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| Garmin nüvi 660 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator | 
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| Brand: Garmin
Category: CE
List Price: $699.99
Buy New: $299.99
You Save: $400.00 (57%)
New (69) Refurbished (5)
Avg. Customer Rating:  1200 reviews
Sales Rank: 4
Format: Cd
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Native Resolution: 480 x 272
Display Size: 4.3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 12 x 12 x 5
nv:Type: Car Kit
Waypoints: 500 with name and graphic symbol
Trip Computer: Average Speed
Trip Computer: Resettable Odometer
Trip Computer: Timers
Trip Computer: Maximum Speed
Inputs: 12/24 Vdc
Display: Color
Touch Screen: Yes
Voice: Yes
Battery Life: 7 hours
Antenna: Flip-up patch
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 010-00540-00
Model: 010-00540-00
UPC: 053759065110
EAN: 0753759061265
ASIN: B000H49LXQ
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 GREAT GPS WOULD BUY ANOTHER! June 25, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I purchased the Nuvi 660 on June 19 2007. I have used this every day since I have received it. I spend about 10 hours a day driving. This unit is great. I have found very few short comings, and I usually figured out a way to work around them. I have heard complaints of the FM transmitter. You may have issues when in an area that has many stations, but other wise worked well. You can control the volume of your music independent of the directions. My wife has not been able to get it out of my hands. I told her we would buy another, she was very impressed with it today, as I found many of the local shopping, food, gas stations and points of interest. I would not buy less. Others have shown me their GPS units, I have seen none that I would give up my Nuvi 660 for. Great purchase, Amazon did a great job in shipping. One thing you should note is the delivery from UPS requires a signature. Great deal, thanks Amazon, thanks Garmin!
 Not Ready to Fall in Love June 22, 2007
47 out of 51 found this review helpful
From someone who has been using an automotive GPS for 7 years, a little philosophy first, if you please. A GPS should do 2 things very well: Show where you are (location), and provide accurate routing to get you to your destination. Inherent in accurate routing are 3 things: accurate maps, maps that are updatable so future accuracy is assured, and a good algorithm. These - location and routing - I call, "Primary aids to navigation."
Additional "features" fall into 2 categories: "Supplemental navigational aids," that assist getting to your destination and those that are unnecessary "fluff."
The supplemental aids breakdown into 2 categories, as well: Primary and Secondary supplemental aids. Primary supplemental aids are real-time (RT) or near real-time (NRT) data: traffic, weather radar, nearby fuel prices, and to a lesser extent, safety camera locations. Without exception, RT and NRT data aids are subscription-based services.
Secondary supplemental navigational aids are places to eat, or other places you may need to find on-the-fly in unfamiliar areas, such as banks with an ATM, and stores. These are known as "points-of-interest" (POI). Primary and secondary supplemental aids aren't absolutely necessary to navigation, but contribute greatly to the overall navigation functionality and experience. Most would consider these as, "must have," as part of any GPS.
What remains is fluff. Of far too many current upper-range GPSs, 50% is navigational aid, and 50% is fluff. Bluetooth, MP3, an FM transmitter, and photo displays - all included with the Nuvi 660 - fall into the fluff category. Sure, they might be fun to fool and fuss with to take your mind off of driving - gee, what a capital idea - but they are not navigational aids: they're distractions.
That said, this review does not include commentary on the fluff.
PRIMARY NAVIGATIONAL AID: Good to excellent for urban and suburban areas; challenged by rural areas
The Nuvi 660, like its 650, 670, and 680 counterparts, picks up GPS signals rather quickly. The display is easy to read. The touch-screen menu system is fairly easy to find your way around (sic). Setting up a route is a matter of plugging in a destination by using the touch screen keyboard. You don't even have to spell the whole name; only enough so the Nuvi can narrow down the search results to a manageable level. When I typed, "Fairfield," it successfully pulled the Fairfield Inn of interest out of its POI database even though the hotel was over 250 miles away. Good. The POI database seems reasonably robust, although I noticed at several exits along Interstates 85 and 65 in Alabama, about 35% of the gas stations were not in the POI database.
ROUTING
There's some good, and some not so good about the routing. I live in a rural area. Google Earth (GE), which also uses the NavTeq maps, successfully chose the route 20 years of experience taught me to be the fastest. The Nuvi insists on routing me on slower, narrower roads, as though every state route (SR) or county route (CR) has the same properties or precedence as every other. In the case of a SR that I often use, it is 4-lanes wide with a 65mph speed limit. That's probably not the norm, but GE figures it out; Nuvi does not. Also, routes may not be imported from an external source, otherwise I'd import the GE route into the Nuvi. Considering the same maps are used by both GE and Nuvi, the determining factor becomes the routing algorithm which is inadequate for the Nuvi in rural areas.
The Nuvi routes quite well in urban and suburban areas, though. While transversing Atlanta's spaghetti junction at I-85 and I-285, "Wilma" (yes, I named her) accurately got us through the maze, telling us to keep left or keep right as appropriate for upcoming lane changes. (3337'13.72"N, 8428'28.39"W.) Wilma also kept up with the changes even though we were flowing with traffic through the junction at a goodly pace.
PRIMARY SUPPLEMENTAL AIDS
For RT/NRT data aids, the Nuvi 660 comes with a 3 month traffic subscription to Total Traffic Network from Clear Channel. The subscription activates automatically when you are in range of one of the participating transmitters. Mine activated when I was about 30 miles out from the Atlanta area. Since we never ran into any traffic, it is difficult to surmise the effectiveness.
