Garmin 670 Review

The Garmin nuvi 670 GPS Navigator and Personal Travel Assistant builds upon the best selling features of the Nuvi family while adding preloaded map coverage of North America and Europe. The Garmin nuvi 670 comes preloaded with highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps for North America and Europe. This map database features points of interest, including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs and attractions. The map data is provided by NAVTEQ, a world leader in premium quality mapping. Other features include a super-bright, 4.3-inch widescreen display for improved map viewing, POI lookup and MP3/audible book playback. The built-in FM transmitter allows the user to wirelessly transmit audio through the vehicle’s stereo. Garmin 670 also offers Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free calling when paired with compatible phones.

Despite being loaded with features, the Garmin 670 still allows you to navigate with ease. Garmin 670 comes ready to go right out of the box with preloaded NavTeq City Navigator NT street maps for both North America and Europe, and includes a hefty points of interest (POIs) database with hotels, restaurants, fuel stops, ATMs and more. Simply touch the super-bright, sunlight-readable color screen to enter a destination, and the Garmin 670 takes you there with either 2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. This navigator voice even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road, and can concentrate on your driving to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. In addition, the Garmin 670 accepts custom points of interest (POIs), such as school zones and safety cameras, and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs that require your special consideration such as speed zones and safety cameras.

Speaking of keeping you safe, the Garmin nüvi 670 lets you make hands-free calls so you can talk freely during your worry-free driving. By integrating Bluetooth wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker, you can pair your nüvi with any compatible Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free while staying focused on the road. You no longer have to fumble with your phone’s handset to answer a call or dial a number, just tap the Garmin 670’s screen and you’re instantly connected. And with 1-touch dialing for your POIs, you can quickly and conveniently call ahead to make reservations or get needed information.

You can also avoid tie-ups and steer clear of traffic with the Garmin nüvi 670’s integrated FM TMC traffic receiver. Garmin 670 allows you to receive alerts about road construction and traffic problems that lie ahead on your route. Simply touch the nüvi’s screen to view traffic details or change your route so you can detour around the problem area. All of which can be customized with configurable vehicle icons that let you choose individual car-shaped icons in a variety of colors that show your position on the map. As an added benefit, the Garmin nüvi 670 has an FM transmitter as well, which allows you to hear its voice prompts, or your music or audio books through your car’s stereo for a fuller, richer sound.

In additional to all this functionality, the Garmin 670 includes many must-have entertainment and travel tools such as an MP3 player, an audio book player (subscription to Audible.com required), and a JPEG picture viewer so you can take your favorite music and pictures with you wherever you go. Garmin 670 also features a world travel clock with time zones, a currency converter, a measurement converter, and a calculator so that wherever you travel it will be easy to know what you are getting and keep track of your costs. The MP3 player lets you browse music by artist, album, and/or song, while the optional audio books may be purchased from Audible.com which features over 70,000 hours of audio programs. What’s more, the Garmin 670 allows further customization via optional software such as travel guide, savings programs and language translation on plug-and-play SD cards for all your travel needs.

The Garmin nüvi 670 comes with a built-in, high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver, and lets you view and operate it via its bright, LCD TFT touch-screen, wide-screen display that measures 4.3 inches (diagonal) and has a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels with 64,000 colors and a white backlight. As a whole, the Garmin 670 measures 4.9 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches (W x H x D), and weighs only 6.2 ounces for easy portability. This unit provides you with from three to seven hours of battery life (depending on use) via its rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and comes with Garmin Lock, which is an anti-theft feature to protect your investment. While you can add software via the SD card slot, the Garmin nüvi 670 also lets you interface via high-speed USB for loading data, though users should note that, like most USB mass storage devices, this unit is not compatible with Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.

Garmin 670 User Said:

The Garmin nuvi 670 is my third Garmin GPS. The first one was Street Pilot II, very hard to use. The second one was C330, very easy to use. I also have built-in GPS in two of my cars too. The new Garmins are all very easy to use. I bought the Garmin 670 for traveling in north America and Europe. Also bought the bean bag, what a waste! Within the first two miles I tried, it just flew off the dash board in a straight acceleration at a traffic light. I am sticking with the suction cup.

A couple interesting things: A street near where I live was built about three years ago and it wasn’t in the nuvi still. I tried to look up some hotels and attractions in Venice, Italy and Geneva, Switzerland but the nuvi didn’t even list the two citis (read on). I e-mailed Garmin tech support and was told I have to be near the cities to be able to find the POIs. What a bunch of BS. It worked when I searched POIs in Zurich, why not Geneva and Venice? Later I found out by myself that, if the spelling of an European city in its native language is not the same as its English spelling, the nuvi may not list it after you enter the city name in its English spelling. You need to enter the native spelling. For example, I entered “Geneva”, it listed a bunch of Genevas in the U.S., but not THE Geneva in Switzerland, same thing with Venice. I found out the Geneva is Geneve and Venice is Venezia in native language. Once I typed Geneve and Venezia, it worked!

—– By Douglas G. Liu

Garmin 670 Features

• Pre-loaded with complete Navteq maps for all of North America and Europe
• 4.3-inch, touch-screen TFT LCD display with 480 x 272 pixels of resolution
• Bluetooth for hands-free calling; Integrated receiver for traffic data
• MP3 player, photo viewer, world clock, currency and measurement converters, calculator and more
• Weighs 6.2 ounces and measures 4.9 x 2.9 x 0.9 inches (W x H x D)

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