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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: $244.82
You Save: $455.17 (65%)
New (50) Used (3) Refurbished (7)
Avg. Customer Rating:  1431 reviews
Sales Rank: 34
Format: Cd
Platforms: Windows Xp Professional, Windows Xp Home Edition, Windows 2000
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Native Resolution: 480 x 272
Display Size: 4.3
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 2.6 x 2.6 x 2.6
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
MPN: 010-00540-00
Model: 010-00540-00
UPC: 053759065110
EAN: 0076565001226
ASIN: B000H49LXQ
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 The best gadget I've ever owned December 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
After reading all the good reviews about this GPS, I decided to buy it through Amazon.com since it was on sale right after Thanksgiving. Initially I wanted to get a Nuvi 360, which is a cheaper one, but the screen is too small and it lacks other features too. You can compare the products at garmin.com.
Nuvi 660 has all the features I look for in a GPS: widescreen, bluetooth, mp3 player and FM transmitter. Th bluetooth feature provides a convenient hands free talking without ever reaching for your cellphone to answer or make a call (you need to have a compatible bluetooth phone). To me, this is the best feature I'm looking for besides excellent turn-by-turn voice prompts which informs you of the street names.
The mp3 feature is very nice. No more reaching out for CDs or fiddling with the iPod. You can direct the sound through your car stereo via the FM transmitter. I already have an iPod transmitter but I don't regularly use it since it's not easy to browse through songs in the small iPod nano screen. Mp3 Songs can be added via the USB cable provided from your PC.
Other features such as picture viewer and languange guide are good too. It's a bit slow to view the pictures but hey, that's not what this GPS is for. It's just nice to have. Since it's portable, I can use it in my other car and rental cars too. This makes the product better than the in-dash GPS installed in cars. Imagine, if you have a GPS installed in your car, it's stuck there forever. You have to get another one for your other car and you have to pay extra to get GPS for your rental car.
 Garmin Nuvi 660 Doesn't Measure Up December 3, 2007
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
GARMIN NUVI? 660 TRAVEL ASSISTANT
After days of tedious research, in which I pretty much believed the information provided by the manufacturers, I decided to purchase a Garmin Nuvi 660 for my wife because she travels a lot by car in the eastern U.S.
From the very first usage (a casual trip to Vermont) where we knew the route we wanted to take and where there were few alternative routes, the Nuvi 660 started off in the wrong direction. In a few seconds it caught up with our location and "recalculated" our route to coincide with our usual route.
Next, we tried to use it on our annual trip to Charlotte, NC from our home in Saratoga Springs, NY. For this trip it insisted on routing us down I-87 (the NYS Thruway) to New Jersey and on to I-95 (the New Jersey Turnpike). This was completely unacceptable, so I just started driving with the thing turned on and when we headed west on the NYS Thruway it began its "recalculating" routine again. But, it missed the 'short route' from Albany, NY to Binghamton, NY via I-88 and instead wanted us to drive to Syracuse and take I-81 south to Binghamton! For the rest of the trip the Nuvi 660 directed us along the expected route.
I would have expected, that for a device of this expense, there would have been a way to enter several 'way points', so that the desired route could have been achieved without all the "recalculating"
In addition, while traveling in areas where we had no previous experience, we were directed to drive in directions that were totally counterintuitive. I was an Army Ranger and I know how to read a compass and a map. What I got in the way of directions from this device was, at times, completely stupid.
The blue-tooth feature, audible.com, and the Travel Kit add-ons worked perfectly and are probably the 'saving grace' that have kept us from returning the device!
 Awesome GPS Now That The Price Has Come Down December 2, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have been watching this Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS for quite some time now. The features are great and the reviews have remained very high. However, due to the extremely high cost of this model, over the past year or so, I held off buying it and just stuck with my trusty Lowrance IWay 350C Portable Color GPS. I recently found the Nuvi 660 on Amazon.com for under $500 so I finally decided to buy this little gadget. I am definately glad that I did!
Several other reviewers have gone over the feature-set of this GPS unit so I will not repeat them. I would like to point out some of the pros and cons that I have found with this particular model.
Pros
****
1. Battery Operation - I really like the fact that I can use this unit without connecting a power cord. I do not like to have a power cord strung up to my car's dashboard.
2. Bright and Colorful Widescreen Display - I really, REALLY like the display on the Nuvi 660. The widescreen offers a fairly large map display and all of the touch buttons on the screen are large enough for adult fingers. The display is colorful and can be made very bright. It is very easy to see even in bright daylight.
