Garmin nüvi 1695 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth Navigator with Google Local Search & Real-Time Traffic

Garmin n� vi 1695 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth Navigator with Google Local Search & Real-Time Traffic

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Product Feature

• 5-inch backlit TFT color touchscreen display with 480 x 272 WQVGA pixel resolution
• Preloaded with City Navigator NT North America maps for the U.S, Canada and Mexico
• One-year subscription to Garmin nuLink services: Google search, fuel prices, weather, white pages, and more
• Advanced navigation features include turn-by-turn directions, lane assist with junction view, fuel-saving ecoRoute
• Smart features like trafficTrends historical traffic and myTrends predictive routing help you get there on time

Product Description

Enjoy the convenience of receiving certain real-time online content on the go with nüLink 1695. From fuel prices to Google Local Search, you'll be the first to know with Garmin nüLink! services. The 1695 also includes preloaded maps, lane assist with junction view, hands-free calling and ecoRoute. Plus it has n �Route technology with trafficTrends historical traffic and myTrends predictive routing to make daily driving even easier.

Garmin nüvi 1695 5-Inch Portable Bluetooth Navigator with Google Local Search & Real-Time Traffic Review

upd Mar 2011: Firmware update v2.6 released in Feb resolved issues with map scrolling and slow route calculation (so Garmin does listen to the customers). These improvements and the new price range makes it a much more reasonable purchase. Routing and estimated arrival time still remains an issue.
Most likely, Garmin silently disabled TrafficTrends feature with firmware update with firmware update in Feb. Traffic trends don't make any difference to routing, estimated arrival time or calculation time. This has been confirmed on GPS forums by some owners of 1695 and 3790. Garmin customer service rep did not think this is the case and I haven't pressed the issue further.
I lost the unit in March so this review might not reflect the most recent changes, let me know if this is the case.
The review below is as of Oct 2010 with minor edits as of March.
******
Bright side:

- Surprisingly stable for a device that have been released only recently. No major functional problems like freezing or lost satellites.
- NuLink traffic allows immediate traffic acquisition in most cases. Traffic data in reasonable. Coverage is decent. Garmin gets NuLink signal even in areas where my cellphone does not work.
- Lane assist works very well. There are occasionally junction views for those who think they are helpful.
- Google local POI search is sometimes helpful although I tend to use Garmin's categorized POI more often. Both Google search and Garmin's POI are much easier to use than POI search on TomTom.
- I really like local event search (sports, music, arts, etc). Flight status, gas prices and movie times, weather (including weather radar) are also interesting features. Not that I really use them, but they are nice.
- Safety camera information is available and you can report cameras on-the-fly by clicking on speed limit indicator. Reported cameras should become available to other users within minutes. However, according to Garmin customer service, you need to download safety camera updates manually from the website ( I checked twice). Their website suggests that camera updates should come from NuLink, so may be it was not done yet.

- The screen is big and bright, the voices are loud (I have volume and brightness set at 10%). Icons and menu items in many cases look better.
- There are map themes available. You can select one of the pre-defined themes, or you can copy and edit theme .xml files to create your own (you will need a couple of hours of time and at least mspaint to work with hexadecimal colors).
- Pedestrian mode is looks beautiful, was much easier to use on older units.
- Also route planner is very well done and you can drag-and-drop destinations to rearrange your route.

******
Serious issues:
(note: I'm not familiar with 1xxx and 37xx series, so some of the things I'm complaining about can be common to these units. All comparison is again 2xx/7xx or TomTom 930 or 140)

- Traffic trends (historical travel speeds), advertised to provide better routes and estimated time of arrival, do not quite work (yet).
My driving experience so far:
In New Hampshire, Vermont, Western Maryland and Western Pennsylvania I don't see any significant difference compared to 255W. TomTom has slightly better ETA on mountain roads where it might be tough to drive at 55 mph.
In Florida (Orlando, Miami ) traffic trends worked surprisingly well. Have seen some meaningful detours and quite accurate ETAs on busy streets. Can see an improvement compared to non-traffic trend models.

On NYC streets a route estimated to take 25 minutes normally takes 35-40+ , mostly due to failure to account for traffic lights. As a result, the routes are often not optimal and in some cases worse than the routes with traffic trends disabled. If it's solely due to lack of historical traffic data, we might see an improvement as new map updates are released.
UPD: As I mentioned above, the feature seems to be disabled in firmware 2.6 and everything defaults to standard Garmin routing, which is not necessarily a bad think unless you're on busy streets. In NYC 60 minute actual travel time on estimated 25 is not uncommon, even without traffic jams. On highways the unit gives amazingly accurate arrival time.

