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Performance
First up, let's deal with Garmin's revised interface. It looks largely familiar and as before it's still not exactly beautiful. The 3D mode doesn't have fancy 3D buildings or high-res textures.
But that's fine because those beautifiers are ultimately gimmicks. They don't help you get from A to B. What the new interface does have is a menu on the right called Up Ahead.
The shizzle here involves constantly keeping you up to date with the distance to the nearest points of interest. You can toggle various options on or off, but obvious choices include petrol stations, bank machines and parking locations.
It sounds obvious, but it's seriously useful and beats the pants off trying to find petrol stations with Google maps, which is a much more complicated process. Of course, all the data for any searches in any of the sub menus is stored locally, so patchy data connectivity is a non issue.
On that subject, the lack of data connectivity might have you wondering how features like the Foursquare-powered POI database and the speed camera database work. It's actually pretty simple. They're stored locally and it's up to you to occasionally plug the thing into a PC or Mac to update the databases.
When you think about it, updating in this manner is enough to ensure the vast majority of relevant info is up to date while not being a major chore. And like we said, it means you never have to worry about having a data connection. Given that the reality of data networks when driving is pretty terrible reliability, local storage makes an awful lot of sense.
The downside to no data is of course a lack of traffic information. We've mixed feelings about this. Traffic data even now isn't hugely accurately. But just occasionally having access can save you getting stuck in a really hideous jam.
As for the core tasks of mapping and actual navigation, it's familiar Garmin fare, which means it's about as good as it gets in terms of accuracy even if you can't assume it'll be as smart as you are locally. As yet there's still nothing to quite match local knowledge and human guile.
Are TomTom's route calculations a little better? Perhaps occasionally. But most of the time, there's very little in it. As for route calculation speeds, this cheapish device is a little leisurely, but still perfectly acceptable.
We've covered the screen quality earlier, but it's worth noting that the touch input is resistive rather than capacitive, which means it's neither terribly responsive nor terribly accurate. That can be a problem when trying to swipe around a map. But inputting addresses on the generous virtual keyboard is actually very effective so long as you are firm with your key presses.
Oh and as for those more natural spoken navigation cues, well, they're just fine, but we wouldn't describe them as dramatically different to what we've become accustomed to from Garmin.
Finally, we weren't able to test the BC 30 camera. It requires quite a bit of installation including a bit of bumper drilling for mounting. It's a bit of an odd one as if you are really worried about minor parking dings, you probably don't want to have someone set about your car with a drill to fit a fairly large and unsightly camera.
We like
As a pure nav device, there's loads to like. The screen is clear and the interface is excellent. The new Up Ahead feature makes it uber easy to take detours to locations like petrol stations without the need to dig down into submenus or lose your route. Likewise, having the Foursquare POI and the camera databases stored locally arguably makes more sense than using a data connection. We also like the sturdy mounting for the device.
We dislike
Not all that much. The 12V power adapter is huge and clumsy and ugly, which is a pity. However, the biggie is the lack of traffic data. It's a major omission, even if it's probably inevitable in this class of device. As for the reversing camera, the invasive installation means it's not hugely appealing.
Verdict
As a pure sat nav device, the Garmin nuvi 68LM is pretty lovely. The interface is really nicely thought out, the mapping is uber clear and the local data storage works really well. The snag is that missing traffic data. As well executed and the 68LM is, for some that will be a deal breaker, plain and simple.
