The 2820 screen size is too small in my book

Had my 2820 for 3 days now and I've got to be honest, I don't find it noticeably better than my 2610. The screen size really annoys me... the tabs take up far too much screen space compared the 2610 and for me, the displayed map is much smaller than my 2610. I'll try get some pictures posted to show the difference in the displays. I'm blowed if I can find how to change the screen display on it and if I have to RTFM, I consider that bad product design. Keep it simple ( or my favourite... keep it short, keep it funny hehe ) is how it should be and a 2820 is nothing of the sort. The menu system is also far more complicated than the 2610 - I don't like it.

I don't think the 2820 is worth £400.00 over the 2610 - I'm definately not overly impressed by it. It's certainly no quicker than my 2610 and the extra features aren't all what I thought they'd be cracked up to be.

If you're in the market for a Garmin GPS, in my book, the 2610 is a far more practical option for everyday use and it's £400.00 cheaper than the 2820. Make sure you see both in the flesh before you buy one

276C is a much better option than either

mrTickle said:

Had my 2820 for 3 days now and I've got to be honest, I don't find it noticeably better than my 2610.

Click to expand...

Sucks to be you then...

The only 2610 time I've ever had was trying to figure out how to use a riding buddies unit a couple weeks ago...

So I have no comparisons getting in the way of me enjoying what I just paid 1300 euros for (including motorcycle mounts, and TMC antenna).

But if I'm not mistaken, the 2610 doesn't do TMC... It doesn't interface with a bluetooth phone, it doesn't have all of Europe on board... it doesn't have a POI facility designed to make traffic cameras a non-threat... and it doesn't keep a decent length tracklog... and doesn't play MP3's... or do driving tours...

But other than that you are correct... it's not any worse than the 2820...

BTW, you can customise your map screen with [menue]<settings><pagedown><map data fields>... then set to none, thin customizable, wide customizable... etc...

Al.....

Ditto

Jimb said:

276C is a much better option than either

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Agree with JIMB
the 276C is still the best of the crop. Best screen, fast processor, but of course it doesn't make phone calls for you nor brew coffee or put your tent up....
Whatever happened to the days of 'ride with the wind in your hair' and enjoy riding your bike? that's my 2-pence in today!

mrTickle said:

I'm blowed if I can find how to change the screen display on it and if I have to RTFM, I consider that bad product design.

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What you are complaining about is the tighter pixellation (higher level of detail) shown on the 2820 compared to the 2610. The difference is simple - the newer GPSR has 454 by 240 pixels of detail on the same size screen that was used to display 305 by 160 pixels on the older GPSR.

There is a simple fix for the problem you are having - press the ZOOM IN button. You will then see the same content that you saw before, but at a larger size. It's exactly like the pitch of the pixels on a computer monitor... the tighter the pixels are packed, the more detail can be shown in the same physical size. In other words, the same picture that used to take up the entire screen of the 2610 can now be fitted into the smaller 'window' that is surrounded by the guidance line at the top, and the detail windows on the right hand side.

This technological progress sometimes presents a problem for older people who are not familiar with the concepts of how such a display works. They see what they think is a 'smaller' picture, when in reality it is a more detailed picture presented in the same physical space. Just zoom in, and your problems will be gone.

You can get rid of the information across the top of the display and also get rid of the boxes that contain the times and distances to go that appear along the right hand side. I do suggest you read the owner manual, though - if you are having difficulty comprehending how pitch affects display size on a flat panel display, I don't think it's really prudent of you to rely on intuition to figure out anything else related to the device.

The processor on the 28xx series is an order of magnitude faster than the processor on the 26xx series. You would see the difference if you were running the same cartographic product (CN version 8) on both machines. However, you are probably running CN 6 on your 26xx and CN 8 on the 28xx, hence, you are not comparing apples to oranges.

The 26xx series is an excellent product, no doubt about it. But, if your visual acuity allows you to take in the entire picture provided on the 28xx series, the 28xx is a significant improvement over the 26xx. You will also benefit from the speed camera warnings on the 28xx, which also include an audio alert (rapid beeping), so you don't need to worry about squinting to see where the speed camera is.

If all else fails, may I suggest you consider this GPSR: click here. It has exactly the same number of pixels as the 27xx, but the screen is 7 inches wide. You won't even need to put your spectacles on to view that one, and thanks to the large built-in speaker, you won't need your ear horn either.