3. Reliable Navigation and Useful POI (points of interest) - I have had the chance to test this GPS on several trips and it is always spot on. The Nuvi 660 seems to choose the most practical route, even though not always the route that I would choose if I plotted it myself. The Nuvi puts me right back on track even if I intentionally detour off the path a bit. The POI database on this Nuvi is great and plentiful. It points out even the smallest and most remote stores and restaurants that I wanted to find.
4. Reliable Bluetooth Functionality - The Bluetooth features of the Nuvi 660 are wonderful and very reliable. I was able to easily pair the Nuvi GPS with both of my Motorola cell phones and using the Nuvi for hands-free calls is very useful. I did end up purchasing the remote microphone accessory for the Nuvi, for reasons that I explain in the Cons section below.
5. The Garmin Nuvi 660 comes with everything you need to use it right out of the box. It comes with an A/C charger, a DC charger (with FM traffic receiver), USB data cable, handy leather carry case, suction cup mount, and a dashboard disk (which is used with the suction cup mount). I also purchased a beanbag style portable friction mount holder, so I could easily mount and use the Nuvi 660 in multiple vehicles.
6. Quick Acquisition of Satellites - The Garmin Nuvi 660 has proven to acquire satellite lock in just seconds. My older Lowrance IWay 350C would sometimes take as long as 4 or 5 minutes to achieve a satellite lock. My new Garmin Nuvi 660 will usually acquire enough satellites to begin navigating within 30 to 50 seconds. That is very impressive!
7. Text To Speech - This feature is extremely useful and allows you to navigate without taking your eyes off from the road to look at the GPS display. I honestly think that text to speech capability should be standard on all automotive GPS systems.
Cons
****
1. No Auto Backlight Adjustment - I really wish the Nuvi 660 had a light sensor that would automatically dim the backlight when driving in the dark. When driving in bright daylight I have the backlighting cranked way up. Then, if I turn it on to drive home from work, in the dark, the Nuvi backlight is so bright that it hurts your eyes. You have to pull up the volume/backlight menu in order to manually adjust the light settings. It does automatically switch to "Night Mode", but that only changes the background of the maps from white to black. The contrast of the map colors on the black background is really strong and will hurt your eyes if you don't dim the backlighting quite a bit.
2. Maps Look A Bit Cartoonish - The maps on the Nuvi 660 are a little cartoonish for my liking. They are pretty but seem to be almost fluorescent in nature. The whole map scheme seens to look a little like something produced by LooneyTunes. I would like to see something with more neutral/gentle colors, and with a background that is something other than white or black. The contrast of these bright colors against the white and black backgrounds is headache inducing.
3. Voices Are Robotic Sounding - The English Male and British Male voices are pretty decent. However, all of the other male voices and every one of the female voices sound very robotic in nature and are sometimes hard to understand when pronouncing some street names.
4. The built in microphone is a little inadequate for Bluetooth, hands free calls. Adding the optional wired remote microphone will provide much better results for those that wish to use this feature regularly.
5. No QWERTY Keyboard - The touchscreen keyboard layout should have the option of using the QWERTY standard, like a standard typewriter/computer keyboard. The Nuvi keyboard follows the order of the alphabet (ABCD etc.).
Overall I am extremely happy with my purchase of the Garmin Nuvi 660 Portable GPS Navigator. The cons are minor but can be annoying. Having to pull up a menu to adjust backlighting for night vs day driving is my biggest complaint. I miss the gentler map colors of my Lowrance GPS but at least the maps are crystal clear on the Nuvi and extremely detailed. The resolution of the display is also very high. The instructional voice, which prompts you for upcoming turns and other navigational info, can also sometimes be a bit hard to hear when driving on the expressway. I have found that I must keep my radio turned off in order to recognize the voice at times. I have also used the built-in FM transmitter, to allow the GPS voice to announce instructions through my car speakers, but I do not like having to change the FM settings of the Nuvi and my car stereo whenever I travel into different cities, which can cause interference with your previous setting.
I have used portable GPS systems from TomTom and Lowrance, and I definately find this Garmin Nuvi 660 to be a big step up from those offerings. With the widescreen, high resolution display, and just about every feature that you could ever want in a portable GPS system, the Garmin Nuvi is definately worth serious consideration. Now that the 660 model has dropped below $500 here on Amazon.com (it is being discontinued but still sells for as much as $699 by some other merchants), I would highly recommend this unit to anyone looking for a full-featured, reliable GPS system. =o)
garmin gps December 2, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Works fine, unfortuately either I missed that it included a mount or it was not noted in the advertising, causing an un-needed additional purchase of a mount. Came with broken part, (charger) The manufacturer replaced it although I am sure it was not the manufacturers problem. Gave me concern that it was a returned unit.
GPS December 1, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with most other reviews on this GPS. It is easy to use and works perfectly. Even my wife wants to use it.
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