Garmin nuvi 660 GPS - Review

The Garmin nuvi 660 is an outstanding GPS and I've been using it for some while now. It has no trouble finding its way around Rhode Island and that's something I've never been able to manage, even after living here since 1999! I got it for about $330 from Amazon but I don't know if that's the best price. I knew it was close enough and I knew if Amazon said I'd get it the next day then it would happen just that way. I was so steamed after driving up to Boston a while back that I ordered it for next-day delivery as I am *never* going to go through that again!

One thing I definitely recommend is the friction dashboard mount. It's just under $30 but it's vastly better than the standard suction cup mount that comes with the unit. The friction mount just sits on the dashboard and doesn't need to be stuck to anything. You'd think it would slide around but it doesn't move at all. The way I do it is to leave the mount on the floor of the car and carry the GPS in my pocket. When I'm ready to go, the mount drops on the dashboard, the plug goes into the cigarette lighter, and the GPS clips very easily onto the mount. Whiz, bang, and I'm rolling.

The support is quite good as you'll be entitled to a free map upgrade if you buy one close to year-end. The process is a bit daunting but it worked flawlessly, even if a bit time-consuming. That's no big crime given that it's loading every street in the country into the GPS! The way it works is that you download the updater from the Garmin Web site and the file is just over two gigabytes. I've got a premium cable connection and the download averaged 1.93 megabytes per second so it took just under twenty minutes to get the update onto my computer.

After the download is complete, you'll find there's not much documentation for how to perform the update on a Mac but it's not a problem. Click the updater app and it will guide you the rest of the way with meticulous point by point instructions. The GPS connects to the computer via USB and the maps download to it via the updater. This process is somewhat more lengthy than the download from the Web site but is still not exorbitant at somewhat over thirty minutes.

For my recent trip back to Cincinnati, I put the GPS and the mount in my tote and the TSA inspectors didn't give me any flak over it. Since it costs about $15 a day to rent a GPS, it was worth taking it and it had no trouble at all with Cincinnati. The only thing that was a little strange was when I was driving back to my ol' Mother's place but I-75 was all screwed up with heavy traffic. I know Cincinnati fairly well so I set out a different way and the GPS kept trying to direct me back to I-75 even when that route wasn't really practical. There's a way to make it take an alternate route but I haven't played with that yet.

Something that may take a bit of adjusting is that the unit updates its position about every 2-3 seconds. At highway speed that can be a significant distance so it may not discover you're not on the off-ramp until you've gone past it. You'll get plenty of warning that the off-ramp is coming so this will likely only happen when you're deliberately ignoring its directions.

All in all, I'm well-satisfied with the GPS nuvi 660 and would recommend it to anyone. It's very easy to use, has loads of features, is well-supported, and is highly reliable. Five stars. To get the best price, try googling 'garmin 660 price comparison' and that should get you some good results.