Consumer Reviews

I am a veteran when it comes to owning PND’s (personal navigation devices). I’m the type of person that has to have the best and newest. My last PND was a nuvi 765t which has always been great. I’ve owned many units in the past… notibly a nuvi 350, 660, 755t, 765t, Tomtom XL, Go 720, 930, Magellan Maestro 4250, 4370 to name a few.

Just to note… this unit is exactly the same (software wise) as the new nuvi 1690 minus the Garmin NuLink service. Navigation with the 1490t is great just like all Garmins. There have been a couple of quirky moments however when the unit would just recalculate the route right back to the same exact route even though I never left course. Traffic was disabled at the time, so it wasn’t because it detected traffic. Aside from those two different occasions, I’ve experienced nothing but excellent routing to my destinations. Voice prompts are clear and accurate and give plenty of time before the actual turn.

This unit has without a doubt the LOUDEST speaker of any PND I’ve ever experienced. It’s actually too loud if that’s even possible. I have to keep it at 60% for a comfortable level when driving. The maximum volume is probably great if you’re driving on a highway with the windows down.

The screen is large and also very bright at it’s maximum level. It’s great having it at 100% in the daytime because it’s easy to see even with sunlight. It needs to be set to 50% for night view so it doesn’t strain your eyes. The quality of this screen is the BEST compared to all other nuvi models. Not only are colors more vivid, but the viewing angles are FAR superior to the screens on the 765t or 1690 for instance.

The new software on this unit has subtle changes compared to the nuvi 765t, but it pretty much the same setup. Scrolling through the menus or selecting something is MUCH faster however. You can actually slide your finger to scroll the menus like an iphone for smooth scrolling.

The free traffic isn’t the best in my area (MSN traffic works better in the NYC tri-state area for some reason). There have been a few occasions where I ran into traffic that the reciever didn’t acknowledge it was there. Also, the free traffic is ad supported which means when you’re sitting at a traffic light you may see a small pop-up ad appear on the screen for Wells Fargo bank for instance. The traffic on the nuvi 1690 which uses Garmin nuLink service is far superior to any other “free lifetime traffic” unit like this one. So thumbs down for the free traffic and it’s annoying ads.

Overall, I love this unit. I haven’t experienced any of the issues with freezing that other reviewers have. I think this is one of the best Garmins to date next to the 1690.

I am very happy with the 1490T. The function and reliability have been fine for me after a couple months use. It is responsive in terms of mapping and I like the bluetooth speakerphone. I am not a ‘power user’ but overall I find this device very helpful. The 5″ screen is nice, my wife likes the speed indicator and ETA estimate… reinforces the fact how little speeding by 5 to 10 mph matters in the final time of arrival on a 10 mile trip.

As noted by other reviewers, saved data is lost with the free map upgrade, but I did not lose saved settings ‘every time’ I connected it to my computer. I downloaded other items… different voice/car options, and nothing was lost for me.

Some reviewers have very high expectations for this device… probably warranted at the price. But, this is not an entertainment device and there are always trade-offs between rich content and ease-of-use and clutter on the screen – type issues. It seems to me that the information on the maps is appropriate depending on speed and size of road traveled. True not every road passed while cruising down the interstate at 70mph is displayed on the map, but you can see the next off-ramp, either labeled on the map and/or on the top title bar, so you know what is coming when a driving choice is involved.

The core functions are most important and the ones on my 1490T work nicely (traffic works, but only as good as radio reports). The SF Bay Area is a fairly challenging driving and GPS environment, hills, trees, tunnels, bridges, high rise office buildings etc… and so far I am impressed. I also used it in Chicago and it soooo… outperforms Hertz’s ‘NeverLost’… more like ‘NeverFound’ downtown. Recent bad weather in the Bay Area produced some interesting warnings on the 1490… device responded to heavy rain/road hazard and car accident ahead, nice.

