Zumo GPS

[kebo123]

JT 384, so good luck with your decision and let us know how you are satisfied with your 660 than.

 

[bramfrank]

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I personally liked the 478 better than the 660 but I didn't want to mess around with data cards.

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But the 478 doesn't use data cards much differently than the 660 does.. Maps are preloaded in main memory and data cartridges are used for supplementary mapping. Since there's no MP3 player in the 478 you don't need any memory cards unless you want to install out-of-area maps and how often is that?

 

[Meltdown]

Should have also stated that I prefer a touch screen interface as well as Bluetooth. Look, I don't claim to be a GPS expert by any stretch of the imagination. In deciding which to purchase I made a list of what I wanted & what I didn't, read reviews here and elsewhere, and made a decision. It's as simple as that.

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I personally liked the 478 better than the 660 but I didn't want to mess around with data cards.

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But the 478 doesn't use data cards much differently than the 660 does.. Maps are preloaded in main memory and data cartridges are used for supplementary mapping. Since there's no MP3 player in the 478 you don't need any memory cards unless you want to install out-of-area maps and how often is that?

 

[JT 384]

I will Kebo 123! But I will only be able to do a test in the jeep until winter is over.

 

[kebo123]

You do not have a winter tyres???

 

[LAF]

I have had a few Garmins now. I think my favorite was a 2820. I use a 660 now. I find most of my problems with Garmin is non intuitive mapping software but not with hardware.

I can only say that the 660 survived a 65 mile get off in a Tour Tech mount. Not a scratch and functions as normal. I am talking flipping end over end type total so it says I was lucky to get my Garmin back.

I love how sleek it is and it has built in power. My 2820 did not. The down side is the cradle cord is very big and awkward as it has all the plug outs on it at various lengths. It is a very bulky cord!

Mine has and does work well for me and I was lucky and got a 100.00 rebate Garmin ran about 8 or so months ago.

 

[fastpappy]

+1 The rebate was what made my decsion and I just tuck the cords under the tank so just the ends stick out if I need them. I do the same with the wire from the Battery Tender.

 

[John d]

I have not had most of the problems that bramfrank reports with my Z550. Since I bought the thing I have been in love with it...

...until recently. I was duped into buying a NuMaps "lifetime" maps upgrade for my Zumo. When I did it upgraded my maps to the latest 2011.2 maps, but also surreptitiously updated my mapsucks to ver 6.16.2, which has the route sharing problems we discovered earlier, creating pink spaghetti, etc. except that now the route lines are no longer pink, so I guess they figure that they fixed that? :blink:

When I updated my maps the GPS would not accept all of North America and Canada in the limited memory of the device ( what?) even though I have an expansion SD card, it will not use that memory. Instead I had to select just "lower 48" for the maps upload. And, now, when I try to load even a modest route the GPS complains of being "out of memory, blah, blah, blah". It is also acting significantly more buggy than it was before the "upgrade".

I am sorely tempted at this point to roll back my Z550 to the 2009 maps and Mapsource version that came with the unit, and which was so darn stable. If I do so, at that point I will be out the entire cost of the lifetime NuMaps upgrade (not an insignificant amount of coin), but maybe I'll just give Garmin enough constant heat that they'll refund my purchase price? I doubt it, but I suppose it is worth a try. The big problem is, (as I've said before) Garmin really sucks moist ass cheese, except when compared to all the others.

I was able to get all of the USA and Canada 2011.20 maps on the Zumo 550 by deleting all unnecessary languages and vehicle types, and I can load many routes (some complex 600 miles ones easily). I worried about the next map upgrade and can understand your thoughts on the lifetime upgrade. I have a 16GB SD card in it partly loaded with music which will slow the start up of the unit.

 

[Fred W]

I was able to get all of the USA and Canada 2011.20 maps on the Zumo 550 by deleting all unnecessary languages and vehicle types, and I can load many routes (some complex 600 miles ones easily). I worried about the next map upgrade and can understand your thoughts on the lifetime upgrade. I have a 16GB SD card in it partly loaded with music which will slow the start up of the unit.

I have also deleted all the extra voices, languages and vehicles (after the unsuccessful map upgrade) in an attempt to get the routes to run more reliably. I may go back now and see if I can get the rest of the 2011.2 to load up.

Is there a good reason to use a larger SD card? I'm only using 4GB SD cards since the unit will only list 500 mp3's anyway, seems overkill to have anything bigger on there.

