Garmin Nuvi 660FM

[(RIP) Geriatric Germ]

Just dropped the old faithfull IQUE 3600 PDA, 50% of screen gone Rather than spend £90 on repair for an obsolete model, was looking at one of these http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10151&categoryId=80865&productId=263701 any advice out there in the real world please At £275 seems half tidy, and easy to use.

 

[Blackal]

It's a cracking-sized screen, but as I understand it...............

The Nuvi range is "point-to-point" and doesn't share the "PC-plannable" feature of the Zumo.

So - if you want to plan bike trips prior to travelling..... you need the Zumo.

Al

 

[DodgyGeeSer]

I assume that it's not news to you that the unit isn't waterproof..

The new 760 does allow you to plan ahead, and pre-save up to 10 routes, however, it doesn't mention whether you can create an upload routes from MapSource.

You know you could get a car/bike compatible Zumo 500 for just a few pounds more? Check out this thread. It has a few links on one of the pages. Also the 550 is currently around £340.

 

[pinkytiff]

I've just sold a Nuvi & bought a Zumo for the exact reason Blackal points out. The Nuvi is great at what it does, in some respects better than I've found the Zumo so far! However, the route planning facility by far outweighs the niggles so far;-)

 

[luke scott]

Point to point is a good description of what the nuvi does. I have one (its my first gps) and find it perfect for getting me from A to B etc etc. I dont use it on the bike at all. In Spain recently we used it to go around malaga city and up into the sierra nevada's. It takes all the strain out of the journey. I personally feel that I dont need route planning sp as a numpty to gps the nuvi works for me. Its also very quick at recaculating.

 

[johnnystorm]

My sister bought one and I borrowed it to go to Italy (in a car). I really didn't like it compared to my experiences with TOMTOM and the pronunciation of the roads was so bad you'd be better off just hearing "next left" etc. Will it be the same with the Zumo? The other thing is that the suction cup refuses to stick to the windscreen of any car I've tried it in, even after cleaning the screen. Every so often it just makes a jump for it!

 

[Rabbitson]

660T

Maybe not that helpful, but I was playing with the 650T yesterday and I made these observations:

Advantages

• Nice wide screen and very clear display
• All of Europe Preloaded on the Unit
• Text to Speech, a variety of different languages
• Accepts SD cards
• SIRF Star III Antenna
• Custom POI's can be loaded to include safety camera positions
• TMC Module for Traffic monitoring (where available)
• GPS stops trying to acquire satellites once you flip down the antenna

Disdvantages:

• No proper instruction manual in the box
• Power wire doesn't fit very easily into cradle (i.e. quite fiddly)
• No MapSource DVD in box
• No Bluetooth

Taken from:
http://www.motorcycle-navigation.net/forum/showthread.php?t=79

Might be useful?

 

[(RIP) Geriatric Germ]

I did buy the Nuvi 660 FM to replace the sat nav of the Ique 3600, not to use on bike,purely for trucking and in car £100 or so to mend Ique, Nuvi £275 Halfords, seemed like a good idea at the time.
So far it does what it says on and straight out of the box. Blue toothed it to my old moby and it is a perfect hands free Tried to FM it to speak through the cab radio, works but not very good audio, will try in the cage.
The post code find was a little confusing at first, but just me I expect. also has fixed and mobile scamera warnings but you know you are in a speed limit, so has limited point really has a good range of nosh,bed,fuel,srvices with the ability to dial direct from the nuvi via moby. Just had a thought, house insurence for the dropped Ique ?

 

[beemerboy9]

and the pronunciation of the roads was so bad you'd be better off just hearing "next left" etc.

+1

In Germany, I set my text-to-speech to German! But I had forgotten that I could have chosen a non-TTS voice.

 

[Rabbitson]

Bad Accents

Actually I do believe the bad pronounciation is deliberate and can be very helpful.

I travel around a lot and I can rarely pronounce all the words in all the countries in the correct local accent, so to hear all the names pronounced in the phonetic English way for example can be useful if I have to look at the the street sign and do a match of how it might be spelled.

Just my opinion