Garmin Nuvi 1490/1490t 5-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable Gps Navigator With Lifetime Traffic (Dis

Garmin nuvi 1490/1490T 5-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• Brilliant color on a 5-inch touchscreen display, integrated Bluetooth wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker for hands-free calling
• Lane assist with junction view that guides you to the correct lane for an approaching turn or exit, making unfamiliar intersections and exits easy to navigate
• Includes advanced navigation features to take the worry out of traveling, including cityXplorer pedestrian maps
• Steer clear of traffic with integrated FM traffic receiver
• NOTE: Model number on the box is 1490T because the traffic receiver is included; however, the model number on the device itself is 1490 as the \"T\" in 1490T refers to the additional component

Buy Now : Garmin nuvi 1490/1490T 5-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

Brand : Garmin
Category : Electronics,GPS, Finders & Accessories,Sports & Handheld GPS,Handheld GPS Units
Rating : 4.1
Price : US $257.54
Review Count : 403

Garmin nuvi 1490/1490T 5-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• EDIT: 2-March-2012I upped my review of the Nuvi 1490 to four stars from three. The lastest firmware 5.8 eliminated the problems I was having with constant dropping and/or unpairing of the EcoRoute HD BlueTooth connection. It has been about a month and BlueTooth has been working perfectly. The biggest warts that keep the 1490 from earning top score are: the flimsy mounting bracket, the clumsy power cord, and anemic built-in speaker.EDIT: 28-November-2011Recent firmware updates have made the Nuvi 1490 more pleasant to use. I still have sporadic problems with the Bluetooth link to the Ecoroute being dropped. Usually turning the car off and restarting resetablishes the data link, but sometimes it is necessary to re-pair the Ecoroute with the Nuvi.The other thing I noticed is that when the Nuvi 1490 gets warm, the speakers become raspy sounding, but return to normal once the unit cools off. I think this results from the plastic case expanding sligthly when warm and not holding the speakers firmly in place.EDIT: 25-February-2011My first 1490T started having symptoms of no audio prompts, dropped Bluetooth connections and random reboots after 50 hours of use. Garmin replaced the apparently bad unit. The replacement worked fine for the first 50 hours, then started misbehaving just like the first unit. I was skeptical when I called Garmin tech support and they told me that a firmware update would help. It has been a week since I updated and everything is working happily so far. The latest firmware also gives more accurate MPG readings when using the Ecoroute HD accessory. I am raising my rating one star now that the new firmware has fixed problems.EDIT: 14-February-2011After about 50 hours of use, the Bluetooth on the 1490T quit working. I contacted Garmin, and they agreed to do a new-for-new RMA. It took about a week for the RMA swap. After just over 50 hours of use on the replacement unit, the Bluetooth failed just as it had in the first unit. I only use the 1490T with Garmin\'s Ecoroute HD; I do not pair it with any phones nor do I load any media files on the 1490T.I have to give this a provisional, \"do not buy,\" pending the outcome of the dead Bluetooth problem.Also, note the comparison matrix for the GPS models says the 1490T comes with MSN traffic. The 1490 is now being supplied with a GTM traffic receiver, and should continue to function after the shut down of MSN\'s mobile data service.EDIT: 2-January-2011If you buy this device, be sure you can return it for replacement or refund. See below:After about one month of using the 1490T, the audio has quit working. There are no navigation prompts or key press beeps. I\'ve tried doing a hard reset (hold finger in lower right screen corner while powering up) numerous times to no avail. The bluetooth connection with the Ecoroute HD became sporadic and then quit connecting at about the same time the audio quit. I see other customers complaining about similar problems on Garmin\'s own web site forums. I really expect a GPS to last more than a month, especially from a major manufacturer such as Garmin. I am going to lower my rating of the unit pending successful warranty repair or replacement.Original review:I have owned about a dozen GPS units. The 1490T hopefully continues the history of good consumer grade GPS units from Garmin. The most recent prior unit I bought was the Garmin 770, and that was a bit of a disappointment with a screen that wasn\'t as crisp and a very short battery life compared to the older 600 series receivers.A change that appeared in the 700 series and apparently carries on in the 1490 is that the green bar at the top of the screen now says, \"Driving on Main Street.\" Duh, like, Dude I kinda knew that! In the older models, the green bar used to announce, \"Pine Street ahead,\" and only if there were no cross streets within about 500 yards, would the bar change to, \"Driving on Main Street.\" I\'m surprised the info display behavior isn\'t programmable. That seems like a natural option; perhaps it violated a patent, so Garmin had to take the feature out.Something else that\'s bugged me about the Nuvi series is that the maps are automatically de-cluttered. One may select more detail from the setup options, but it doesn\'t seem to help much. At least the intersecting street names are usually displayed. I\'d like to have more street names visible, as that sometimes helps to figure out where I\'m at: like, is that parallel street, \"Pine,\" or \"Elm?