Michael

Bert said:

...the 276C is still the best of the crop...

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I have a 296, and I really, really like it, but it doesn't support a couple of features that I think are really useful - bordering on being necessary for urban survival nowadays:

1) Automatic alerting about speed cameras (Custom POI's)

2) Traffic Information Service.

I can live without MP3 sound, and I can certainly live without the cell phone via Bluetooth, but after having used the speed camera database and the TMC service for the last year, I think I would be really, really hard pressed to live without them. There's also the problem of map storage capacity, which has been mitigated somewhat recently by the release of the 512 meg data chip.

Sadly, the newer version of the 2x6 series, the 3x6, does not provide TMC either, though I think it might support a larger (ca. 15,000 item) Custom POI database. Don't quote me on that, though.

Michael

araspitfire said:

But if I'm not mistaken, the 2610 doesn't do TMC... It doesn't interface with a bluetooth phone, it doesn't have all of Europe on board... it doesn't have a POI facility designed to make traffic cameras a non-threat... and it doesn't keep a decent length tracklog... and doesn't play MP3's... or do driving tours...


BTW, you can customise your map screen with [menue]<settings><pagedown><map data fields>... then set to none, thin customizable, wide customizable... etc...

Al.....

Click to expand...

... I'm not disputing what the 2820 does and i also thought i needed all of those features... but it turns out i don't... that's all i was saying. You may be able to get driving tours etc etc but honestly, how often are you going to use them? The TMC was the main reason I got it but I cant get hold of the GTM12 aerial.

My 2610 has a 2Gb memory card so has all of Europe loaded on. I reckon most people will use their 2820's primarily as a GPS rather than a MP3 player. As for bluetooth, how many of us own a bluetooth helmet or headset - I don't. I haven't found the calculation speed of the unit to be any better than the 2610.

You cannot ( well I can't see how ) set the tabs to transparant which means the screen size is a lot smaller than the 2610 and this is my biggest gripe with the unit. It's practical screen size is about 3/4 of an inch ( maybe even 1 inch ) smaller than a 2610's which just seems stupid to me. What you describe above to set it up removes the tabs so you cannot see your speed, heading etc. and that's no good to me. If anyone knows how to make the tabs transparent, please let us know.

...here's a picture of the 2820 and 2610 so you can see what i mean about the 2820's tabs stealing screen space...

... the most i can get out of the 2820 display... the tabs set to "thin". I can't see how to set custom fields ( like on the 2610 ) for the tabs either.

Seriously now (no teasing you any more), I really miss the transparent tabs too.

There was a HUGE change in the design philosophy of the automotive GPSRs with the transition from the 26xx series to the 27xx and later series. The 26xx was the last pure automotive GPSR that was designed 'by engineers, for engineers'. The configuration menus were not intuitive (although we might think they are, but that's because we are now used to them), and setting up some of the features - such as customized transparent tabs - took a heck of a lot of skill.

With effect from the release of the 27xx, all the pure automotive GPSRs adopted a simplified user interface that is common across all the automotive products - the StreetPilots, the Nuvis, the little 'stick-em on the windshield' ones, the whole works. The marine and aviation GPSRs have retained the original 'engineering driven' user interface, but unfortunately they don't offer all the features (notably TMC) that the pure automotive ones do.

The closest parallel I can draw in the evolution of the user interface design would be the change from the MS-DOS prompt to the Windows GUI. All the geeks that were at ease with MS-DOS (as a result of spending a lot of time learning how to work it) howled when the Windows GUI came out. But - and here's the rub - the masses then began to purchase personal computers, and PC sales took off exponentially after that. The same is happening now with automotive GPSRs. 3 or 4 years ago, only the early adopters used them. Now, you see them everywhere.

Anyway, it's no good lamenting the loss of the transparent tabs (which was the first thing I asked to have back when I got a pre-production 27xx to test a couple of years ago) - the hardware in the 27xx and 28xx won't support them, so they are gone for good.

Michael

mrTickle said:

... the most i can get the 2820 to display... the tabs still take up screen space

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RTFM before you whinge, for Pete's sake. The photo below shows a 27xx display, the 28xx can be set up the same way.

Michael

Full Screen Display

mrTickle said:

... The TMC was the main reason I got it but I cant get hold of the GTM12 aerial...

Click to expand...

Well, if TMC was all you really wanted, you should have got a 27xx, rather than blowing your money on a 28xx.