 

[John d]

I was able to get all of the USA and Canada 2011.20 maps on the Zumo 550 by deleting all unnecessary languages and vehicle types, and I can load many routes (some complex 600 miles ones easily). I worried about the next map upgrade and can understand your thoughts on the lifetime upgrade. I have a 16GB SD card in it partly loaded with music which will slow the start up of the unit.

I have also deleted all the extra voices, languages and vehicles (after the unsuccessful map upgrade) in an attempt to get the routes to run more reliably. I may go back now and see if I can get the rest of the 2011.2 to load up.

Is there a good reason to use a larger SD card? I'm only using 4GB SD cards since the unit will only list 500 mp3's anyway, seems overkill to have anything bigger on there.

I haven't tried listing all the mp3's on the Zumo itself, but I can see 17 full CD's in mp3 format and an additional top 500 listed in five folders from my computer screen (through the Zumo USB cable), and the computer says I still have 11.1 GB left on the card. Also, when looking at the Zumo music screen, it says which mp3 out of 660 it is playing as in (377 / 660).

 

[Fred W]

I haven't tried listing all the mp3's on the Zumo itself, but I can see 17 full CD's in mp3 format and an additional top 500 listed in five folders from my computer screen (through the Zumo USB cable), and the computer says I still have 11.1 GB left on the card. Also, when looking at the Zumo music screen, it says which mp3 out of 660 it is playing as in (377 / 660).

Really? I'll have to check again, but I could have sworn that there was a 500 title limit. Maybe it was 660. Either way, it just quits indexing the mp3s once it reaches the maximum. The only way to get more music is to combine multiple songs into single mp3 files.

As to making the Zumo work better as a GPS, I decided to try loading fewer maps rather than more. I'm loading up just the "Eastern" North America (which includes the eastern provinces of Canada) as I type this. That should (hopefully) give me more free memory on the GPS and help it run a bit better. I'll report back on that later.

 

[John d]

I did some more research. The waypoints are limited to 500 in total. The playlists is limited to 1000 mp3's per playlist. I have found no limit on the actual number of mp3's other than the capacity of the card.

 

[Fred W]

Thanks, good to know. I'll try messing with that some more.

I wanted to report back what happened when I reloaded just the Eastern maps. Originally, with my 2009 maps loaded and a whole bunch of voices, text and vehicles, the GPS was jammed full. Free space was below 100M with no routes or tracks.

After loading 2011.2 maps and cleaning all the folders of unnecessary stuff I still only had 128Mb free. After loading up just eastern maps I now have 292 Mb free space.

As a test, I zoomed in on the western US on the GPS. I still have the interstates and cities shown, but no detail when you zoom in.

Whether having more free space allows the GPS to run better is to be seen...

 

[bramfrank]

That is correct . . . when you look at a place where there is no detailed map loaded, you see the 'base map'. It covers North America (for NA units) and provides interstates and such as you noted, but little in the way of detail and obviously no points of interest.

Then again, few of us require the entire map all the time - most will never need ther other half of the continent from where we are, so memory limitations aren't usually all that much of an inconvenience.

 

[John d]

I have been adding more mp3's and found that the Zumo 550 will not recognize more than 1000 of them, period, so the 16 GB card is overkill after all. An 8 GB card would be plenty for 1000 mp3's.

 

[Fred W]

A follow-up on my "experiment" of having loaded fewer of the version 2011.2 maps onto the Zumo 550.

I've had several opportunities to use the GPS now and it does seem to be behaving itself considerably better now with the extra free memory. Having just the Eastern maps loaded is not a huge hardship to me. If / when I travel across country I could load the remaining North America maps onto an SD card.

However, one little "gotcha" previously reported still exists: When a route is created in one of the later versions of mapsource (I have 6.16.3 on my PC) and uploaded to the GPS using transfer utility the built into MS, when the route is imported it sees that it was created in the same version of maps and doesn't do a recalculate. When you inspect the route it has weird extra routing (pink spaghetti). To get rid of that spaghetti it appears that all one needs to do is force a recalculate on the route. However, the recalc can screw up the routing sometimes, especially if the route is a full loop and returns to the start. I think this spaghetti problem is in mapsource, not the maps.

 

[2006FJR]

I love my 660 and I use it daily. Spent about 15 hours on the bike in the last 2 days and though the 660 did not shut off on it's own this trip it has many times before? I know some of the updates should have fixed this but it still happens from time to time. I am running the latest software and have it on about 5 hours a day.

 

[RED]

I've had a 550 for a few years. It has seen 30,000 miles of all sort of weather. Its hit concrete a few times. It takes a lickin, but keeps on tickin. I have seen that 660 model. I dig larger screen. I just might have to have one.