- Performance issues. Very long calculation times (UPD this is a non-issue since traffic trends are disabled. Without traffic trends route calculation is relatively fast. The times below are for firmware 2.4 where the TT was turned still enabled)
200-mile NYC to Boston used to take 2.5 minutes on my first device. I exchanged the unit and it normally takes about 50 seconds on the new one. It gets longer if you're driving or if traffic information is available (not yet sure what matters more). Last weekend it took it 2 minutes to recalculate a 30-mile route after I missed a turn. By that time I was 2 miles away, so it decided to recalculate again and took another 2 minutes. The problem is even more acute on city streets.
In part, longer calculation times are due to the overhead created by TrafficTrends. Garmin recognizes the problem in 37xx and 2xxx series (but not in 1695) and advises to turn off traffic trends. They advertise a feature, charge a hefty amount of cash for it and then advise to turn it off - this seems like a very weird marketing strategy to me.
Switching between different map displays can also take a while (up to 10 seconds). I understand that it might be difficult to squeeze high-performance hardware into some compact-size unit, but 1695 is relatively big and heavy, so it's not clear why it doesn't match performance of smaller gps units.

Again, TomTom used to have similar problems with slow route calculation when they introduced IQRoutes a couple of years ago. They were later resolved by firmware updates.
Another note is that when the unit is used in the area where road network is not very dense, slow route calculation is no longer a problem. However in those areas, you don't really need 1695 and can get the same performance from a much simpler unit.

- Avoidances.
(upd: Feb 2011. This feature was announced to show up in Garmin 24xx serites. Most likely 1695 will not be retro-fitted)
It's not a surprise, but it's still not possible to avoid specific part of route. Something that was(!) available on older Nuvis and is available on every TomTom (starting $70). For example, I have a toll tunnel nearby that costs $5 and takes about 3 minutes to avoid. It takes a couple of clicks on TomTom, but becomes a difficult task on Garmin. There are standard workarounds, like avoiding all toll roads or adding a dummy via point to force Garmin to route through a different road. If necessary, I can go into details and give examples why this is not always an option. Again, given the price tag, one might hope to be spared the necessity of creating dummy via points and have basic functionality available.

- Map scrolling (Resolved in Feb. Thanks, Garmin!)
Without exaggeration, scrolling a map in 2D mode is by far the worst touch screen experience I ever had in my life. They tried to introduce some iPhone-like "inertia" in map movement while scrolling and failed miserably. I often use "browse map" mode to select a point on map as a destination. On this unit it becomes a very painful exercise. The map would occasionally overshoot, jump in the opposite direction or, occasionally, select a new destination when you simply tried to browse the map.
This only concerns map scrolling. In all other modes the touchscreen works like magic.
Screen calibration helps a little bit, but touch screen behaviour is irritating to the extreme (press and hold in upper-left corner of the screen when switching the unit on, keep holding for ~20-30sec, the calibration screen will show up). Before buying this thing, go to a local store, try to browse the map and decide if you can commit not to smash the unit against the wall one day after trying to select a point on map.
upd: after a month of suffering I figured that touchscreen is a bit more predictable if I scroll with the back of my nail with minimal pressure (although at $400 per unit it is kind of weird and there is a risk to scratch the screen)

- Ergonomics
For quite some time now I've seen TomTom doing much better job at routing but nevertheless preferred Garmin because of amazing ergonomics, beautiful map display and ease of use. With this unit (and I understand this is also related to other new models) most of it is gone. I'll give more examples below not to overload with details here.

*****
To buy or not to buy:

- Cost
If you decide to own this unit, here is a simple cost breakdown:

>=$80 to purchase lifetime map updates. TrafficTrends are only updated with map updates, so you'll have to buy it if you want a hope that TrafficTrends will have a decent performance. TomTom similarly requires map updates to update IQRoutes data, but the big difference is that their IQRoutes data is mature and does not require much updating, while Garmin's TrafficTrends are in their infancy.

$50 per year to keep NuLink traffic subscription. Over 3 weeks that I own this unit I've never seen a real traffic jam on the road that would be reflected in NuLink trafic but would not show up through ClearChannel FM traffic subscription on my older Nuvi. NuLink reports more traffic events, but many of them don't seem to be real. I appreciate the potential of connected traffic, but don't see a clear benefit yet.

$2.99/months (~$40 per year) to keep safety camera subscription. The design of their traffic cameras is cool, no argument here, but I'm not sure it's worth it. If I'm not mistaken, TomTom updates traffic cameras for free. I also have lifetime PhantomAlers subscription that works for multiple devices and provides additional info like known historical cop car locations. From what I've seen so far Garmin's data is no better than Phantom.

+ you need $25/year to maintain advanced weather subscription (weather radar).

So if you want to use this device to the full potential, the total price will be well above $420 posted on Amazon.

- Competitors
Connected features: many of the NuLink features might already be available on your smartphone, sometimes for free.
Navigation: In New York City and other densely populated areas TomTom (even the cheapest) beats any Garmin by a wide margin. On highways or in rural areas with few congestions or traffic lights older Garmin units perform flawlessly (on par or better than TomTom) and 1695 brings little or no additional benefit.
Ease of use: with the introduction of new cumbersome menus I would say that 1695 is on par with TomTom and much worse than 2xx or 7xx series. One area where this unit still beats TomTom is POI search, especially for parks and landmarks.