The 27xx supports TMC and Custom POI's (speed cameras).

Mchael

PanEuropean said:

RTFM before you whinge, for Pete's sake. The photo below shows a 27xx display, the 28xx can be set up the same way.

Michael

Full Screen Display

Click to expand...

I didn't say you can't do that - I said you can't make the tabs transparent.

You loose about an inch of screen if you use tabs - which I do. That's crazy on a unit with such a small screen - Garmin should of known better.

PanEuropean said:

Well, if TMC was all you really wanted, you should have got a 27xx, rather than blowing your money on a 28xx.

The 27xx supports TMC and Custom POI's (speed cameras).

Mchael

Click to expand...

I didn't realize the 2820 was so limited before I bought it. I read all the hype and got suckered. I thought it would be handy to have a MP3 GPS, I thought it would be handy to have bluetooth. But in reality it's not - the unit is used primarily as a GPS only and it has a teeny weeny display. It'll probably make many folks happy but I am dissapointed with it.

If I had known the screen was an inch smaller due to the way Garmin set up the tab fields and there were no customizable tabs, I would not have bought one. When I turn both units on, it's the 2610 that's ready to go first. On the road, both GPS's are about equal and I certainly can't see any speed difference on the 2820 - it's still a few roads behind where I actually am at times. If I'd known the information that I just posted here, I would not have bought one. I hope it helps other people in the market for one not make the same mistake as me.

Similar to araspitfire, as my 2720 (same screen resolution / tab options as the 2820) is the first GPSR I've owned "I have no comparisons getting in the way of me enjoying what I paid for". (What a lovely expression!)

That said I have friends who use 2610's and I would argue that, with thin tabs set and the display in "Track Up" configuration, for any given level of map detail you can actually see more of your forward route on the 2720 than you can on the 2610 due to the higher screen resolution on the latter. It's only the map to the sides of the route that is "squeezed" by the tabs, and I'm not heading that way anyway.

I also agree with Michael that, when loaded with the same cartography - i.e. CN v8 - my 2720 (and, I see no reason to believe that the 2820 is any different in this respect) calculates & recalculates faster than a friends 2610 when used side by side. Startup times are no guide to processing speed.

There was a long thread on the GPSPassion forum starting in mid-2005 with people chewing over whether or not the 2720 was better or worse than the 2610 and ultimately the only feature of the 2610 that was really missed is the transparent tabs which, as Michael says, simply aren't coming back. One of the original die-hard 2610 fans commented in that thread that after using the 2720 for 3 months or so he was still so sure that his old 2610 was better that he swapped back with the intention of giving the 2720 to his wife. After one day back with the 2610 he revised his opinion, decided to keep the 2720 for himself and put the 2610 on e-bay so as to fund the purchase of a C-series StreetPilot for his wife. Bottom line: the user interface for the 27xx and 28xx is significantly different to that of the 26xx and you musn't be blinded to the other improvements by unfamiliarity.

I'd have to agree that transparent info boxes would be a good thing..

And I'm not sure about Garmin's response to Micheal about hardware not supporting that.... what exactly are the zoom soft-keys if they are not transparent???

I'll also agree with you that the menu functionality that gets your info fields customised is a tad non-intuitive... but it is possible to change that data...

Al...

Interesting thread. I've never been much bothered with all the 'extras' available on GPSRs nowadays - don't use audio, don't worry about cameras, etc, etc. And, if I was in the market to replace my Quest, would certainly consider a cheapie 2610.

Jimb said:

276C is a much better option than either

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What is it about these 276 owners that make them so fanatical? I reckon a 1150GSA owner with a 276 would be my definition of a Luddite

chasr said:

What is it about these 276 owners that make them so fanatical?

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Don't you know? then you'll just have to get one- then you will understand! and never look back.
Pan is right ... a 512MB chip is more than enough especially when outside Europe...worldmap can fit on a 32MB chip with plenty of room to spare!
Of course that doesn't show hair salons, GS pedicure places etc etc

chasr said:

What is it about these 276 owners that make them so fanatical? I reckon a 1150GSA owner with a 276 would be my definition of a Luddite

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Fanatical 276c users, mmmm… funnily enough, I’d have thought the 276c the ideal GS adventure GPS, regardless of its features it just looks the business, big screen and lots of buttons LOL!

The 276C

If its too small in your book, you can scan it and enlarge the image.
Whats it like in real life ?