Garmin's nuLink-enabled nuvi 1690 is nuly official

News of Garmin's nüvi 1690 took an unofficial route and managed to find its way to us a few weeks ago, but the official press release took a little longer, arriving this morning and confirming that the connected device will be available sometime before the end of the year at an MSRP of $499.99. For that you'll get two years of the Garmin nüLink service, including such niceties as Google local search, white page listings, real-time traffic and flight status updates, and the Latitude-like Ciao service, which would enable you to snoop on your friends' locations from afar. The 1690 even hops on the trendy green bandwagon with an ecoRoute mode that will select the least environmentally destructive route -- based on expected speed and acceleration, not on the expected number of critters squashed along the way. Fancy? You betcha, but there's still no official word on the even fancier 1800-series. Perhaps official confirmation of that device is taking the most eco-friendly route -- walking.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2009 11:32AM]

Fascinating.

[onemadrssn Posted Sep 3rd 2009 11:33AM]

soooo they copied the tomtom basically.

tomtom is better anyway.

[Andy Anonymous Posted Sep 3rd 2009 3:08PM]

Unless you actually like a decent route guidance engine.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 3rd 2009 11:35AM]

I just wish they'd make large radio head units so I could replace my mom's radio with this.

[onemadrssn Posted Sep 3rd 2009 11:44AM]

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_099AVN4430/Eclipse-AVN4430.html?tp=20222

[S Michael Posted Sep 3rd 2009 11:48AM]

I hope it comes with a better mount than my Garmin. . .don't need $500 gps falling off the window

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 5th 2009 3:33AM]

http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/home/support/searchsupport
Question: Can I replace the battery in my nuvi?
Answer:

The nuvi series does not have a user replaceable battery with a few exceptions. The exceptions include the nuvi 5xx, 8xx and the nuvi 900T. These devices have a replaceable lithium-ion battery. The battery can be purchased on our website from the following links: nüvi 5xx Lithium-ion battery (replacement), nüvi 8xx Lithium-ion battery (replacement)

Last modified on: 03/03/2009