what about the Garmin 2820

George crozer

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Ive ditched the idea of buying a 2610 and now looking at the 2820.
can anyone tell me what I cant do with a 2820.
I would like to be able to do the normal things A to B fastest shortest etc etc.
Also. plan a route on a PC and upload to the 2820.
also. Record a route and download to a PC
also Hard wire unit to starcom1 advanced.
Is this possible.
Regards George
 
All possible on that unit. You can also do it on the 2720 which is the predecessor to the 2820 and successor to the 2610. Both run the more recent and still updated NT mapping, have full postcode serach, pseudo 3D display option, practically limitless custom POI capacity, proximity alerts for safety cameras etc. Basically a big leap on from the 2610.

The 2820 lacks very little in the way of features compared to the Zumo 550; the older GPS receiver chip is maybe not as fast to acquire or quite as steady (negligible though), no SD slot (all the mapping and other data fits comfortably onto the internal memory - 2GB). It will play MP3s though it's capacity is more limited compared to the Zumo. Full feature list here.

The 2720 lacks the BlueTooth and MP3 but is otherwise the same as the 2820, spec sheet here.

Both 2720s and 2820s are quite hard to come by, they occasionally crop up on eBay. More frequently and far, far cheaper on eBay USA although the mapping will be for that continent. This is more of a problem than you can imagine as you have to buy the retail version of City Nav Europe NT which isn't cheap and then, officially, you can't overwrite the installed US mapping but have to load the bit of Europe you want into the spare memory alongside the US mapping. You can fit about half of it on choosing the countries you want. There is a hack to get around this and replace the US mapping with full Europe but it's a bit involved and techie. If you do go down this route I can advise you.

I have a 2720 which I got off eBay a couple of years ago for £155 with quite a few useful accessories. I purchased it in the knowledge that it was a US import, the previous owner had bought the Euro mapping. I later found the means to convert it to full Euro mapping. It's great and does everything I need it to do.

When buying a Garmin on eBay you need to be aware of exactly what your getting and make sure that the vital unlock code for the mapping is included and, assuming that it's registered to a myGarmin account, that the seller is willing to confirm the sale to Garmin to allow the ownership to be transferred to you. Without this mapping updates will be impossible.
 
Hard wiring kit

Thanks for the advice! just bought a 2820 for £150 it's been de registered so hopefully no problems locking into garmin for updates etc. Just one thing I need to sort is the hard wire kit. Will the kit advertised for the 2160 and 2720 fit. I think it will but not sure! Any other tips would be helpful
George
 
Yep, the cradle kit will suit all the 26**, 27** and 28** StreetPilots. Should be about £35 new.

As there's no internal battery (sorry one minor downside I forgot to mention), it's best to wire direct to the battery rather than an ignition switched feed. On my VFR I have just that but with an isolator switch just inside the fairing. With this set-up I can start the sat nav and set it up before switching on the ignition yet isolate the cradle to prevent shorts or electrolytic corrosion when not in use.

£150 is a good price. Many would say that the 2820 is better than a Zumo.

Let us know how you get on with it.
 
Now got the 2820 (£150) from ebay no problem with re-registering as the seller had already de registered before the sale. I run a Mac with the new Snow Leopard operating system so thought I was going to have a problem using Roadtrip. was fairly simple to get up and running once I had figured out that you dont have the device in mass storage mode to transfer maps and routes etc. Just down loaded pretty much everything i could from the Garmin site and played around with it for a couple of nights.
Have got the Device installed on the bike as well now through my Starcom . I bought a cradle, hard wire kit and Ram mount via ebay. Again not too difficult although i still haven't worked out what the little audio plug is for on the hard wire kit. I run an Iphone as well this works fine with the starcom I have the device 2.5mm jack plugged into the starcom phone connection and the 3.5mm into Aux. There is a slight buzz through my headphones but I don't notice it once the engine is running.
So all together the system up and running on the bike has cost £220 including all the bits. Great value i think and can recommend to anyone looking to get a great sat nav .

George
 
Version 8!!

There's some confusion over the mapping due to Garmin going over to using the year rather than a version number. This started in 2008, preceded by v9, so your City Nav NT v8 is actually from 2006. Probably the mapping that it came with. Given the lead time in preparation realistically you have a representation of what was on the ground around 2004-2005. Might be worth getting an upgrade to City Nav 2010 depending on your use and depth of pocket.
 


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