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WHICH bike sat nav
guys,, am lookin fur a decent priced do it all bike sat nav.. can ye put me onto any please,,, is all teh ones made for a bike waterproof.??? thanks.
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do not go for the garmin zumo, get a tom tom biker II
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cheers Fran..........
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Are you going to use topographic maps.. I use a Garmin nuvi50 5" screen .. I needed a bigger screen now.. It works well with Topo maps... Easy to load Lat/long way points from google earth to build routes prier to leaveing.. Had a Garmin 60c hand held till I had trouble seeing the screen it was a great unit , again worked well with Topo maps.. Very easy to do trail ploting way points while rideing then load to a PC/laptop to build route maps etc... as below.. http://www.advroutes.org.nz/index.html I use a cheap Chinese unit in the car... works well if yer just want to use it on the seal... |
I agree that the Tom Tom Rider is a great piece of kit, pricey but excellent hardware with bluetooth and all that. Have been using mine for years.
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You need to know what you want it for, as there are horses for courses. If you want to get from Home to Tescos, then the TomTom is great, if you want to go further afield, into the unknown, need proper Celestial information better mapping options (such as plotting your own route, us of OS or TOPO maps) then a Garmin unit is the obvious choice. If you want cheap A to B and you are not to bothered about the route then there are �100 Chinese bike GPS's on Ebay that take memory map uploads. Or there are the smartphone options, Do you want easy to use ? Do you want far away maps? Do you want to rely only on a frail GPS signal from the sky, or do you want WAAS from land based systems as a backup? Do you want to follow trails from other GPS's? Do you want it for the car & Bike, or just the bike ? Do you want the ability to connect to your phone ? Do you want it to play music ? the options are almost endless., you need to know what you want, then you can narrow your choices. Personally, having used TomTom, Garmin, Lowrance and the Smartphone offerings, I would always go for the Zumo 550 on the bike, TomTom in the car and the Lowrance if I was serious. TomTom is easy to use, but limited in it's functionality. The Zumo is the best all round offering, tough, reliable, flexible, but has a difficult menu system (until you get used to it) and is expensive, Lowrance is serious kit, if you are asking a question about navigation systems, then Lowrance isn't something you should even look at....... And Smartphones, in my opinion should stick to internet and making phone calls, but should never be relied upon. If you've never used a GPS, or have limited knowledge then the obvious option is TomTom, but if you want to have trail information from OS, TOPO or Lat/Long sources then the Zumo, but you'll need to practise with it to get to know it. |
Zumo 660 cradle
In my opinion the standard cradle Is in sufficient to hold the unit and they fail (one under warranty one post warranty). Maybe the previous Garmin Zumo 550 was a better unit? The touratech bar mount doesn't seem to stop the failure of contact points on the rear.
Map and compass is always a good backup! Maybe it won't be long before a ruggard tablet and gps dongle will replace everything. |
garmin zumo 660, but i mainly use mine in europe. will be using it in 6 weeks time can,t wait
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Yes for me Garmin 660, UK to Thailand July-November 2012, did have problems with the unit on one update and it wiped its self, now working 100% great unit.
Eric |
John I am sure the AA road atlas would do you fine....:blowup:
Excellent info Darren :023:, I have tried TomTom and it was OK for roads, I found the Google maps/phone great if you have G3 signal if not it was worse that using your watch and looking where the sun is.....:incon_aargh[1]: If its for the UK you are unlikly to be any further than 200 miles from the sea....:sad4:
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Once bitten, twice shy.......
In other words: Tom Tom never again.
After the debarcle with the original Tom Tom Rider (cr*p design and the couldn't care less customer services), I won't buy another Tom Tom product out of principle. My Garmin Zumo 550 served me well for a couple of years of every day use until I wore the touch screen out. Until I get a replacement screen off ebay, I'm making do using my smartphone with Google Maps (pre-cache map areas of where you intend to go incase of no 3G signal when you get there) and Co-Pilot. |
Im a Garmin 550 man, old mans a Garmin 660 man.
But i remeber reading around when i was buying my Garmin that the 440/500 version is very similar to the 550 just older version and cheaper but just maybe not as flash/up to date/quick etc etc but i was able to get a second hand 550 off another forum member on here fore i think �400 about 4 years ago now. Still working strong, dropped the main GPS a few times from about 1.5m (aka bike height), been through enough rain to claim at being the most waterproof product in the world, never up dated the maps since the orginal owner bought it and still does me fine. I now am working i use it most in the work van with the supplied car cradle, works great, sound from speaker can be super load if required. Only problems ive had is the orginal cradle for the bike was 10 years old and in my 4 years use was on the bike which was used all year round and abused quiet alot and one of the pins failed so had to buy a new cradle at around �50. When i use it in the work van i can do alot of start stop driving (on off engine stuff) and can confuse the sat nav and it will not switch on as it thinks its not getting power (solution keep a small allen key and remove battery and replace, works fine after that) |
Love Garmin... excellent company...., their customer service is incredible and tech help is second to none. they also do a lifetime map update pack so long as you keep your curent zumo for only �74.99 had my zumo 660 for some time now and it great on the bike as well as in the car.... if you have a mac then then great coz garmin fully support it ... lots of free goodies like crazy vehicles to download to...hope this helps...:grommit:
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