On July 13th, Garmin International announced the immediate availability of the Garmin nüvi 1690 to the Canadian market. While this device has been available since last year in US markets, it was necessary to delay the launch up North pending an agreement with one of Canadian’s mobile carriers, Rogers. The Garmin 1690′s big feature is their nüLink! feature that provides comprehensive point of interests (POIs) search capabilities through Google. This includes local search and white page telephone listings.

In addition, the wireless network provides the 1690 with other online services such as local events and movie listings, real-time flight status, weather forecasts, even currency exchange information. All of this is updated regularly thanks to the always connected nature of the nüLink! service which this device gets 1 year free of. After that, Canadians have to pay $65 a year, or $9.99 a month to keep the service alive. The US edition gets 2 years free and is $60US a year or $5 US a month. Roaming charges are included so the device works on both sides of the border.

Check out our unboxing video below which includes a quick walk through of the devices physical attributes and what it comes with:

We’ll be bringing you our final road tests and conclusions in the next couple days. The Garmin nüvi 1690 retails for $429 Canadian or $399 US if you’ve hunting for the US version.

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