\" Grrr, the Nuvi won\'t tell me. If you\'re on an expressway, you usually won\'t see any street names at all; I find that annoying if I\'m trying to figure out if I\'m at the exit I want, but haven\'t had the Nuvi calculate a route. I still use my aging Garmin StreetPilot 2620, and it does a better job of displaying street names of surrounding streets even on its much smaller screen. The older StreetPilot software seemed more purpose-built for navigation, and didn\'t try to turn the device into a Swiss Army knife with Bluetooth phone, audio books, and pictuure viewers, etc.The mounting bracket is flimsy compared to the bracket used on the 600 and 700 series Nuvis. The new mount requires one hand to attach the clip and the other hand to plug in the USB cable. The bracket is now just a piece of plastic and all communication and charging is done via the USB connector. That probably keeps the cost down and does help save the planet just a little by eliminating parts from the mount. I also ordered the bendable sticky rubber dashboard base so I can leave the 1490 attached to the mount and stash the whole unit without having to remove it from the window.The traffic receiver is also a potential issue. Microsoft will be abandoning the MSN traffic service effective January 1, 2012. The comparison chart on this web page shows that the 1490T has MSN traffic. Garmin\'s web site, however, says the 1490T has Navteq traffic. My older Nuvi 760 has a GTM-11 traffic receiver, and it isn\'t all that helpful where I live. A lot of times, it will say, \"Traffic Ahead!,\" on a clear road or not say anything at all when sitting grid locked on the expressway. The traffic reports don\'t seem to be all that helpful. I\'ll update this review when I figure out which traffic service the 1490T uses.A cool feature is Ecoroute. This feature looks at your driving style and displays an icon that sumarizes your driving dynamics and rates how well you are doing at conserving fuel. It works better than I would have thought. It helps inform drivers that accelerate like Parnelli Jones or stomp on the brakes like Paul Bunyan. The Ecoroute feature can also interface over Bluetooth with the optional Ecoroute HD module that plugs into post-1996 cars\' on-board diagnostic OBD-II connectors. This gives the Nuvi hard data on actual fuel injector operation and possibly some braking dynamics data.If you do have the Ecoroute HD, you can also get a head-up gauge display that shows a number of different power train parameters. I am still waiting to receive my Ecoroute HD module, so I\'ll have to edit this review later. In fact, this is the main reason I purchased the 1490T; the older Nuvis don\'t have software support for the Ecoroute HD, even if they have Bluetooth. The reiews of the Ecoroute HD seem to be mostly positive, and it seems like it may ultimately be a better choice than a Scangauge II if one wants to have a power train head-up display.
• I purchased this unit after trying a TomTom 540. My two biggest problems with the TomTom were the very annoying mount and the fact that it didn\'t tell you which side of the street your destination was on.The mount on the Garmin 1490 is far an away superior. Once you snap the unit in, there is absolutely no way it is coming out just from adjusting it (like it would with the TomTom). It also tells you which side of the street your destination is on. This might not seem like a big deal, but it can be very helpful and it was just really annoying to know that the TomTom actually \"knew\" where your destination was (otherwise how would it get you there), it just wasn\'t telling you.The screen is large and bright and very easy to see both in sunlight and at night. I haven\'t used the traffic feature extensively, but when I did use it, I found it to be pretty accurate. The battery also seems to last longer than the TomTom did. I haven\'t done a map update on the unit yet, so I can\'t comment on that except to say that the maps it came with are pretty out of date. There are stores that have been open or closed for at least a year and it doesn\'t know about that.I have three main gripes about this unit:1 - You can only display the locations you save (your favorites) by distance from your current location. If you want to go to a place that is far away, you need to scroll through all the closer locations to find it. You can display them by category, but sometimes you can\'t remember which category a destination is in, and even when you do, the favorites for that category are sorted by distance from your location. It would be better if you could find a favorite by name.2 - Sometimes it gives you what I will call \"odd\" routing and it is very insistent on using that route. Sometimes I will use the Garmin even when I know where I am going just to see what route it picks. Sometimes it will pick a route that seems either out of the way or too slow to me so I will go a different way. When it recalculates, it frequently will reroute me so that I double back and get back on the original route it picked. Only when I am much more than half way to the destination will it give up and recalculate a new route from my current location. Every route it picks will definitely get you to your destination, but it might not be the \"best\" route available.3 - The Bluetooth connection to my phone works, but most of the time it doesn\'t import the address book. I can receive calls without any problems and I can make calls on my phone and talk through the GPS, but the majority of the time it doesn\'t import the address book so I can\'t use the GPS to easily initiate a call. Also, people say that when I use the GPS I am understandable, but there is an echo. I don\'t actually make many calls while in the car, so neither of these are a big deal to me. I am using an iPhone 3G and according to Garmin\'s website, technically, it isn\'t supported, but it does work properly sometimes and I have been unable to figure out how to make it work reliably.Overall, I\'m very happy with this GPS. I use it mostly to travel to clients in my area. I haven\'t taken it on a long trip to a completely unfamiliar location, but I am confident that it would get me where I needed to go, with the understanding that it might not be the absolute best route available.

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