23. Garmin Language Guide

Figure 90: Language Guide

The Garmin Language Guide translates words and phrases in text and audible speech. The nuvi ships with a trial version of the Language Guide that allows you to translate a few words and see what the guide offers, but to access to the entire guide you'll have to spend an additional $75 and buy the guide from Garmin's website.

Supported languages are English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, and the nuvi can provide text-to-speech between any two languages.

Figure 91: Garmin Language Guide

You can choose to either lookup a word or phrase, or translate a word from one language to another.

Figure 92: Using the Language Guide

The optional Language Guide provides translation of individual words, or pre-defined key travel phrases (i.e. "how much does that cost", etc.).

Figure 93: Choosing the Translation Language

The Travel Guide supports bi-directional language translation.

Figure 94: Listening to a Word

The nuvi can perform text-to-speech audio translation so you can hear how to correctly pronounce a word.

24. Travel Guide

Figure 95: Travel Guide is accessed via the Travel Kit Menu

Garmin sells electronic Travel Guides for the nuvi 680. Like the Language Guide, the nuvi ships with a lite version of the Fodor's North America travel guide, so you can see what the travel guides are like, but if you want the full guide you'll have to pay extra for it. Travel Guides ship on SD memory cards that you insert into the nuvi.

According to Garmin's website, the travel guides are available for the following countries at the following prices:

• Fodor's North America (SD Card) - $69.99
• Garmin Travel Guide, Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France, Monaco, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Andorra, Spain, Italy, Portugal, San Marino, Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands) - $160.70
• Garmin Travel Guide, Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein) - $74.99
• Garmin Travel Guide, France - $74.99
• Garmin Travel Guide, Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) - $74.99
• Garmin Travel Guide, Southern Europe (Andorra, Spain, Italy, Portugal, San Marino) - $74.99
• Garmin Travel Guide, Northwestern Europe (Belgium, UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands) - $74.99

Figure 96: Fodor's North America

The Nuvi ships with a sampling from the Fodor's North America Travel Guide. Full travel guides cost extra.

Figure 97: Navigating the Travel Guide

Within each travel guide, you can drill down the category list, searching for a particular destination or category.

Figure 98: Travel Guide Categories

You can browse the list by location and by category, such as restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions, and more.

I really like the idea of augmenting the POI database with actual travel guides and reviews of restaurants, hotels, etc. My only wish was that Garmin would offer travel guides from slightly more upscale publishers, like Frommers or Zagat.

25. SaversGuide

Figure 99: SaversGuide

Savers Guide seems like a silly idea to me: it's an electronic coupon book (that you buy for $49!), and the nuvi notifies you if you are close to a business that participates in the Savers Guide and will give you a discount. I can see where this is a great business model for Garmin - location based advertising has been a marketers dream for years. Charging $50 for the privilege of having advertisements presented while you're driving is, I suppose, an even better business model for Garmin -- but I'd just as soon pay $50 NOT to have that... So, bottom line: skip the Savers Guide.