GPS Virgin

[Mutley]

Jon stop it, your making me get my wallet out

remember you have not yet added the cost of the GPS bag and upgraded card to 2 gigs so you can put the whole of europe & UK on it then not having to use the PC that much

Plus the Touratech mount is a must

Mutley digging bigger holes to bury Jon in

 

[Baz]

I ordered a 2610 from aspid a month or so back. It was delivered in 5 days.
The unit itself is very good and aquires satilites a lot quicker than the pda I used to have.

THe only downsides I can comment on is theres no internal battery, which can be a bit of a pain. I also prefered the TomTom rerouting software. You could specify a road you didnt want to use whereas the Garmin just gives you the option of rerouting for X amount of miles ( I'm sure some one will tell me that there is an option to miss out certain roads).

Dont know if I can justify the extra I paid over the cost of an SP111, but then again I dont need to.

Baz

 

[Mutley]

Baz, did you have the SP3 before, as i remeber the Sp3 does not have a 12volt power lead which can be a pain when doing routes on the PC as the battery runs down quickly.

Can you not buy a batery pack for the 2610, because you may want to do some changes to route during a lunch break that may not have a power source unless you stand by the bike and do it of course, not ideal

Mutley still thinking strongly on the 2610 its to good a deal at 570 odd

 

[shready]

I'm also getting keen on this one too!!

Not too pleased about the lack of internal batteries though!

I suppose that is the next model up!!

STOP ME

 

[richie]

Just to throw the spanner in the works Jon. Now the audience is listening, you'd be better off with a GPS276C with City Navigator than any of the others....

Or a bit cheaper 60C with city Nav....


But seriously have a good investigate before you buy....

 

[Mutley]

Jon the 2620 is £748 down a few hundred pounds , not sure it comes with batts either, do you really need them, not sure!

I am just waiting to speak to a couple of my mates who have SP3 etc and get therelow down.

One essential for me is getting a 1 GB Compact Flash card, it will store almost everything I need and should mean not to many trips to the PC

Mutley

 

[Mutley]

Richie, why would you say that, because it will cost you more money than the sp3 after you buy the Mapsource CD £133, plus it does not look ideal for the bike,

can you explain

Mutley

 

[Kropotkin]

Have to agree totally with Richie.

Personally, I think the best unit would be the 276C, as it does just about everything, autorouting, voice guidance, etc, and it has batteries.

Only downside is the Garmin memory modules, but you can usually work around this.

But most seriously, make sure you investigate properly first. I got a cheap second hand PDA and am using this, which is fine, but mounting options can be a bit tricky, as the PDA is not waterproof, and I have about a million wires going everywhere. Also, TomTom (the nav software) is useless as soon as you leave the roads it knows, it just registers your position and speed. But I tried to do it on the cheap, and spent about 250 quid in total, to experiment with GPS, before springing for a proper GPS system. However, I will be waiting for a while, as I have too much invested already to just pack it all in and spend another 500+ quid on a Garmin unit.

So, research first, then go for it!

David

 

[richie]

Mutley, The reason I say this is that

1 it has batteries and is therefore more portable
2 It is quicker than the SPIII
3 It calculates as quick as the 2610
4 Will allow you (in my humble opinion to do more than the SPIII or Dare I say it the 2610)

I am just back from ireland and would now like someone to recommend me some OS compatible GPS systems as Garmin in ireland is basically a total waste of time. I now know (so I am not complaining about Garmin) that for me I don't need turn by turn navigation. What I need is precision colour mapping and GPS statistics.

I would love a colour screen, waterproof system that shows me precisly where I am on land or water.

Happy hunting, and again before someone shoots me down, I think the GPS60C that I have is the dogs balls. Here in Belgium it does all I need.

 

[Mutley]

Richie thanks for that, I only have experience of the SP3 which I thought was excellent, only let down by 128MB IMOP,

But turn by turn is essential for me especially navigating London, plus I want it to be perfect for the bike, I was just going to get an SP3 as its so cheap & i may still because at £407 quid new its a snip compared to what it was a few months ago.

