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The 2820 is not a good application for motorcylces. The screen is not bright enoungh. The 2820 is best for cars. The Zumo 550 is great for bikes
This was my first GPS and I found it pretty easy to learn how to use.I purchased it primarly to use on my motorcycle, but I enjoy it in my car too. Overall I'd say this is a good unit. I did a lot of shopping around comparing all models that were waterproof for use on motorcycles & I thought this one was the best value with it's features for around $250.00. It has blue tooth that I can sinc to my iPhone and a blue tooth ear piece so you can hear the directions from the ear piece. I wish they included more features that are common on cheaper units like find me, and garmin garage, and more memory for mp3s. I think this will meet the needsof most users.
Nice GPS and Great price - - - A huge leap forward from my previous unit (Street Pilot 111). The Bluetooth connection (phone) works well, but I've had complaints of sounding distant. Maps and directions update quickly with plenty of options. It comes ready to use -fully loaded. May need to try a different mic. Can not comment on Sat radio as I did not add antenna.
Dropped it off at the post office on Friday, got it back on Thursday moring the week after. Unfortunately a map update failed and I had to send the unit to Garmin. Waterprrof, with enough room to save half of the US and CAN (mine is a european unit).I used the previous version for 3 years and never has it failed to get me where I wanted to go. So, from being unhappy due to the failed update, I am now quite happy.
Whoever had to contact a call center other than in your own country knows what I am talking about. Also, that took place within 4. work days. Until a week ago I owned the 2720. The only drawback is the somewhat flacky reception of the GPS signal in difficult areas - namely skycrapers all over the place and narrow roads for example in Spain. Especially on a motorcycle.
It is fast, has excellent routing, is VERY easy to use, the screen is large and very easy to read even under unfavorable lighting conditions and as I said - support is great and is located in the US or Europe, exactly where you are. No call centers in inner Mongolia or other such nonsense.
Still I always arrived with minimum stress. The service folks from Garmin just sent me their latest streetpilot 2820 (free upgrade, just great).
But you will likely not need tech support, since it just works reliably and every day.If you need to have a unit for an MC this is the unit I would recommend. Really quick.It is a great unit, just like the predecessor 2720, but now also has bluetooth and an audio book reader and MP3 Player (things I will likely not use).
Bluetooth is great, though, for mobile phones in cars even though you will need to connect a speaker and micro.The unit does what it needs to do - get me where I want to go. Even more so, since you can use it your car and on business trips,.It does not come with a picture viewer, but that is useless from my point of view to begin with.
Far better than what you would get built into cars at a far better price.
After spending a few days researching GPS receivers that were good candidates for motorcycles I narrowed my list to the Garmin Zumo 550, Garmin StreetPilot 2820, and TomTom Rider.Although the Zumo 550 seems to be the more popular choice lately, I decided upon the StreetPilot 2820 because it has more features (ex: multiple via points on a route and a higher resolution screen).It is an excellent choice for a motorcycle --it can easily be operated with gloves on, it's waterproof, it's easy to read, and it can pair to two Bluetooth devices (in my case a Bluetooth helmet and my Blackberry).The maps that come with this unit are outstanding --I can fairly reliably tell the difference between paved and unpaved roads (something you can't do with Google Maps, for instance).I have found one bug with the device: If you're using the music player and attempt to voice dial a phone number, the Bluetooth connection gets flaky and I need to reboot the unit --I'm hoping a future firmware update will fix this issue. At least I've found a work around to this annoyance --if I manually pause the music and then make (and complete) the call and then unpause the music everything seems to work okay.Garmin technical support while I was trying to diagnose this issue was outstanding.I highly recommend this unit.
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