Garmin officially announced the nuvi 680 and StreetPilot c580 on January 4th, 2007. The nuvi 680 is basically identical to the nuvi 660, but ads MSN Direct capabilities.

MSN Direct is the data subscription service made possible by Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) initiative. According to Garmin's press release, Microsoft has extended the MSN Direct service to support navigation devices. MSN Direct's data is already location tagged and constantly updated, so it's a natural fit to integrate the data into a portable navigation device (PND).

Both the nuvi 680 and the StreetPilot c580 receive up-to-date traffic incident and flow information for major cities across the United States.

This is the MSN Direct main menu. Here you can see the four services currently available via MSN Direct: traffic information, weather, gas prices, and movie times.

MSN Direct-enabled nuvis and StreetPilots also receive gas price data from over 100,000 gas stations around the United States (MSN Direct gets the gas prices based on real-time credit card processing data from various gas stations). Using this feature, you will be able to bring up a list of nearby gas stations and navigate the the lowest price gas available.

The nuvi 680 and StreetPilot c580 can both retrieve movie listing information. Using the service, you will be able to lookup movie show times for area theaters. You can search for movies by title or by theater, and then get show times and driving directions.

Using the traffic data available via MSN Direct, the nuvi 680 will select a route that avoids traffic accidents, road closures, and construction. If conditions change during the trip, the nuvi 680 and StreetPilot c580 will automatically update the route to minimize the trip time.

MSN Direct's data also includes real-time weather information. Both the nuvi 60 and StreetPilot c580 feature current weather conditions (including high/low/current temperatures, change of precipitation, humidity, pressure, wind, and weather alerts) as well as three day weather forecasts - for their current location or around the USA.

Hands-on with the Garmin nuvi 680

For the most part using the nuvi 680 is identical to the nuvi 660. Both the nuvi 660 and 680 share the same super-bright 4.3-inch touchscreen, the same user interface (minus the MSN Direct features on the nuvi 660), travel and entertainment capabilities, text-to-speech for spoken street names, pre-loaded maps of North America, a high-sensitivity SiRF GPS receiver, Bluetooth hands-free calling capability, an FM transmitter to play voice prompts and music over a car stereo, and the slim form factor.

When routing to a destination on the nuvi 680, you can tap the map view and get a visual representation of real-time traffic conditions around you. The green indicates no problems, yellow shows some congestion, and red indicates an accident or other problem. Tapping on the Details button brings up more detailed information about traffic events near you.

Tapping on Details on the previous menu brings up the traffic detail screen. From here, you can cycle through information about real-time traffic conditions around you. In the screen shown above, the nuvi is indicating an accident 18 miles away from my current position. If I had an active route planned through this road, I could have the nuvi avoid this accident and re-route me.

I can also lookup real-time weather conditions, both for my current position as well as other cities.

Tapping on Forecast from the weather menu brings up the 3-day forecast screen.

Tapping on "Other City" from the Weather screen brings up a list of cities and their respective weather conditions. The list is ordered by closeness to your current position, and each city name can be selected and more details information shown. This looks nice, and the screens are nicely implemented. My one complaint is that there should be a way to spell out a specific city name, rather than having to scroll through the entire list ordered by proximity. With the current system, if I'm in New York City and I want to know the weather in San Francisco, I'm going to have to scroll through hundreds of city names before I find San Francisco.

The Gas Prices feature allows you to search for nearby gas stations and display real-time pricing information. Thus, you can choose the gas station that has the lowest gas price, even if it's not the closest station to your current location. MSN Direct gets its gas pricing information by monitoring credit card processing information for over 100,000 gas stations.

Tapping on "Movie Times" from the MSN Direct main menu brings up the movie search page, shown above. From this screen, you can search for a movie by title, or search by theater location.

Tapping on "Find by Movie Title" brings up a list of available movies, ordered alphabetically. You can scroll through the list, or hit "Spell" and type out the name of the movie you want to see.

Once a movie has been chosen, the nuvi 680 shows you the movie theaters where your chosen flick is playing, ordered by proximity. From here, you can tap a theater name and see show times, and then route to the theater.

Garmin has done a nice job implementing the MSN Direct features without cluttering up their excellent, simple to use interface. While I like the idea of having improved traffic data as well as movie listing and local weather and gas prices, I don't think it's enough of upgrade to warrant a new purchase if you're a current nuvi owner. If you've not yet purchased a GPS, then it's a no-braner to get the latest and greatest. Personally, I probably won't upgrade from my current nuvi 660 unless MSN Direct adds a few more features into the mix.