Garmin550 or 660?

[Bumpkin]

Interesting thread for me-my 2610 is showing signs of age and I suspect I might have to replace it this year. Had (still got somewhere) a Streetpilot 3 before the 2610. Both units worked fine, that is up to the recent problems with the screen.

Not sure what your screen problem is but I had an issue with my 2720 which turned out to be fine grit/road grime stuck under the bezel. This was applying pressure to the touch screen and making the whole sat nav misbehave. Striped it down, cleaned it out and bingo, fixed.

Having said that the 2610 is getting a bit long in the tooth now and mapping updates stopped from Garmin around 2009. Not sure if OpenStreetMap mapping data will work on it though. Tried that out of interest the other day and it works well in Mapsource and, running in simulation mode, on my Nuvi 765.

I see literally hundreds of satnavs each summer mostly either Garmin or TomTom. Both have their good points and both have their share of problems. I think it is down to personal preference, I will buy another Garmin, in my case because I am used to Mapsource and find the Garmin suits my needs better than the TomTom. I do use Tyre as well as Mapsource- have to so that I can offer our routes to the guests.

One observation from this is that a lot of people never read the instructions and often hardly know how to use the device they spend hundreds of pounds on! Strangely it is often these people who have the most to say about having problems with the device. I'm not suggesting this applies to the people who have replied on here but if I had a Euro for every time somebody has complained to me about their "bloody satnav" when the problem really was the bloody operator, I would be well on the way to that new bike-even at Austrian prices

As for smart phone apps, personally I can't see the point of something that has a small screen(might be my age-eyesight not as good as it was) and is not waterproof or designed to deal with the pounding it will get if fixed to a bike. When conditions are bad I just want to concentrate of riding so a decent sized screen in view and spoken instructions through the Autocom system works for me. Great that we are all different though,makes life interesting!

Couldn't agree more John, esp. about users blaming their GPS when they didn't bother to fully understand it to start with

Smartphone sat nav only has it's place as a back-up IMHO.

 

[The Grey One]

Screen problems

Not sure what your screen problem is but I had an issue with my 2720 which turned out to be fine grit/road grime stuck under the bezel. This was applying pressure to the touch screen and making the whole sat nav misbehave. Striped it down, cleaned it out and bingo, fixed.

Having said that the 2610 is getting a bit long in the tooth now and mapping updates stopped from Garmin around 2009. Not sure if OpenStreetMap mapping data will work on it though. Tried that out of interest the other day and it works well in Mapsource and, running in simulation mode, on my Nuvi 765.

Smartphone sat nav only has it's place as a back-up IMHO.

One day last summer the screen suddenly delaminated, outer layer just crumbled before my eyes. Then had problems with touch screen not working correctly. I've cleaned out all of the remains from in the corners but it still has problems. Says unable to calibrate if I try that. Has a few other minor niggles too. You are right about the maps last one was the 2009 version that came after version 9!!! This sorted the problem I had with the map for Slovenia (only an hour away from here) just being a blank screen. I always expected it to say "Here be Dragons" at some point.

Thanks anyway for the suggestions.
Agree with that last bit too!

John