But the 2610 has a lot to offer me at 570 quid, ie the Compact flash memory 1gb card is about £70 quid so its very tempting, you are right though no battery pack is a pain in the butt, if you lose the bat on the bike or you wanted to plot a new route due to bad weather you cant exactly take it off and take shelter why plaining a get me back quicker route

But it does seem to have a lot of +, but you are absolutely correct research is the key.

Mutley

 

[Baz]

Baz, did you have the SP3 before, as i remeber the Sp3 does not have a 12volt power lead which can be a pain when doing routes on the PC as the battery runs down quickly.

Can you not buy a batery pack for the 2610, because you may want to do some changes to route during a lunch break that may not have a power source unless you stand by the bike and do it of course, not ideal

Mutley still thinking strongly on the 2610 its to good a deal at 570 odd

No I had a PDA before which had a built in battery.
As you're local to me you're quite welcome to have a look at my 2610 if you want.

Baz

 

[Jon]

Baz, did you have the SP3 before, as i remeber the Sp3 does not have a 12volt power lead which can be a pain when doing routes on the PC as the battery runs down quickly.

A while ago someone posted a link to Maplins for a power adapter that allowed you to plug a bike/car type cigar lead into it and then into your normal 3 pin affair.

Had a search on their site - key in part no. N35AZ

Not sure about voltages etc, not being a sparky type bod

 

[Mutley]

Baz, thanks for that I may take you up on your kind offer when I am down your way or have a pass to dissapear for a bit, lol

I have been away a lot lately, did Scotland with Tobers & Cecilthecat a few weeks back, what a blast that was,

its hanging about with those 2 reprobates that got me into the GPS thing this site is costing me a fortune

Mutley

 

[Baz]

Baz, thanks for that I may take you up on your kind offer when I am down your way or have a pass to dissapear for a bit, lol

I have been away a lot lately, did Scotland with Tobers & Cecilthecat a few weeks back, what a blast that was,

its hanging about with those 2 reprobates that got me into the GPS thing this site is costing me a fortune

Mutley

OK mate, I know its a fair old distance!! Just give me a shout if you want.

Baz

 

[Fanum]

If you can get the 2610 for that money, definately go for it.....I certainly would have when I got my Costco SPIII.

The SPIII is fine though.....i use mine in the car every day and although it can be a bit slow re-doing a route, it's not a major PITA.......I just set off in roughly the right direction and let it catch up.

PS the resale value of the 2610 even on this board should make you confident.......you could easily get very close to your money back if not cover it completely so you don't really have much to lose IMO.

 

[shready]

Just spoke to a guy at work who has a SPIII and he really rates it.

He did say that the screen refresh is slower than the 2610 but that it has never really caused him any problems.

I need to continue my research a bit, I'm not in a major hurry to buy.

 

[Mutley]

Jon,

I have decided to go for the SP111 the Memory easy upgrade is to good not to I will use the compact flash card that comes as standard and put it in a digi cam when I get around to buying one

with 1gb cheaply available its just to good not to buy

Mutley, looking for a way to get it past Mrs Mutt

 

[shready]

Mutley,

I thought the SPIII used the Garmin cards not compact flash cards.

 

[richie]

Do not buy the SPIII wait till you have the bit extra to buy the better model. The SPIII is old hat and you'll regretit. IMHO...

 

[Mutley]

yes thats right Jon, the SP3 does use Garmin cards and they are very expensive to upgrade to 256mb.

The new 2610 uses Compact flash, look on this board plus Aspid and it explains, much better and cheaper to upgrade, I think 1gb can be had for 70 quid if you search hard enough, that will mean very little need for the PC to upload maps etc, as the whole of Europe Inc UK is about 1.3 GB so you should get exactly what you need on the 1GB flash card, and when 2 GBs is cheap enough upgrade to that.

if you have a digi cam that uses these cards you can always put the Garmin 256 in your camera and hey ho it will do a good job.

Richie is right the new model is probably better and at that price its to good not to buy.

Mutley