Garmin NüVi 3490lmt 4.3-Inch Portable Gps Navigator With Lifetime Maps And Traffic (Discontinued By

Garmin nüvi 3490LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Maps and Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• Less than 9mm thick
• Make hands-free calls and texts
• Voice activated navigation
• Lifetime map and traffic updates (vehicle power cable is the traffic receiver)
• Lane assist with photoReal junction view

Buy Now : Garmin nüvi 3490LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Maps and Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

Brand : Garmin
Category : Electronics,GPS, Finders & Accessories,Vehicle GPS
Rating : 4.3
Review Count : 654
ChildASIN : B005DIBFYE

Garmin nüvi 3490LMT 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Lifetime Maps and Traffic (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

• upd/04/25: most of this review gets outdated as old issues get fixed, which is good. What is not so good is that routing (with TrafficTrends on) became way too conservative. At nighttime on local streets it\'s not uncommon for for the unit to give a 20-minute estimate on a 12 minute route. It looks as if the \"trends\" are not granular enough to separate day and night. Time estimate is also very conservative on highways. I am not an aggresive driver, but even for me highway travel times are way too pessimistic. HD traffic coverage is still virtually non-existent outside of NYC and few other areas. Just to give an example, there is no traffic coverage pretty much anywhere on I-87 from NYC to Canadian border. To be fair, things are much better on I-91 in Connecticut and quite good in NYC.All in all, after using 3490 for >6 months now I am still holding to my initial opinion: this is is the best thing Garmin has done since 25x and 75x series since everything in between was just a sad joke. On the other hand, I still find that those older models do a better job in many situation and the software is definitely way more stable on older units. Other than that, 3490 is cool and fun, unless you want to sacrifice some screen resolution but get a bigger screen with 2595upd 01/18: it looks like after 3 months of delay, \"Unable to calculate route\" error was finally fixed with firmware version 4.4.Also this update introduced something called \"smartphone link\".According to description, it connects to Android phones and brings Live traffic for $20/year and fuel prices for $10/year. Tried it once so far - very easy to set up, just have to download the app and connect via bluetooth. Traffic data seemed to different from what is coming through HD and showed a some highways as closed while they were not. One annoying \"feature\" is that when smartphone link is in use, all calls are forwarded to the Nuvi, which is sort of redundant. The rest is the review as of November.\"Best Garmin\" doesn\'t mean perfect. It\'s a new model, so bugs are visible every day. It fails to calculate pretty much every route from Brooklyn to Manhattan due to (what it seems to be) a mapping bug on one of the highways. So I have to drive up to the critical point and navigate from there. I\'ve seen people having similar problem in other parts of the country and this also is an issue with other models from the new line-up (tested on 2495). My expectation is that this will be fixed soon as it\'s not really acceptable. Upd: as I\'ve said - fixed in firmware v 4.4Update to 3.6 also introduced a curious bug where the unit occasionally reboots itself if I miss a turn.I also had problems registering it because Garmin communicator plug-in couldn\'t see it on my PC. If you have the same problem, it should be easily solvable, see comments to this post.Sometimes it also restarts during voice recognition. No big deal, really.Map detail is still inadequate. In 2D view most highways will not be labeled, which makes selecting a point on map a very painful, if not impossible task. Old pre 1xxx Garmins have better map detail and I still much prefer 255W for long-distance drives. Especially given that it has better traffic coverage.That said, I actually like 3490 way more then I expected and I think it\'s a great unit. The UI has been re-worked and simplified compared to the chaotic mess that Garmin has been doing for the last 2-3 years. It\'s almost as easy to use as old Nuvi\'s from 200, 600 and 700 series, but has a much richer functionality. (Ok, the UI might not be immediately straightforward and I had to explain customer service rep how to turn GPS simulation mode on, but once you get used to it, it feels great and gets better with time)One of the best features of 3490 is the ease of input. You don\'t have to suffer through entering the state and the city anymore. Just type the street and the house number and it will search for the address in nearby cities and states, will give you a list of choices , and only if you don\'t see the one you\'re looking for, you can type the city and state. For someone who has to commute between two states (like