SECONDARY SUPPLEMENTAL AIDS
Some may disagree POIs don't have a higher level of importance than what I assign...they ARE fairly important, especially when you're looking for someplace in particular and don't have the address. Fair enough, but I believe the primary navigation and primary supplemental aids hold higher precedence.
Unlike Garmin's StreetPilot III, the Nuvi does not clutter up the screen with all nearby POIs at the "most detail" setting. This makes it significantly easier to find the particular POI you're seeking. The Nuvi fixes the scale at which you can see POIs, whereas the older SP III allowed adjusting the scale.
SUMMARY
If you're looking for your first GPS and live in or frequent an area covered by the traffic network (www.garmin.com/fmtraffic), the Nuvi 660 is an acceptable choice. Auto-routing seems to work very well in these areas and along Interstates. If you live in a rural area, then the less expensive Nuvi 650 is a smarter buy. Additionally, auto-routing in rural areas where's there's lots of farm, county, or state roads, is not as well refined.
If you are looking to replace an older GPS, my advice is to wait about a year. In that time, there should be some high-end interconnected units available which sound to have great promise for accurate mapping and traffic information outside of urban areas using the cell phone system.
 Truckers be forwarned, they don't use truck routes! June 20, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
As a new truck driver I needed a GPS unit to help me get from place to place and was willing to spend a pretty penny to have a good unit. This unit is indeed great in almost every single way. For me however the only area it comes up short is when you select the option to plan your route by 'truck'. I had mistakenly thought that Garmin programmed in a route so that you would stay on designated truck-only routes and might even warn you of low underpasses (a trucker's nightmare). Both of my hopes were dashed. Garmin even mentions on the FAQ section of their website (if you query by the words truck routes you'll find the details), that they do NOT claim at all to route via truck routes when selecting 'truck' as your vehicle type. All they do is keep you on more major streets, but not necessarily trucking ones. They also have no low underpasses pre-programmed in at all. But, while it sounds like I'm slamming the unit, I'm not. It's a great GPS device, easy to use, works wonderfully for what it's been programmed to do, and my wife and I will get a lot of use out of it on many trips to come. But, if you're specifically looking at one for a trucking job, this is NOT the one to get.
Great Product June 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
First of all, you have to understand the limitations of this technology. If you are living in a town with a lot of growth and many new streets in the last year or so, the Nuvi won't find them. I drove through a subdivision that was developed 4 years ago - and the Nuvi shows me driving in a field.
Many of these problems cannot be blamed on the Nuvi, however; it is more likely the fault of the information supplied by the community and how often it is updated.
The other main complaint of the Nuvi is the FM transmitter. If your radio antenna is in the back of the car, it will be too far away for a clear signal from the Nuvi. You will get a lot of hiss, even when you find a clear radio station. And, of course, if you are traveling across country, the "clear" station that you found in one area may be home to a monster radio station somewhere else along your route.
A better solution is the headphone jack in the side of the unit. You can plug a cord into the jack, and into the mp3 jack in your stereo. If you have an older stereo and no jack, Radio Shack makes a cassette tape with the same jack and cord coming out of it. Simply pop in the tape, plug in the cord, and your "tape" setting on the stereo will route the Nuvi audio.
Beyond these items, the product is outstanding. I have never had to wait longer that 20 seconds for it to acquire a signal, even on the cloudiest days. The voice commands are very clear, and the timing of the commands matches your speed - in other words, if I am driving 25 mph, the voice will tell me "turn left in .3 miles", but if I am going 70 on the freeway, it will tell me "turn left in .8 miles". You always have plenty of time to switch lanes, etc.
The POI's work as indicated.
One other glitch- in Missouri, we name some of our roads with letters (who knows why), and the Nuvi wants to "name" the lettered roads. In other words, Hwy CC becomes Highway Country Club when spoken.
Overall, this is amazing technology and allows you to drive without worrying about glancing at a map. When you are out of town, it is a lifesaver. I drove to St. Louis, and it took me to the front door of my hotel. The next morning, I realized that I had forgotten a SD card for my digital camera. Needing the card, and having no clue where I was, the Nuvi took me directly to the nearest Walgreens, and directly back to the hotel.
Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase.
Directions and Audible Street Names - Easy to Use Out of the Box June 16, 2007
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Since moving to a new city, my (self proclamed directionally challenged) wife and I decided to take the plunge and get our first navigation system and as usual with technology purchases, I was left to make the research and the purchase decision. After doing my homework, I purchased the Nuvi 660 three weeks ago and so far am suitably impressed. After initial charging with the supplied USB AC adaptor, the unit has functioned well and has given my wife and I above average directions. After a few tests, I trust it to take me places I have never been or to give me better routes than I usually take. I'm sure there are a lot of features I have not even discovered but I was able to self learn the basics without consulting the user CDROM.
I will list the pros and cons I have noticed to date:
Pro
- Large screen touch screen is easy to see in daylight or night.
- Uses street names when using the audible directions feature which I have found useful in an unfamiliar city.
- Can be used in the handheld mode for walking (we have already done this a couple times).
- Quick and intuitive to use right out of the box.
- Comes nicely equipped with chargers, cover, and mount.
Con
- User manual is on CDROM.
- Unit is kind of pricy.
- Takes a long time (more than a few minutes) to initially find satellites. (I don't keep it in the car so I am thinking about giving it a chance to find itself before I go out to the car.)
- Says, "Recalculating" in a really sarcastic tone when your go off route. (I am not the only person who noticed the tone as evidenced by other reviews and comments.)
A neutral item is that it seems to have a propensity towards using the Interstates.
Overall, my wife and I like it and have above average satisfaction. My wife is able to use it by herself and finds it reassuring while navigating a new city which makes me feel better as well. That alone makes it worth it.
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