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"POP-UP ADS ARE COINSTANT AND INTRUSIVE! AVOID!" on by IFLYMAUI
Pros: What is wrong with Garmin? Once the leader in GPS technology, it fails miserably these days. See below in CONS...
Cons: For your $500.00 investment, be prepared for POP-UP AD CONTENT that takes over your screen with a small insert ad. You have no way of being able to disable it.
Summary: It's INTRUSIVE that Garmin would charge more than Magellan or Tom Tom for their GPS units and then slam us with POP-UP ADS to subsidize even greater profit.
In fairness to Garmin, I did get a reply to my email in which a Garmin rep said I could go into the SETTINGS menu and disable the data/traffic features which would then cease the pop-up ads. While I appreciate the response from Garmin, if I disable the features of the 1690, why spend the $500 when a lesser featured GPS unit will do the same thing for $300 less?
I emailed them and they said it was to offset the traffic alerts that they call free ($500.00 is free???). PLEASE charge me or allow me the option to diabale or pay instead of forcing me to watch your ad content from retailers like Puma or Wal-Mart.
These generated FORCED ADS must drain not only the battery but also the speed of accessing and following satelite connections.
My Garmin 1690 is being returned because I bought a GPS unit for a hefty price and not a 4.3 inch screen to watch advertising on.
Avoid any Garmin product that forces you to watch inflicted ad content.
Updated on Dec 1, 2009
Garmin is still wrong on this one.
- 7 replies to this review
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I turned off the traffic but the ads just keep on coming! The worst part of this is that they are not upfront about the ads prior to purchase. I like the product otherwise but I will not purchase another (owned 4 of them so far). If they made it easy to disable the ads that would be fine, but I can't find a way to turn them off and I don't use or need Traffic updates anyhow.
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"why spend the $500 when a lesser featured GPS unit will do the same thing for $300 less?"
Which lower end unit are you talking about? Does the lower end unit you mention offer the cellular Google search? -
I am sooo happy that I read this before buying. I will not pay to watch ads -- I agree with everyone: Garmin is now a has-been company, once great - now greedy. I will continue to look up POI's on my BB via Google and manually type in addresses to a sub-$100 unit. I'll spend the extra $400 in my pocket on something useful!
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the computer genius, all of your options are not good ones.
1. You can't pay $60 to get the ad-free, Clear Channel traffic service with the 1690. Garmin conveniently won't allow you to purchase that. So you are stuck with ad-based traffic.
2. Buying a GPS with MSN Direct is also not a good choice since Garmin is eliminating that service in January of 2011. It will be obsolete.
3. Disabling nu-link makes the 1690 just like any other GPS except you will be paying a lot more. Not a smart decision.
The bottom line is I recommend checking out the new Motorola Motonav TN765t. In my opinion it's much better than the 1690. It also has ad-based traffic, but I find it much less obtrusive. -
I can understand where everybody is comming from. But you are not getting the ad's to subidize Garmin. You are getting them because you are getting free service from a 3rd party which is the nu-link stuff. You can always pay the $60.00 for your subsription and you won't have ad's. Or buy a GPS with MSN direct and pay for that. Even if you get let's say like a 765T with there free life time traffic you will still get the ad's the money is going to the third party. So either pay for the subcription or disable the nu-link or return it and get a gps that does not have traffic or any data and save $300-400 dollars
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Glad I read this review. Remember the love of $$ will kil this great nation. ADS = $$$
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I totally agree with this review and will not buy any Garmin GPS with ads. When laying out this much money the user should be subjected to advertisement. Advertisement has led us to not watching TV.
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