2610 or Zumo 550 ? Questions, questions ...

At the risk of a torrent of abuse, can anyone help with teh doffernces between the Zumo 550 and what appears to be the highly revered 2610 ?

I am loking at getting myself a sat nav for teh 1200GS , and am familiar with Garmin products on my boat.

It seems the 2610 is a very sensible choice in terms of the current prices, so what does the Zumo have over above the 2610?

I currently have no interest in mp3/ipod connectivity, and to be honest can see little point in hooking up a mobile phone so that callers can hear a blast of turbulence ( may stop working phoning me out of hours though ).

I do think being able to get up to date traffic and weather information would be handy, do the XM NavTraffic, XM Weather FM TMC Traffic features actually work here in the UK on the Zumo? Are they any good ?

Is the information displayed on screen or is it audio only ? Do tehse features work on the 2610 ?

As you can probably tell, vehicle based sat nav is fairly new to me, any advice will be appreciated.

As a comparison you can see both side by side here

The XM sat features won't work in the UK but the FM Traffic feature does.

Thanks Whatton.

What exactly does the FM Traffic feature do ?

CityBum said:

Thanks Whatton.

What exactly does the FM Traffic feature do ?

Click to expand...

You need to buy an extra bit of kit, here.

In the UK it uses the "Trafficmaster" system to show delays on your route and then gives you an alternate route to avoid them if you want to.

I've not used it but some here have and they've reported "patchy" reception.

Does the FM Traffic thin gwork on a 2610? or is that unit too old ?

CityBum said:

Does the FM Traffic thin gwork on a 2610? or is that unit too old ?

Click to expand...

No, too old as you say

Hi,
I sold my 2610 because It lost reception to much (especially in cities), no internal battery, no recorded tracks (2000 points is not enough when you travel for 4000 km's).
So I bought a gpsmap 60cx, nice but didn't follow the route I carefully planned on my PC, but great on my mountainbike (tracks ....).
Now I bought myself a new zumo 550 (only 599 euro in a Brussels shop, I think they made a mistake pricing the thing ...and they do not have it in the showroom anymore).
I like the sirf III, the battery, the format, the buttons for zooming in and out (I ride a 1150gs) but I have my doubts about how it handles the routes I prepared on the PC. When I tell it to not use highways and take the shortest route it will not calculate a route for 1000 km (Brussels to Avignon) so I suppose there is either not enough internal memory or the processor is too weak,
I think the zumo is meant for people who likes a nice flashy gps that can play mp3 (why , when one can get a regular mp3 player almost for free), have bluetooth (who wants to telephone on a motorbike driving up the Stelvio).
No I want the 2610 with sirf III, 10000 track points, recording anything in gpx-files and internal battery.
But then again, Garmin would only sell one model ....
CU
Marc

Going off a tangent here ... Is it possible to upload sea charts to either of these units for use afloat ? The obvioulsy don't have such wayfaring functionality as cross track error or MOB but could still be useful none the less.