Garmin Nuvi 610 GPS Review

Garmin is one of the leading manufacturers of GPS systems in the market today, and the finished quality of the product does show. The build quality and the user interface all are top notch.

Today, I will review the Garmin Nuvi 610. This is a standalone GPS system, and the first thing you will notice is the "wide screen display" at 4.3" instead of the norm at 3" +/-. This is great as it is easier on the eyes, you will get to see more on screen. The next thing you will also be happy to notice is the extra bright screen. It is so effective that even under direct sunlight, you will still be able to see the screen clearly, unlike a lot of other GPS, which is hopeless when they get a direct light on them.






One of the most crucial things in a good GPS unit is the mount. One with less movable parts is ideal, so that vibration can be minimized. I think may of us will agree that a poor mount that shakes the GPS unit under every bump on the road is no good to us, we will get a headache trying to focus on the screen!

Thankfully, the mount on this Garmin is very good indeed. Very sturdy, and almost no vibrations even when driving on less than desirable roads. The mount is a pressure suction type, which helps in securing it very firmly to the windshield.





The next thing you will notice is the "flip-up" external antenna. It is recommended that you flip the antenna at an angle parallel to the ground to get maximum effectiveness in signal acquisition. Talking about signal acquisition, this unit is very quick in getting a fix, less than 1 minute even in cold start from my tests.

The Nuvi 610 like the rest in the lineup, has a SD card slot, where you can plug in a preloaded map in SD card format, sold by Garmin. They have maps for USA/Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and many other countries. Therefore, they are readily available. I am not 100% confident to comment on the accuracy of the maps for other areas (as I have not tested them), but I can comment on the Singapore/Malaysia maps.

It is vastly outdated! Yes, even with the latest version "just released", places which has been around for years can't even be found! So let us not talk about new streets and buildings. They don't come cheap either. For maps of Malaysia/Singapore, I found the free maps at Malsing Maps are 100 times better and more accurate. So go and get them there if you need them. They have a lovely community there to help you should you have any concerns regarding the maps.

Okay, so what does this unit offer? Firstly it offers turn by turn voice directions and maps can be viewed in 2D or 3D format. Personally, I prefer to leave it in 3D mode. It just seems nicer. It also has a day/nite mode which automatically switches according to the internal clock. All this is great. But it has more. You can set custom POIs, connect a phone via bluetooth to make hands free calls, load in your favourite pics to use as a start up screen, and listen to MP3s. So, it is pretty feature rich.

However, this model does not come with TTS (text to speech), meaning it does not read out road names, which is not a big deal. Personally, I prefer it this way, as reading out street names just means too much talking.:) All in all, I highly recommend this model, I have been using it for 1 year, and very satisfied with the performance.

More info can be viewed here.