Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS System: Review

Inability to Find Signals, Lack of Up-to-date POI's, Biggest Weakness

This past Christmas, I received the Garmin nuvi 660 Global Positioning System and after working with it I want to share the pros and cons of this device.

Sometimes I like to go "exploring", visiting new places, wanting to know the quickest way between two different points.

One of the biggest disadvantages of the system is that sometimes a message stating "Acquiring Satellites" comes on and it may take several minutes to find a signal.

I have found walking along streets in New York City and driving on Pennsylvania highways for the system to fail to find a satellite. I believe the tall buildings in New York blocked the signal while the terrain and remote parts of Pennsylvania contributed to the lack of signal there.

Unfortunately, while the system does allow you to simulate a trip, it's hard to do that when the system can't tell you where you are especially when you are inside. There is no way to modify the "start" location to make up for this. Once you have a signal, you got it made.

The only exception is some tunnels where the GPS may lose the signal temporarily but gains it right back quickly.

Just make sure that your battery bar in the main menu shows it's fully charged you should be fine if you mostly use the GPS in your vehicle and have it hooked into your car's DC power. While the system tells you that you have "low battery", such as when you bring the unit in someone else's car, you have a problem unless you can quickly hook it into your car's cigarette lighter or AC power.

The trip simulator is a God sent if you don't know an area that well and want to concentrate on driving and not looking at the screen the whole trip.

The unit will show you the various step-by-step maps of each turn and give both audio dialogue and a written message showing those turns. This allows you to become familiar with the route you are about to embark on.

The ability to listen through the unit's external speaker or an FM frequency is excellent as well. For the FM feature, tune your radio to an unused FM channel and set the frequency on your system to that channel by picking an odd-numbered frequency between 88.1 FM and 107.9 FM.