Garmin 590 or the Tomtom rider 410 which is best

chrisjk said:

I have used Garmins since 2007, street pilots, 550, 660 (briefly) Nav V , montana and a 590, on various bikes both on-road and off-road but these days, I much prefer to use a phone - specifically a water resistant /proof Android phone. I am currently using a Nomu S10 (rugged phone, dual Sim or Sim plus an SD card, 5000mAh battery! and IP68). Cost of this phone - £120 from Amazon.

I use a variety of navigation apps with offline maps from a multitude of sources. If I want I can set up routes very quickly using offline or online routing engines, I can download and upload tracks, get turn by turn voice guidance for both routes and tracks and in short, get a whole lot more than I ever get from a Garmin.

This particular phone runs pretty well all day on battery only but can of course be hooked up to power if required.

Click to expand...

Thats interesting Chris. I'm in midst of trying to figure out what to do for my foray into bike sat nav. Use an old OneXL tomtom in car, map outdated and will not accept updates anymore so due to be replaced. My mobile is also on its last legs so it too is on list of things to replace. Tried one of those waterproof pouches on a ram mount with the old car nav in it, very wobbly, very difficult to see the screen in sunlight and no bluetooth so I can't hear whats going on plus the bloody thing fell off going up a mountain road but was easily retrieved. The other day I was in a beautifull mountain road and met a Dutch guy on an R1100GS who was over here on his hols, he was travelling light and he was using a phone for navigation, an old HTC. He seemed very happy with it and now reading your post I'm thinking I'll just get a new Xperia Z3/5 compact and use that. Its waterproof too so no need to any case, my only concern is that it might shake itself to bits and also keeping a USB plugged in to charge it will leave it vulnerable to water ingress plus probably knacker the connector port with the vibes on cable.

In short Chris, do you have any experioence pof using the sony Z series phones or know how they fare? Oh and, how do you mount the phone, a variety of mounts on ebay but not sure what works best, some look like they are more suited to bicycles.

I used a car satnav in poich. Gave up. Went with z series. Great until its raining and you cant get the unit to recognise exactly where to touch. Gave up taking gloves on off. Drying screen. Did 40k trying to be clever. Always a pain in the arse. Bought 590lm after numerous research. Never looked back. Wish id done it sooner. Good luck in quest but it has proved worth every penny in the last 15k.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk