We already mentioned it last week, and Garmin has now also officially confirmed it: starting this October, the new Nüvi 660 will be in the shops. The Nüvi 610, which was also announced, will not ship in Europe for the moment.4,3 inch
What immediately jumps to the eye with the Garmin Nüvi 6x0 Personal Travel Assistant, the device' official name, is immense touch screen, which is wide-screen as well. It doesn't have a diagonal of 4 inch, as we initially reported, but of 4,3 inch! (480 x 272 pixels) That's almost 11 centimeters. Compare: the 'old' Nüvi's have a 3,5 inch screen (or 8,9 centimeters).100
Still, Garmin isn't unique anymore already with this new screen size. Sony has also announced new PND's with a 4,3 inch screen. There are even rumors of a PND with a 5 inch and one with a 7 inch screen!
Specifications
The rest of the specifications of the new 6x0 differ little with those of the current 3-series. This is not a problem of course, because the Nüvi 310 and 360 are both very recent units of which the specifications still completely live up to the demands of the current PND generation. You'll find a complete summary in our Product File on the Nüvi 660.What does differ with the current Nüvi's are the dimensions of the new 6x0 series of course. Because of the large screen, the dimensions are 12,5 x 7,4 x 2,3 centimeters (4,8 x 2,9 x 0,9 inch), and 190 grams (6,7 oz) of weight.
The Garmin Nüvi 660 features a Bluetooth interface for hands-free phoning, a travelling-aid and digital music playing capabilities, makes use of Text-to-speech so that street names are said out loud and ships with NAVTEQ maps of the entire continent of Europe. Besides all that, there's still 700 MB of RAM left to store additional maps or MP3 files on. The Nüvi 610 has more or less the same features, but ships with regional maps.
TMC
The 660 ships standard in Europe with Garmin's GTM 21 FM TMC receiver. This device will enable the user to avoid traffic jams based on the most up-to-date traffic info. This TMC module is integrated in the 12/24 volts power in-car cable which -obviously- also feeds the 660 it's power.Garmin expects the Nüvi 660 to be available in the shops by this mid-October, with an recommended retail price of ¤ 665,- (£ 449,-). It is expected though that the street price will be ¤ 599,- (£ 399,-).
