
The battery not only arrrived very fast it included a dvd with step by step directions for installing the battery. My Garmin acts like it is brand new. Even better then new the battery is an exentended life one and holds a charge much longer then the orginal.I should have listened to other reviews. My Garmin Nuvi 650 got to the point where it wouldn't hold any charge, so I decided to replace the battery. The battery replacement using this kit was a little more difficult than the video showed, but went fine. But now the touchscreen is completely dead, which makes the the unit completely useless. Battery seems to charge fine, for whatever that is worth. But the unit itself is now junk. Use at your own risk.My old nuvi 650 cannot hold electric charge for more than 5 min (even after fully charged according to the indicator the current would drain completely in just a few minutes). I was reluctant to throw my GPS away, but also reluctant to purchase a replacement battery, especially after seeing the 2 negative reviews. Finally I decided to give it a try after all, the steps shown in the video (online) looked easy enough.
So I bought the battery replacement kit and watched the video one more time, and followed every step to get the battery replaced. I turned on my GPS and immediately noticed that I encountered the same problem one of the reviewers had: the touch screen won't work! There is no response at all! I was going to give up and wanted to call either Amazon or NewPower99.com, but decided to open the GPS again and check the connections. I noticed one of the film connection line seemed not in the right place, and I put it to the right place (at least I thought so), and pushed the connection near the base of the receiver (i.e. receiver to the main body), then the touch screen came alive! Now it is working just fine!
To me the most difficult part is to release the spring locking mechanism from the base of the receiver to expose the two screws behind the receiver. I had to really use a sharp object a needle to push and release the spring locking mechanism. To separate the GPS screen from the main body, I found it is easier to just use my fingernail rather than the supplied tool.
Basically, it seems that Garmin would not want the customers to replace the old battery it wants you to get a new GPS! That's why the GPS was designed in such a way to make the battery replacement (a would-be easy job) quite struggle (every step along the way you would be afraid that you might break something such as a wire connection). Think about how easy it is to change a battery in a phone. Why can't GPS manufacturers do the same??? Or is it just Garmin?I purchased this kit for my Nuvi 650 so I could replace the battery because it didn't seem to hold a charge anymore. The instructions are great but actually getting into the Nuvi is not easy. You need a heavy towel to work on and a dish to put all the pieces in which come off the Nuvi. The plastic hook supplied is not sharp enough really to undo the case but eventually after about 40 minutes of prising the case all around it came off. However, one of the screwdrivers does not undo the two inner screws holding the mother board in. We ended up using a much larger one from our own kit and brut force to undo one of the internal screws. Finally to the battery which was glued in and did not come out easily at all. Once all put together again however the battery worked but the original problem remains the touch screen doesn't work. I think the CD is great for this but the tools need revision or maybe each Garmin is different inside. The total time to change my battery was an hour.I watched the instructional video twice (found it on Youtube) before even ordering this product and felt that I would give this kit a try after learning that my nuvi 650 would only hold a charge for a couple of minutes. I thought, what's the worst that can happen? I'd have to buy a new unit? This solution, if it worked, would be way cheaper than that.
The trickiest part was getting the receiver apart far enough to get inside and release the spring loaded clip. After getting the receiver off the unit, it's probably best to re-install those two screws that hold the receiver together so that you don't lose them. The tools provided worked fine. The case pry tool was very helpful.
The old battery was taped in place, and the replacement didn't come with tape, so I used some double-sided sticky tape, which seemed to work okay. The unit is currently charging, and I expect that I'll get a couple more years of use out of the device thanks to this new battery.
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