NY and NJ) that would be a nice relief. Also, while you type, it offers several matching street names to choose from. The only strange thing is that the matches don\'t seem to depend on your prior searches, e.g. if you recently searched for \"Broadway\" and start typing \"B\", you\'ll have to type all the way until \"Broadw\" before \"Broadway\" shows up. TomTom (I own 2535) would give it right away.POI search is also simplified (even though it\'s hard to imagine that POI search on Garmin can be made simpler). Many weird GUI solutions made in earlier versions are now re-worked into something that gives you a very pleasant experience. POI categories are even more clearly defined, restaurant types have even more sub-categories and you can also search POI by simply typing (or saying) the name. Also what\'s important, POI search is very fast, great improvement compared to older versions.You still have an option to choose \"poi near destination\", \"poi near active route\", etc, and selecting those options is also much easier than on units released in the last couple of years. \"Poi near active route\" option was re-worked and it feels like it\'s integrated with the new \"exit services\" feature. If in the past you would get a list of, hotels, with distance, now it would group them by highway name and exit number and for the nearest ones will give the distance to the exit too. I have to note here that I had at least one case where with all the bells and whistles and the new UI, the closest gas station it could offer along the route was 10 miles away and required additional 10 minutes of travel time, while my pre-historic 255W with same map version offered a gas station that was 1 mile away and required a 2-minute detour.Another item that was re-worked significantly is adding a via point. It now seems to be integrated with trip planner, so when you try to add a new point to your route, you can re-shuffle the order of destinations. The downside of it, as some people complained, is that if you browse a map, it might only show you the first leg of the route (as always, not clear why). This doesn\'t seem to be a big issue and if while planning you select \"routes\" you will be able to see the whole route on map during the planning stage.Speaking of this, yet another awesome feature of 3490 is that it offers you several routes to your destination and you can pick the one you like. Not just \"route A, route B\" as it showed up on 3790 and others, but more like Google maps or Navigon. A grain of salt is that when displayed on the map, the colors for alternative routes do not take into account current map scheme, so in some color schemes they are pretty much invisible as their color may be very similar to the colors of highways and interstates. There is also no way to see the alternatives in text format.Now, the most important piece - the routing. They made really a quantum leap and a great break-through there. For the last 3 or 4 years Garmin was way behind TomTom in terms of navigation in big cities and failed to account for historically congested roads and delays due to traffic lights. Last year Garmin rolled out TrafficTrends as a response to TomTom\'s IQRoutes. It\'s been a complete disaster as you can read in multiple reviews. After all this time I was surprised to see that TrafficTrends actually do work on 3490. The estimated arrival time and routes in NYC have been improved dramatically. I am driving with 3490 alongside TomTom 2535 LIVE and I can\'t really say that one unit is much better than the other. It\'s pretty much a tie where TomTom probably maintains slight lead. Route calculation times on Garmin are not bad, but recalculation while driving is sometimes much slower than on TomTom. There may be situation when recalculation takes a while. It\'s mildly annoying as you might miss an exit or a turn, but doesn\'t happen too often.Just to give you some idea how the routing works in NYS.On my test routes that includes Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn I\'ve got1) estimated 35 min, actual driving time - 452) estimated 28 min, actual driving time - 43 (7 minutes unreported bridge traffic + 6 minutes traffic lights)3) estimated 36 min, actual driving time - 414) estimated 17 min, actual driving time 15.This timing is with enabled TrafficTrends (TrafficTrends are by default disabled on this unit)Traffic. I see a lot of people complaining about it. In New York and around the city everything works pretty well. There doesn\'t seem to be much traffic signal out of the city and when I approach a city it seems to get the signal later than either TomTom or my old Garmin. Outside of NYC I\'ve seen virtually no traffic coverage on this unit. Haven\'t gone far enough, at most 6-7 hour drives. Regular FM does a much better job.On a positive side, in the city traffic acquisition is immediate, thanks to HD radio traffic. Feels almost like Live units, but requires a cable to be plugged in.Of course, initial acquisition is only a part of the picture