11. Saving Your Current Location

Although there's no menu item to do so, you can, in fact, save your current position on the map to your address book on the nuvi 680.

Figure 65: Saving Your Current Location

When viewing the map, tapping on the vehicle icon allows you to save your current position to the address book (favorites). I like short-cuts as much as the next person, but I really think Garmin should add a menu item for saving your current position.

Saving your position is very useful for saving a location that might not have an official street address, or when you don't know where you are and want to save the location so you can return later.

12. Entering an Address Using Coordinates

Entering an address with coordinates is useful if you're into Geocaching. The nuvi 680 isn't a unit you'd want to replace your water-proof, rugged Garmin 60CSx with, but the nuvi's ability to route to coordinates is useful for getting as close to the geocache as possible in the car. It's also handy if your destination address doesn't have an actual street address.

Figure 66: Navigating to Coordinates

To navigate to longitude / latitude coordinates rather than a street address, tap "Where to?" from the Main Menu, then tap on more (the down arrow in the lower right hand corner), and then tap on Coordinates.

Figure 67: Enter Coordinates

Entering Long/Lat coordinates into the nuvi 680

Figure 68: Supported coordinates formats

This was a pleasant surprise: the nuvi 680 supports all the major formats for entering Lat/Long coordinates. The TomTom GO 910, by comparison, only supports the ddd mm.mmm format, which is not that useful for Geocaching.

Figure 69: Routing to a Lat/Long

Once the coordinates are in, you can view the position on the map, save it in the address book, or press "Go!" and have the nuvi route you to the coordinates.

13. Finding a Place by Spelling The Name

Not sure where something is, but you know the name of the place? You can spell out the name and have the nuvi 680 search all of North America for it. From the Menu page, touch "Where to", then tap "Food, Lodging...", and then tap "Spell Name".

Figure 70: Finding a Place by Spelling the Name

From the Main Menu, tap on "Where to", then tap "Food, Lodging...". Next tap on "Spell Name".

Figure 71: Spelling the Name of a Destination

If you're not sure of the street address of a location, and aren't sure what category to search in the Points of Interest database, you can search the whole database by typing in the name. For example, you might want to locate a nearby shop or restaurant by name.

14. Telling the nuvi Where to Search

Figure 72: Setting the Search Location

There may be times when you want to find a restaurant near your destination address instead of your current location, or want to search for a POI in a specific city or town. Tapping on the Near... button brings up the Search Near menu shown below:

Figure 73: Setting the Search Region

After tapping on the "Near..." button on the "Where To" page, you can specify whether the nuvi should search near your current location, a specified city, along your current route, or near your final destination.

Other GPS units have this feature, but the Garmin makes it easy and simple, and they've implemented it in an intuitive way.