Vision only, best option?

HMR said:

But he (PanEuropean) is a passive motorway cruiser and his opinions are mainly valid for that category.

Click to expand...

My preferred road type are the secondary roads, what are known as 'departmental' roads in France, or known as '. Or, where I was riding two weeks ago - in Northeastern Romania, along highways 17a, 17c, and 18.

I'm no more of a passive motorway cruiser than you are a GPS expert.

Michael

PanEuropean said:

I'm no more of a passive motorway cruiser than you are a GPS expert.

Click to expand...

Coffee...keyboard....you know the rest

PanEuropean said:

There's more to it than that, but if you read the excerpt I have posted above, I think you will see what I mean.

Click to expand...

Yes, I see what you mean. Lets hope you are right and that Garmin really put all the features we need in the Zumo making it the perfect MC device. It's indeed very irritating that one today must carry two navigators on the bike to get what one need for all kinds of roads.

I typically drive motorways from Sweden to the AutoZug in Hamburg (needing a 2820) and then from Austria (needing speed camera warnings) to the gravel roads of Slovenia (needing the 276C). Further on to the high Alp gravel roads of France and east Italy (276C again) and then home through Swiss & and the traffic congestions of Germany (2820 again).

Today the 276C is the best compromise for me - hopefully the Zumo can do a better job.

I beleive it when I see it!

PanEuropean said:

Please, be careful what you write. When you post inaccurate information - your own interpretation of something, or your own speculation, and you try to pass it off as fact, you do no-one any good.

Click to expand...

Right. I'm trying to be careful but my limited knowledge in the english language may make my statments misleading. Typically I express my opinion - not facts.

Anyway - lately I noticed the following during a recent 6 days / 3000 km ride in the Alps where we (four GS-riders) searced for extreme roads for an upcoming BMW/GS-club event:

1. 276C
I prepared 47 routes. 38 normal routes on roads and 9 tracks where the map was poor. I verifyed the tracks with Google Earth. I uploaded all of it to my 276C and everything worked perfect. No problems whatsoever.

2. SP2610
Friend 1 converted my tracks with MapSource to "direct routes". Uploaded everything to his SP2610. He lost some detail using direct routes instead of tracks but everything worked fairly well.

3. Quest
Friend 2 tried to upload the routes but the Quest would only accomodate 27 routes before he got "route memory full". He had to skip all the off-road tracks and a third of the normal routes. While riding the Quest worked fine but it was of-course a problem only having half of the routes with him.

4. Quest 2
Friend 3 could also only upload half of the routes. While riding the Quest 2 never worked more than 15 minutes after starting one of the prepared routes. Then it hung and neded restart. After restarting routes 511 times he gave up and used the Quest 2 only as a moving map.

Conclusion: Both the 276C and the SP2610 did the job OK. Neither Quest 1 nor Quest 2 performed as expected.

It was only the 276C that could log the entire trip. In theory also the Quest 1 should have been able to do it but for some reason it didn't work. The Quest 2 lost all logged info when it was reset.

HMR said:

Right. I'm trying to be careful but my limited knowledge in the English language may make my statements misleading. Typically I express my opinion - not facts.

Click to expand...

Ah, OK, sorry if any offense was given over the language issue, I did not mean that.

I often express opinions also, but I am now very careful to make it clear to others whenever what I write is an opinion or a guess, rather than a known fact. If someone (you or I) is a frequent poster in a forum - any forum - then we run the risk of being considered a 'source of information', and as a result, we have to be far more careful to distinguish our opinions, guesses, and speculation from 'hard facts'.

The infrequent posters and the newbies don't really have that same obligation, because readers don't tend to see these people as 'sources of information'.

Michael

What an interesting thread !!!!
Perhaps I can add a few things not previously stated (unless I missed them) which may be of interest.
I evaluated a range of models and came up with the 276C, but that's because it suited MY purposes.
Firstly, the SP26xx series have a touch screen, the 276C does not.
Personally, I prefer operating the buttons than trying to touch the screen in the right place, because I can perform a number of operations by feel rather than taking my eyes off the road all the time. But note that most of my riding is on country roads rather than city streets.
Secondly, the 276C has an internal battery, the 2610 does not.
I like to take the GPSR off the bike at coffee / lunch stops and plot my next moves or generally just review track logs etc.
Thirdly, the track log on the 2610 is just too small for my type of riding - recording at best resolution, the track log (I believe) is only good for 150 - 250 kms, while that on the 276C is around 2000 kms.
Next, the 2610 records coordinates in Lat/Long only, it doesn't understand UTM. This is probably of no interest if your only use is navigating around town, but it's more than possible that you may actually get interested in using the GPS for more than you originally intended.
My own review found the 2610 to have less capability than the 276C, but there are probably many more Quest and 2610 than 276C users, demonstrating that they suit a lot of people.
A while back I wrote a GPS Buying Guide, see it at: http://www.bluerim.com.au/Ulysses Review.htm
It is neither exhaustive nor definitive, but it may at least allow you to ask the right questions, and be able to evaluate the quite useful information that other posters have provided.
It may also assist in sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Have fun, but really, you cannot determine which is best without understanding your own requirements, then matching the capabilities of the various GPSR's to your needs.