and mostly matters when you start driving. While on your way, it doesn\'t matter too much if update frequency is 30 sec or 2-3 min like on devices with FM receivers. What matters more is the quality of information your traffic provider gives you. I\'ve seen a case when TomTom\'s HD Traffic correctly indicated that there is an 8-minute traffic on a local street in Manhattan while 3490 tried to route through this street. I\'ve also seen my old 255W (with double Navteq + TTN subscription) showing a better highway traffic coverage. And of course I had a few chances to spend 20-40 minutes in traffic that none of my units had any idea about. Overall, I am happy with the traffic info I get on this unit on NYC streets (not talking about out of town) and think it\'s pretty much on par with TomTom\'s HDVoice recognition works like a charm and \"wake up\" phrase to activate voice recognition is a cool feature present on Garmins and absent on TomToms. I never really cared about voice recognition and normally would play with it a couple of times and forget forever. On 3490 I actually use it, even for things like adjusting screen brightness.Advanced detours, introduced in 24xx series are also available on 3490 (and also disabled by default). Seems to work well. In general, implementation is a bit less user friendly than on TomTom, like when you would try to avoid a road by street name, it has a tendency to get too detailed and show you every ramp, so that on complex interchanges it becomes nearly impossible to figure out what needs to be selected. Other than that, it\'s a very welcome addition that was missing on Garmin for a long time. They also have an option to avoid any square region on map. I tried to use it to block block a permanently closed exit near Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan. It ended up blocking the whole block that included the whole avenue, which was absolutely not what I was looking for.Screen - high resolution, bright, multi-touch, dual-orientation and all other bells and whistles. Very good.Finally, few things that disappoint me. Some are a matter of personal taste, so may be minor for most people.Speed indicator turns red as soon as you exceed speed limit by 1 mile. In night color mode red on gray is difficult to read as there is not enough contrast between the two colors, especially when you try to look at it from a 5ft distance. It\'s really stressing my eyes and it clearly would take a developer like 30 seconds to slightly modify the colors. I complained before in earlier versions, but still no change.Sound quality is not the best you can find. The device is very thin, so it\'s probably hard to squeeze in a decent speaker. This is not a big issue, just it\'s very noticeable if you run it side-by-side with a bulkier gps unit. Also, the generated voice that speaks street names sounds too robotic compared to TomTom\'s.Map rendering is sometimes slow. Looking at 2D map at large scale is nearly impossible as the unit goes into sleep mode before it actually manages to render the map. Sometimes it is also noticeable while driving and parts of the screen my get black for some time. To me it\'s not really a a big issue and is not nearly as irritating as the speed limit thing.When viewed on a large scale, the map would mostly show the grid of highways with no labels. On long-distance trips it makes zooming-out on the map effectively useless. It comes nowhere close to 2D map display that was available on pre-1000 units. Yeah, it looks better on 3490, but it gives you less information and I am not happy with this trade-off.Initially I was also stupid enough to complain about screen been overloaded with useless buttons. This is easily fixable, see comments.Not a drawback of this specific unit, but it\'s anyway sad that the device is not connected. Features like live speed cameras or gas prices or weather radar are nice to have and something one gets used to very quickly. Also, I would strongly prefer a 5-inch device, but for some reason they don\'t produce 5-inch higher-end units. Looks strange to me as I don\'t really care if it\'s thin and light. After the excitement of the first few days is gone and the unit is installed in the car, thickness doesn\'t really matter, but screen size does.Overall, I like this unit. It seems to be good enough or almost good enough to make TomTom non-critical for driving on NYC streets. It also has a much friendlier UI that\'s almost as easy to use as the one on my old 255. Taking into account map details, I still think 255 and other ancient Garmins are better choices for long-distance trips, but 3490 comes pretty close. And their implementation of lane assist is just great.The biggest problem for me now is \"unable to calculate route\" issue as it affects pretty much every route I have to take (up until I cross some critical point on that highway). Other than that, it feels almost like the spirit of good old user-friendly Garmin is back. If only they fixed map details and speed indicator...
