Zumo or 276C?

[davidr]

Over the last few weeks I have been comparing a newly acquired Garmin Zumo 500 with my old favourite, the 276C with the following comments:
Main Advantages of Zumo:
(The Zumo 500 and Zumo 550 are largely the same apart the text to speech, the in built in memory size and the car mount that comes in the box with the 550. The 500 I have, has a 2GB SD card with it)
Touch Screen, also works with gloves
MP3 Player
SIRF 3 Antenna
Blue Tooth
SD card compatible
Speed Camera Database available
Maps very colourful and visible
Satellite Estimation in Tunnels lasts longer than with 276

Main Advantages of 276C:More Comprehensive Mapping capability - Fewer waypoints available but more on-the-fly tracking capapbility, therefore better where little or no mapping is available. Distance measuring between points easy, Avoid Areas can be custom set in rectangle
Screen slighty larger and much better in direct sunlight (no touch screen)
Battery life longer
Easier to swap batteries over when using without power
Picks up satellites and new locations faster than Zumo
Many Marine Functions that do not exist on Zumo
Easy to measure distance between to points on a map
Many route avoidance options, avoid particularly streets (by map selection) or by drawing a rectangular area to avoid of your choice on a map
Tracking capability more powerful (Reverse track, navigate track and 15 savable tracks available)

Main Disadvantages of Zumo:
Touch Screen is poor in direct sunlight
Tracking points can be stored and recorded but not readily used without uploading first to mapsource on your PC
Cannot choose large selection of vehicles, pedestrian and cyclist, for example, are not available at this time
When running on battery, the first warning that the battery is low comes when the battery is actually unusably flat (with 276C you still get about an hour of use)

Main Disadvantages of 276C:
SIRF 2 Antenna excellent at picking up satellites but very quick to lose them in tunnels, indoors, etc
Appearance dated
No Touch Screen
Poor Quality Power adapter socket breaks easily with regular use
Speed Cameras cannot be downloaded (although with 278 this is possible)
Limited, Propriety, Garmin memory cards must be used, limiting max available mapping memory to 512mb at a time (278 has improved this, now all of Europe is available on built in memory)
More to come as I find it . .

[HMR]

I did earlier this year a comparison between the Zumo 550 and the 278. See here. Maybe language is an issue but the comparison was aimed towards the usage of the device. Not what technical features are included or not.

The most important differences I found to be:

- The map details visible on the Zumo screen is very poor making it almost useless for offroad usage or any other active riding on small roads. The Zumo map is 320x200 pixel while the 276C/278 map shows 480x320 pixel. The Zumo is worthless for topographic maps since it need you to zoom in very deep before it displays any minor details.

- The most negative thing I've found with the 278 is its price. The old tech GPS receiver sometime results in receptions problems in deep forests. Another issue is that the screen is extremely sensitive. Touch it once and you have scratches all over!

- The way the Zumo works, user interface & touch screen, makes it the best car GPS I've used so far. It's a very good GPS for beginners and it's great for those bikers that ride their bike as if it where a car.

- The 278 with it's high resolution map and ability to handle tracks makes it, by far, the best MC GPS I've used. It's great for both road maps and topographic maps. It gives an overview of the surroundings, city or countryside, that makes it easy to find alternative roads on the fly.

[davidr]

The 278 is certainly a great unit, it has most of the stuff that I would really like to add to my 276C (i.e. all of Europe preloaded and more features with POIs meaning speed cameras can be added) but at the moment as I have a 276C already it's just too expensive to justify.

I completely agree with your usage summary though, particularly with regard to the screen, the quality of visible maps is a decent bit better than with the Zumo and although the user interface is rather dated, the power of the tracking and route features in particular over the Zumo make it interesting for me.

For the problem with the screen, I simply bought a cover from http://www.shieldzone.com/form/index.html and the problem is solved, the clarity reduction is minimal and I've used it for about 4 months and still no screen scratches!
(the only downside is that in strong sunlight, the guard expands more than the screen and can start to peel at the corners, but it readily sticks back on and this has only happened once)

The Sirf II antenna is the biggest disadvantage of this unit as it means that in towns and trees that the satellite reception is more likely to be lost than with the Zumo (it's also a lot more difficult to get a reception indoors) but as this is primarily a marine unit, I guess there aren't such problems when you're sailing (or at least if you're so close to trees or buildings in a boat, you've probably got more pressing issues at hand than losing satellites!)

Thanks for posting the info

David

[davidr]

Actually, I've just remembered (and probably this is also in your document, but my Swedish is extremely limited ) that actually one of the most annoying features of the 276C / 278 is the way addresses are entered on the unit when planning a route from the unit. The interface for searching for places and street names is leaps and bounds behind the Zumo, the 276 / 278 uses the old arcade game style of scrolling through each character in the name (i.e. you roll through the alphabet using the up / down key in order to get the required letters) for that reason, route planning using addresses is better done either via postcode (where possible) or from your computer using MapSource itself

[HMR]

Originally Posted by davidr

The interface for searching for places and street names is leaps and bounds behind the Zumo, the 276 / 278 uses the old arcade game style of scrolling through each character in the name

Right. That's one of the reasons I find the Zumo to be better for car navigation. On the bike I use routes created with MapSource but with the car I typically drive from A to B where B often is an address on a piece of paper that need to be keyed in.

[HMR]

Originally Posted by davidr

The 278 is certainly a great unit, it has most of the stuff that I would really like to add to my 276C (i.e. all of Europe preloaded and more features with POIs meaning speed cameras can be added) but at the moment as I have a 276C already it's just too expensive to justify.

Assuming that you have a 276C made 2006 or later you should have the same great screen as the 278. If so I would say that the 276C is actually slightly better for small roads riding than the 278 (!) The 278 is suffering from a stupid choise of colors on roads. Brown roads against brown background (??!?) Same problem as with the 60CX. The 276C has a much better color map and is therefore easier to read under difficult conditions.

Originally Posted by davidr

For the problem with the screen, I simply bought a cover from http://www.shieldzone.com/form/index.html and the problem is solved, the clarity reduction is minimal and I've used it for about 4 months and still no screen scratches!

Thanks for the info. I'll order one.

Edit: I's not possible to order from them. "The transaction resulted in an AVS mismatch. The address provided does not match billing address of cardholder." Nonsense - but what can I do about that?

[davidr]

With the 276 and 278 you can customize the way the screen tabs appear (therefore what actually appears on the display) allowing you to make much better use of the screen size available to you than on the Zumo (with the Zumo this can't be modified)