TomTom or Garmin?

[Digisine]

I agree. Its high time we had a forum to share knowledge of these devices, and their practicalities. I am going to buy a sat nav for my bike - but which one?? My feeling is that garmin have a better reputation than Tom Tom, but any additional user experiences are really helpful.

[davidr]

Think of your choice in terms of what you want to do with it.

If all you want is to not get lost and just go from A to B (probably mostly in the UK), the TomTom Rider II is quite good value.

If however, you want to do a bit more, like plan and make a few nice trips of your own and you enjoy mucking about with the technology, then Garmin is better, the Zumo 550 has all of Europe pre-loaded in the memory, or to save a bit of money you could go for the Zumo 500, or there's also a Zumo 400 which is probably even less (Garmin trying to lower their prices to compete with TomTom in the market probably)

It's a simple case of pay more, get more at the end of the day and it depends what you want to use it for.

Hope this helps,

David

[Jaws100]

Personally I would recommend the Garmin Zumo 550 for lots of reasons, Bluetooth MP3 player, robust build, large internal memory etc etc. I also think the Garmin mapping is better. You can also share routes & waypoints with other riders via the share option on the Zumo thru the SD card with other Garmin users. I've covered about 18,000km with the Zumo since I purchased it earlier this year without any problems other than the weather cap perishing on the bike mount. This was replaced without problem by the dealer I purchased from. Anyway just my thoughts on the subject of which to buy. I'm very happy with the choice I made.

John

[pop]

From my days of greenlaning I enjoy reading maps and planning my routes , so I want a sat nav where I can plan a route using minor roads on my computer then down load it to a sat nav . Any suggestions ,I also do a lot of riding in Europe again using back roads where possible.

[pop]

Thanks Jaws100 for the advice the 550 sounds good to me

[davidr]

I'm sure you'll be very happy with a zumo 550, the only extra thing I would say is that you might want to take a look at a 278, although it's more expensive again, you can do more with Tracks on it, therefore better for lots of off-roading.

More here: Zumo or 276C?

The Zumo 550 is however more versatile for general use, and cheaper, so a great unit

David

[willie]

Just remember "after sales customer service" guys!!!!!!

Garmin WILL NOT be beaten in this department!!!!!!!!

Awsome company to deal with if anything goes wrong with your unit!!!!!

[GSinEurope]

I guess I'm a little bias but I vote for the Garmin. I've had 4 Garmins over the years but use the 2720 on my bike. Mounts great, great maps, good routing, plugs into my helmet (will next up-grage to 2820 to cash in on the blue tooth enabled helmet i have). I've also have multiple Garmin eTrex handhelds. Again, a great little unit which I've used on my bike and in my Jeep.

Additionally, if you have a BMW, it the same as the GPS nave system they sell. I once stopped in a dealer, asked about local routes, and they gladly downloaded several routes right into my unit.

Just my 2 cents. Quite frankly I don't think you can go wrong with any unit as long as you remember they're only a tool to help you get where you want. I little pre-planning and old fashion paper map still a great way to go and do initial planning.

[Mikecs]

I've been using a TomTom 1 for a year now and, apart from the known mounting difficulties, am reasonably happy. I've done 7 Europpean countries with it and not autoroutes.

The itinerary function on the unit is awful, difficult to use and makes making errors easy. However interfaced with Google Maps and software such as TYRE (Freeware) this is overcome.

I agree with the comment made below. A GPS doesn't replace old fashioned road book planning and maps. At best it is an aid to navigation.

So the short answer is, unless it is straight A to B you are looking for, use a map to plan and then enter it into the GPS. Where GARMIN comes out heads over TomTom is the route planning software.

My thoughts anyway

[davidr]

Hi Mike,

That TYRE app looks like something really useful thanks for posting.

I've made a link to a new post about it here:

TYRE - Trace Your Route Everywhere, routing software with TomTom

David