- Summary
I am a text book example of a brand loyal customer. I'm using some brands for more than a decade now without even considering competitors. With 1695 Garmin is seriously testing the limits of my loyalty. I decided not to return it back to the seller, but it is very likely to be my last Garmin unit if performance, routing and usability issues are not resolved.
So far, I view 1695 as an expensive toy and a cool gadget, but not a top-notch navigation device. It has a potential, which is yet to be or not to be realized.
UPD: TomTom's higher-end LIVE model (2535 LIVE) is not yet released in the US. This pretty much leaves 1695 the only new connected device.

***************************
Additional stuff (and it's also long....)

I will list here some issues that I consider to be non-critical design flaws. You can judge whether these are likely to cause you any trouble.

- This is a very minor issue, but a clear-cut design problem. Speed limit indicator turns red if you exceed posted speed limit. As a result at night you will get red numbers on grey background. Right next to it there will be a high-contrast black-on-white speed limit icon. At night, low-contrast red-on-grey is difficult to see next to high-contrast black-on-white and you have to spend an extra split second figuring out what the speed is. Visual alerts are supposed to help, not to distract. I asked Garmin CS to escalate this to the developers, but have some doubts that his will happen.
Second, here is no threshold, it becomes red once you are above the limit. Something should turn red only if some action is required. When driving in a 65mph zone you don't care if your speed is 65 or66, but you do care if you're driving at 76 as you might get a ticket. It should be customizable and there should be an option to turn it off (it is on TomTom).

- Map display. Older Nuvis clearly label nearby highways on a map. so that when you drive you always know what are the nearby roads. On 1695 it is possible to have a screen where no single highway is annotated. You can find my sample screenshots on gps forum. 255W could be used almost as a road atlas. 1695 is much less informative (even with Map Detail -> More). Occasionally 1695 might be better at showing upcoming streets but is much worse at giving a big pictiure.

- Menus
On older units it would take you 7 clicks to select a hotel near your route, on 1695 it takes 11. It used to take 5 clicks to get to "avoidances" menu, now it takes at least 7. When a list is presented (say, a list of avoidances) older units used to have 4 items per page, 1695 has 3 despite the bigger screen.This means more scrolling. If you have to do it while driving, all those extra clicks do matter. If you ever were amazed how many clicks it takes to do simple stuff on TomTom, be prepared to face the same on Garmin.
Up/Down buttons used to be big and easy to hit when you drive. Now those are small but stylish buttons on the left of the screen that you have to aim at. Simple "near" button at the bottom of the screen is now hidden and you have to click small "triple dash" button first.
UPD: some menu items were re-arranged in the new firmware which makes it a bit easier to use. Thanks again to Garmin.

Selecting a different state is as painful as it used to be on all Nuvis with the additional complication that you can't see the list of recently entered states and have to start typing the name and the unit will try to guess what you're looking for. You will not get a short list of "new york, new jersey, new mexico" until you actually type "new". This is really minor, but annoying since it happens over and over again. There used to be a drop-down list with recent values on older units.

- Night map
Looks really ugly if there are many roads around. Looks much better if local streets are made thinner (editable through xml maptheme files). Overall, night maps look like they are printed on an ancient VGA screen back in the eighties.

- handling traffic
Traffic handling still seems to have some problems. If the unit routes you around a traffic jam, but if the delay later disappears, it does not return you back on the original route, which is again the fastest (something that TomTom does). I've seen it only with the initial software version, so not sure if the problem still exists.

- adds
Overall, not too annoying and they are the least important factor I would consider when buying 1695. Still, would prefer an option to opt-out for some additional fee.

- map data
TomTom allows you to make edits to your maps (edit turns, block roads or edit speed limits). User edits are aggregated by TomTom and reflected in new map editions. To report map error to Garmin you have to spend 20 minutes of your time filling a cumbersome form on a website and then wait for a year for the update to come through. Just to give an example, Lincoln tunnel is driven by 100,000 people every day and still Garmin doesn't know how to route you there. It will try to enter from 39th street in Manhattan that has been closed for the last two years at least. Garmin introduced on-the-fly reporting for safety cameras (because they can charged for this) but didn't bother to do anything about maps.

- Junction views - initially I tried to disable it, but they appeared to be reasonably well done and don't annoy too much. I don't think they are even a little bit useful, but Garmin removes junction view popup fast enough so that it does not cause major problems.

- Customer service
The first CS rep I spoke with was unprofessional beyond repair and ended up saying things like "avoid traffic means avoiding routes that are historically known to have traffic" or "traffic trends information is updated on your device through satellite signal". The second rep did not have some answers available but was willing to find things out and proved to be helpful. So be prepared that CS stuff does not necessarily know answers to your questions and don't always trust what they are telling you. You might decide to call again if you feel you don't trust the information you're getting.

Hope it helps.

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