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to figure it out,,, its not like a regular navigation where you can mark the point. The POI never comes up while you are driving,, you need to know where you want to go first and it will take you just there but wont show other POIs around the location. All in all, one thing that works good is the bluetooth pairing and the dumbed down menu, which frankly, I didnt really care about. I am really dissapointed in this GPS and would ask the company employees to use it themselves and feel how it is to take a left turn on a highway!!

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to figure it out,,, its not like a regular navigation where you can mark the point. The POI never comes up while you are driving,, you need to know where you want to go first and it will take you just there but wont show other POIs around the location. All in all, one thing that works good is the bluetooth pairing and the dumbed down menu, which frankly, I didnt really care about. I am really dissapointed in this GPS and would ask the company employees to use it themselves and feel how it is to take a left turn on a highway!!

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Nuvi 680 to raise our odds. Here is what happened.

Out of the box, Nuvi immediately locked on to the 'birds' INSIDE our host's house ... impressive. In 10-minutes, I had it ready in the car. Nuvi's street address entry is VERY easy and ABBREVIATED, displaying the correct address with minimal entry! Cool! It only took moments for Nuvi to calculate the route and off we go for the hour ride to the restaurant. Before leaving, I touch our host's street on the screen and Nuvi lets me enter and permanently save full details about our starting point for easy call up when it is time to return.

After 20-minutes, I threw our paper maps away. Apart from the basic route, Nuvi WARNED ABOUT WHICH LANES to use ('Stay Left' or 'Stay Right') and announced the turns in PLENTY of time. It even announced which side of the road to find the restaurant, which was hidden by a hill until the last moment. Bingo-bango-bongo-bam ... THERE IT IS ... right where Nuvi said, arriving within 1-minute of Nuvi's prediction for the hour ride. Nuvis 'text-to-speech' is very good, backed by top-line screen instructions.

Our friends are late and the restaurant is packed. We finish with 10-minutes to make the theater, park and hike it to our seats. Oh, man, I still don't know where we are going and I'm sure we are NOT going to make it. It took 30 seconds to enter the theater address, racing off. My confidence rises as Nuvi guides us through multiple turns straight to the theater parking lot, a new facility only 6 months old. We get to our seats with 1-minute to spare; 6th row ready to enjoy the marvelous spector of Irish dance.

My friend falls in love with the violinist. I'm not so selective wanting to take ALL the talented, beautiful girls home. I'm sure the ladies felt the same about the guys. The performance was teriffic, candy for the eyes and ears with arrival guaranteed by Nuvi.

Charged by the performance, I tell Nuvi to take us back to our hosts house. Nuvi's first route is to enter I-285 on the right side with an immediate exit to I-75 across 4-lanes of heavy traffic on the left. NOT POSSIBLE! Nuvi quickly knows the turn is missed, reports 'Re-calculating', and guides us to a quick and easy turn-around exit that was MUCH safer. This was a lesson not to BLINDLY follow a first pick by any GPS.

It gets better. The term 'Atlanta expressway' is an oxymoron, so I generally take the lesser back roads home for the 5-1/2 hour trip. Nuvi agrees rural roads are better and calculates a route I have never considered before. To my amazement, Nuvi cuts the trip time for the 300 mile trip to 260 miles and 4-hours 50-minutes. 40 minutes FASTER on superior roads which I would have NEVER noted on a paper map. We pulled onto the driveway at the EXACT time Nuvi predicted ... to the MINUTE. The display can be zoomed in/out, while a wide angle route view will AUTOMATICALLY zoom in as a turn is approached, with excellent detail.

While Nuvi 680 has standard and optional features for which I have no use (e.g., Bluetooth), a few really appeal to me. Download your favorite MP3's and Amazon Audible audio books for a more enjoyable trip. The fidelity is very good when Nuvi is told to play them through a quiet, fully selectable FM frequency on your car radio, interupted by Nuvi's brief turn instructions. If you have a car stereo aux input, Nuvi can use it with an optional (Radio Shack) cable. Nuvi will run for an unknown-to-me amount of time on a lithium battery. FM broadcast is through Nuvi's 12-volt adapter cable as a transmit antenna, therefore likely required for the FM feature. When cable powered, Nuvi shuts off with ignition after a 30 second warning that offers the option to stay on with battery power. Nuvi also has a security lock feature that I have not used, yet. When away from home, a 4-digit code would be required to activate the GPS. When at home, Nuvi knows it and bypasses the code requirement. If the unit were to be stolen with this feature in use, the ONLY known way it can be unlocked is by sending it to Garmin. If you have registered your Nuvi, Garmin will know it's a stolen unit.

You can touch the screen on an IDENTIFIABLE point to make an unplanned route change as a new destination or 'via' stop. Gadget geeks may like the MSN traffic, weather, gas-station, 'points of interest' features but I cannot conceive how that can be made to work well as some reviewers opine. Some things still require judgement and brain power.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect any GPS to tell YOU where an unplanned destination can be found and always be accurate. Download Garmin's map updates timely, plan the trip with STREET ADDRESSES in hand and Nuvi WILL confidently guide you right to it. Does it ALWAYS choose right? Not for me. Nuvi wanted to take us down Georgia's I-95 for the last leg home. With on-going (decades) worth of construction amidst very heavy traffic with copious numbers of semis squeezing through narrowed lanes, it is an inordinately DANGEROUS highway which, despite MSN, Nuvi can't judge. Local knowledge prevails. What is marvelous is how quickly Nuvi detects the detour and recalculates the route (a whopping 3-minute difference). When it does detect a 'wrong' turn, it may first try to get you back on the original route. If you purposely miss the second turn, Nuvi gets the idea.

With a Nuvi 680 on board, you can put your road maps in the trunk for emergency use and let Nuvi guide you while entertaining with your favorite music or audio books in the bargain. And if you are a true road warrior that cannot stand to be disconnected from the world with one of those goofy things sticking in the ear ... well, you get your wish, too.

I suppose states that have banned windshield mounts can make the case that a driver may look too much at the GPS, despite a view into the hood, and not enough at the road. I make the case that it is far more dangerous to mount it away from the windshield, forcing one to fully look away from the road. Nuvi's verbal instructions are usually adequate and good judgment dictates looking only when necessary. Display brightness is plenty adequate day and night and fully adjustable. If you need to make ANY meaningful setting change, the socially responsible way to do it is by pulling off the road, first. If you try to do it while driving you ARE being IRRESPONSIBLE and become a danger to everyone else. It is NOT possible to do this, responsibly, while driving. Yet another of our local citizens lost their life in a head-on collision talking on a cellphone with a laptop computer running in the passenger seat. Give me a break!! The worse news is that the driver of the car he hit is also paying the price for this stupidity with a very lengthy and painful hospital stay. No one has this 'right' on public highways.

Well! In the end, I did manage to 'kidnap' a beautiful doll in Atlanta and take her home ... the voice of the lady whom is now known as 'Miss Nuvi'. I shall hold her for a ransom none can pay, such is the beauty of her intellect. Indeed, the charm of Miss Nuvi's excellent features are such that I don't think it's practical to consider buying a car with a built-in unit. Why do that, when the Garmin Nuvi can be transplanted to any car any time.