when dusk is..... hey presto automatic day to night swap over....
He's not done so well with the software for the PC, but its not bad though. A bit clunky but cannot complain. So far he is really pleased and loves it. Comes highly recommended.
Have to say that he is over the moon with it. Says its better and faster than the TomTom and the screen is bright and easy to read. Instructions are good and its the nice little features that impress - Ok, its not much but the automatic switch from day to night screens is good - no poxy sensor or manual setting for this one - its a GPS device so its got accurate time, so all it does is work out where it is and what timezone, and then when dusk is..... hey presto automatic day to night swap over....
He's not done so well with the software for the PC, but its not bad though. A bit clunky but cannot complain. So far he is really pleased and loves it. Comes highly recommended.
Many thanks for the comments. It seems that this technology moves so fast that you can only compromise with any model on the market!
AMG said:
Tell me, you say you connect the 660's jack-out to your car stereo and it interrupts the music for satnav speech/MPS3 music/phone - that's interesting as how would the unit know to do this - very smart! I also have the Bose option on my Merc but no jackout (it's the older 208 line)
Thanks for the info.
You will enjoy it - Santa had better not let you down!
Everything plays from the Nuvi - MP3, Telephone, Alerts and Sat Nav guideance. I loaded a 2GB SD card with MP3s and off I go. I use one of those iPod headphone to tape cassette converters as I have a CD multi-changer and tape head unit. For under £10 it does what I want (get it from Belkin via Amazon), unless I want to listen to the radio, which is when I unplug the Nuvi and have radio and Nuvi going at the same time, just like normal.
Edited by bridgland on Monday 11th December 13:43
Edited by bridgland on Monday 11th December 13:46
Opend my new Nuvi 660 last night (well will need it for the holidays so had to to teach myself how it works first!). Initial view is its very well designed and intuitive to use.
One question though - there doesn't seem to be a LED, or other, indication as to when the unit is on charge. When you first connect it to power it says "charging" but after that the screen goes blank so how do you know it is STILL charging (or am I missing something)?!
One question though - there doesn't seem to be a LED, or other, indication as to when the unit is on charge. When you first connect it to power it says "charging" but after that the screen goes blank so how do you know it is STILL charging (or am I missing something)?!
Oh bugger. The 660 seems to have been released minutes after I bought a 360 and offers everything I want which the 360 doesn't have - inbuilt TMC receiver being the main one.
So I shall be selling my 360 after Christmas, complete with add-on TMC receiver, charger etc and buying a 660!
Using 'track up', the wider screen will provide greater lateral route information at the same scale. So, for example, I could have avoided the A429 delays in Barford yesterday by knowing that I could nip through Sherbourne, Hampton Lucy and Charlecote!
Has anyone come up with a way of wiring a direct power supply for a nuvi? 12v is way too high and there must be a better way than using a hidden 12v socket for the Garmin fag plug thing.
So I shall be selling my 360 after Christmas, complete with add-on TMC receiver, charger etc and buying a 660!
Using 'track up', the wider screen will provide greater lateral route information at the same scale. So, for example, I could have avoided the A429 delays in Barford yesterday by knowing that I could nip through Sherbourne, Hampton Lucy and Charlecote!
Has anyone come up with a way of wiring a direct power supply for a nuvi? 12v is way too high and there must be a better way than using a hidden 12v socket for the Garmin fag plug thing.
nickwilcock said:
Has anyone come up with a way of wiring a direct power supply for a nuvi? 12v is way too high and there must be a better way than using a hidden 12v socket for the Garmin fag plug thing.
That's what I want to do but can't seem to improve on the way it is now (for my dash). Note, the 660 has one lead with a plug on the end going into the base of the cradle which is neater than two leads on previous models (ie: one power and one traffic).
So, 3 days playing now and it's looking like a superb piece of kit:
I love the feature where you can move the map by moving your finger across the screen!
One thing that may drive me crazy though is the non-querty keyboard - why Garmin?! Also, when you key in a postcode or name, move to the next screen and then go back to make a correction the entry disappears so you have to start typing again - slightly annoying.
I love the feature where you can move the map by moving your finger across the screen!
One thing that may drive me crazy though is the non-querty keyboard - why Garmin?! Also, when you key in a postcode or name, move to the next screen and then go back to make a correction the entry disappears so you have to start typing again - slightly annoying.
nickwilcock said:
Oh bugger. The 660 seems to have been released minutes after I bought a 360 and offers everything I want which the 360 doesn't have - inbuilt TMC receiver being the main one.
So I shall be selling my 360 after Christmas, complete with add-on TMC receiver, charger etc and buying a 660!
Using 'track up', the wider screen will provide greater lateral route information at the same scale. So, for example, I could have avoided the A429 delays in Barford yesterday by knowing that I could nip through Sherbourne, Hampton Lucy and Charlecote!
Has anyone come up with a way of wiring a direct power supply for a nuvi? 12v is way too high and there must be a better way than using a hidden 12v socket for the Garmin fag plug thing.
So I shall be selling my 360 after Christmas, complete with add-on TMC receiver, charger etc and buying a 660!
Using 'track up', the wider screen will provide greater lateral route information at the same scale. So, for example, I could have avoided the A429 delays in Barford yesterday by knowing that I could nip through Sherbourne, Hampton Lucy and Charlecote!
Has anyone come up with a way of wiring a direct power supply for a nuvi? 12v is way too high and there must be a better way than using a hidden 12v socket for the Garmin fag plug thing.
This sort of goes against the point of having trasferable between vehicles if you are looking to hard wire it in. I am not too sure if the effort would be worth the benefit. Cables may look untidy, but I can certainly live with them even though they may seem a little annoying.
Well, no. I'd sooner have the additional 'automotive mount' permanently installed and hard-wired, with the option of using a windscreen mount and fag plug in other cars.
Is the nüvi 660's so-called 'integrated' TMC system really built-in - or do you have to use the fag plug thing in order to get TMC updates?
Is the nüvi 660's so-called 'integrated' TMC system really built-in - or do you have to use the fag plug thing in order to get TMC updates?
nickwilcock said:
Is the nüvi 660's so-called 'integrated' TMC system really built-in - or do you have to use the fag plug thing in order to get TMC updates?
Yes, truly! There's one plug that goes into the mount (not the Nuvi) - it has the aerial lead with two plastic suckers for affixing to the inside bottom of the windscreen coming out of it. The other end is the cigarette lighter plug.
The TMC gubbings are definately inside the 660 casing!
Superb product - just done 800 miles. will report another time...
kev north said:
has anybody downloaded the maps for australia on the 660?
is it easy to do?
is it easy to do?
I bought the US maps as I spend a large amount of time there on business. The maps are preloaded on a SD card and cannot be downloaded. I tried to copy them to a larger SD card so I could add MP3 files to it too, but they have obviously built in some key mechanism to tie it to the original SD card, that meant that the maps won't load.
Putting in the proper SD card, the maps just loaded up as normal and now I can see Europe as well as the US, so I assume that it will be just as easy for Australia.
Chris
AMG Merc said:
nickwilcock said:
Is the nüvi 660's so-called 'integrated' TMC system really built-in - or do you have to use the fag plug thing in order to get TMC updates?
Yes, truly! There's one plug that goes into the mount (not the Nuvi) - it has the aerial lead with two plastic suckers for affixing to the inside bottom of the windscreen coming out of it. The other end is the cigarette lighter plug.
The TMC gubbings are definately inside the 660 casing!
Superb product - just done 800 miles. will report another time...
More details on it here.
[url]www.gpsw.co.uk/details/prod3257.html[/url]
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