One thing I would like to see… the POI searches by name or type (say restaurant) sort by distance and there does not appear to be an alpha sort… that would be helpful.

I was disappointed in the fact that it has no MP3 player as former units had, but that is just a small irritant. The main problem is that if you create a Waypoint of a friend, for example, and add a phone number, you can save the Waypoint, but you cannot save your phone numbers to your computer via MapSource.

In other words, let’s say you created a friend’s Waypoint to his house, you can add a phone number in the unit, but if you try to save it as My Current Waypoints.gbd in your computer and then transfer all the Waypoints back to the unit, all the phone numbers you added to the Favorite Waypoints you created, are gone! So you better hope the unit doesn’t one day lose all the Waypoints because although you can transfer the Waypoints from your computer back to the unit, you will again have to type in all the phone numbers! Another problem is that in the Waypoint you created of your friend, you cannot add his address.

I contacted Garmin about this and their answer was to make a “suggestion” via email. I’ve had four Garmin units and I notice that they keep cutting down on features. For example on my former Nuvi 360, you could create a waypoint in MapSource AND not only add phone numbers, but also addresses and save them to your computer and load them back to the unit again with no problem.

I will say this though, the speaker volume is dramatically louder. This is great because driving down the road with your radio at a comfortable volume, the unit’s volume is plenty loud.

Another great feature is that it is much faster than former units in pretty much all the functions. That aside, I hope Garmin gets it right in future units. By the way, Lane Assist works, but the Junction View only works in a few cities and is a feature that really shouldn’t be advertised as a main feature.

UPDATE: After using it on the road a few times, here’s my newer assessment: As with other Garmin products (which I had 4 total), there is the problem with coming out of a parking lot (for example a doctor’s office). When you get to the street, the unit does not tell you which way to exit the parking lot (left or right). So in essence, you exit the parking lot onto the street and you have to guess if you should have gone right or left. The unit will later correct you by “recalculating”.

For some strange reason, as I was editing downloaded WayPoints with MapSource, after a certain amount of time, the unit would suddenly shut off by itself. Weird..

I don’t much care for the USB placement in the back, It’s difficult to Plug the car charger into. For the money you should get a wall charger, but you don’t. The USB cord is short, where the former units had longer ones. Saving money?

After loading a certain amount of Waypoints with MapSource, it would not load anymore. I don’t know if there’s a limitation on how many Waypoints you can have in the unit, but I did a Properties check on it and there was still a good amount of space left in the drive of the unit.

Unfortunately, support is a bit bleak and a long time waiting for a rep, who usually sounds too antsy to talk to you because they have most likely been inundated with support calls. All in all, I like the unit and will keep working with it unless it gives me more problems…

I’m a dedicated Garmin user. This is my third Garmin portable GPS, and I’ve always been satisfied with their products and their service. I originally had some of the same problems that other users reported in their reviews, but as I expected Garmin has fixed most of them with updates since I purchased it. In my experience with Garmin products they do seem to fix everything eventually with their frequent firmware updates, so I didn’t see that as a major deterrent from buying the device.

A bit of advice to those of you who aren’t very tech-savvy or comfortable with computers: You really MUST plug this device into your computer frequently using the Garmin Agent (installs automatically 1st time you plug your GPS in) to make sure you get the latest updates and fixes. I only mention this because I have many friends who rarely or never update their iPhones or other tech gadgets, or they completely ignore Windows or other software when it prompts them to install an update. It’s really important to take the extra few minutes and do this with any hardware or software–the companies usually update them to fix problems.

I don’t need MSN Direct or mp3-playing functions–that’s what my iPhone and iPod are for and they both do those things far better. I just need my GPS to get me where I’m going the shortest way possible so I don’t need to think about it, and this Garmin does that better than the previous two I’ve owned.

I love the large bright screen, junction view, accurate traffic info, loud clear speaker, and bluetooth functionality. A great device that keeps getting better with each firmware update release.