• There are shills among us. I\'ve read their reviews. They know not of what they speak. You know who you are.My prior Garmin device was okay. I commute from northwest of the Pittsburgh Airport to the Point Breeze area of Pittsburgh daily. Depending on the route I take, it is between 30 and 35 miles and takes an average of an hour and fifteen minutes in each direction. If there is an accident, bad weather, or unexpected construction zones, that can expand to two hours or more.My commuter vehicle of choice is a standard Mini Cooper (I love you, little guy!). No turbo. One hundred and twenty horsepower soaking wet. Would slow down going off a cliff. Really fun to drive and nimble when being attacked from a blind spot. I\'m information obsessed when commuting. I listen to the local talk radio station for traffic hints and make my decisions accordingly. I also have the ecoRoute device that transmits particular engine data points from the OBD port to this Garmin device. If you don\'t have it, get it. It\'s fascinating.This device has so many features to explore when you first install it. It\'s highly configurable, which many people may be intimidated by, but I\'m a software engineer and insist on finding every last checkbox the device has to offer. You can display buttons, or not. Change the layering of the maps from highly granular 3D in the city to my preferred map display mode I call Sgt. Joe Friday -- \"Just the facts, ma\'am\".It computes routing much faster than my old Garmin. Thankfully, I do not hear \"Recalculating\" anymore when I take a side road or shortcut. Because I live outside the radio range of traffic signal reception, I make my decision as to what route to take to work (short but slow or long but fast) based on the radio station I listen to. It recomputes in a few seconds and off I go.The trip computer is greatly enhanced. It shows most of what you\'d expect it to show as well as having an \"A\" and \"B\" side which allows you to get trip information for each leg of a trip while maintaining the integrity of the information for the entire trip. Really welcomed for trips requiring overnight stops.Data recordation can be done on a micro SD card. I slapped a 4G card in the tiny little slot and I\'d be hard pressed to have to purge data as long as I own the Mini.The ecoRoute has a gauge view that is configurable which displays RPM, data from the Oxygen sensors, cooling liquid temp, battery voltage, et al. The Mini has no native water temp gauge and that was a source of paranoia on hot summer days sitting in traffic. It\'s never been a problem, but I had a need to know. Interestingly, if you have an Android device, there is a Garmin app that offers additional information not available on my unit. I hope Garmin will pull additional data points in the future. They are limited in what they can display at any given time because of display size. ecoRoute offers a lot of feedback about how you drive. Starting. Braking. Throttle handling. If you are looking to maximize fuel economy, these features will help.The device is updated via a web browser plugin. It worked flawlessly on both my Mac and PC. It\'s very simplified. Push a couple of buttons and the new maps are just there. Not scary at all. And the maps are just maps. Accurate. Informational. The device recomputes arrival time as you go and is spot on. By spot on, I mean that you will arrive within a few minute window. Anyone expecting exactitude doesn\'t understand how they drive or how someone turning left against traffic might add a minute to their trip. It does the best it can with the information at hand.And so on, and so on. I\'d need pages to list all the features. Just explore. It will take a while to learn the device and adjust it to your style and information needs. The point is, you can adjust it to your style and information needs. So flexible.Let me talk about the device\'s form factor. It is as thin as my iPhone. Light. Connects and disconnects quickly from the vehicle. I park in protected space during the day and with my old device, I just left it in the car in plain view or tossed the whole rig under a seat if I parked elsewhere. With this device, I unlatch it from it\'s display holder and slip it in my pocket or backpack. No effort at all, really.Finally, you CAN adjust the volume on the device so it will drive you out of the car, if that\'s what you\'d like. It\'s a button push away.

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