Update: Read my hands on Garmin nuvi 1490T review.
The Garmin nuvi 1490T was announced today, a 5-inch wide version of the recently unveiled 1200 and 1300 series units. This will be a relatively high-end model, with lifetime traffic alerts, lane assist / junction view and Bluetooth. It also brings something to the table not found on the 1200/1300 models – multi-destination routing.
Like the previously announced models, the 1490T will be 25% thinner than most current generation nuvis and offer pedestrian-friendly features and the ability to use optional CityXplorer™ maps.
There is no indication yet that this is a replacement for the nuvi 5000, which includes custom route avoidances and the ability to connect a rear-view camera. We should know soon if those features are included, but I have my doubts. The MSRP is $499.99, with the unit expected to hit store shelves in July of 2009. I’ll update this post with a link to the product page once it becomes available.
About Rich Owings
I like Garmin but all these new gps models are unnecessary. I have the Garmin Nuvi 5000 and with a new system update they could have added these new features of the Nuvi 1490t to it. Also at the same time the Nuvi 1490t takes away some of the nice features of the Nuvi 5000. Garmin is thinking more like a business trying to make money than a business trying to make good quality product!
Garmin is developing reputation for “peppering” features through out their lines, and not giving us one high-end device that has it all. It is leaving many folks quite frustrated.
Garmin – First of all there is no perfect GPS unit. I have now owned 2 garmin (765T & 1490T) and a Magellan 1475T both tops in their brands.
Magellan 1475T slow processing, sometimes past a turn before it tells you to turn. Searching for San Francisco it came up with every San XXX in Mexico. Tech support said they were working on the problem when I emailed them. I have to say the sound was loud enough and the quality was great.
Garmin 1490T – My unit took 2 days to charge the battery. After one day it could not find the satellite so I had to charge it for a second day. If it was not plugged into the car charger it would randomly loose signal. The unit had loud enough sound, better than all other garmins. It seemed like it could produce quaility sounds but the voices were not good and the ones that called out the actual street names were so cheezy they skipped syllables in the words. After downloading the software update got more voices but they too had problems. Then when I went to favorites the unit would reboot. Freeway lane displays were far too short to do any good and 0.9 mile warning to transition a freeway to exit is not enough. Blue tooth is not worth using unless you are going to punish the person on the other end of the call. The FM transmitter was worthless because there are no open FM areas in Los Angeles and the power level was to low to take precedence.
Garmin 765T. Other than the following, the same as 1490t above. The speaker was so small and the sonics so bad that unless you mount it on the front window, you will never hear it in traffic, even with the windows up. Traffic re-routing did work good. Single was not a problem.