Looking for a Zumo 550 ... selling my 2720.

[messenger13]

In preparing for going entirely Bluetooth this year ('08), I'm seriously considering replacing my current (and much beloved) Garmin 2720 with the Garmin Zumo 550.

First, my reservations:

Am I giving up a feature(s) that the 2720 has that I'm going to regret losing once I have the Zumo 550?
Is "upgrading" worth the $300 difference? (I know I can't expect anyone to be able to answer this for me, but what the heck?)
A few other inquiries:

Looking for the lowest price ... got a link? ;) Yep, I'm a price shopper. So far the lowest price I've found is at FotoConnection.com. $647 to my door. Deal or no deal?
Anyone out there interested in trading me for my 2720? ... PM me.
Anyone looking for a used (but like brand-new) 2720? ... PM me.

[glenhinegardner]

Hey Joe

I have been price shopping for a Zumo as well, but I'm a cheapskate so I will wait a little longer and see if they come down, in my searches I have not seen it lower than you posted. Saw it for $799 at the cycle show.



Glen

[messenger13]

Hey Joe

I have been price shopping for a Zumo as well, but I'm a cheapskate so I will wait a little longer and see if they come down, in my searches I have not seen it lower than you posted. Saw it for $799 at the cycle show.I think I'll email Sean at Cycle Gadgets and see if he wants to sell me one. ;)

[grifscoots]

Have you tried Darryl at TVNAV.com? Sometimes he has refurbs.

[messenger13]

Have you tried Darryl at TVNAV.com? Sometimes he has refurbs.The list of possibilities grows. ;) Hey, I'm not married to any of them. I just want one at the lowest price. I'll also be giving GetFeetWet.com a call. I set up a group buy with them a few years back when the 2610 was the hot tamale.

[Big_E]

http://www.gpsdiscount.com/products/index.html?p=989

[wcarter]

I bought my Zumo from GetFeetWet, largely because of your recommendation. At the time, they had the only bundle (with the XM antenna) that I could find.

[Ron_Kendall]

First, my reservations:
Am I giving up a feature(s) that the 2720 has that I'm going to regret losing once I have the Zumo 550?
Is "upgrading" worth the $300 difference? (I know I can't expect anyone to be able to answer this for me, but what the heck?)
And what features would you be giving up on 2720? I like the Zumo 550, but it has more features than I care for & would never use.

[messenger13]

[/list]And what features would you be giving up on 2720? I like the Zumo 550, but it has more features than I care for & would never use.I'm not really sure, that's why I threw out the question. When the 550 was first released, it "seemed" as though it had several features that were missing from previous Garmin units. It would appear that many, if not all have been added back in as new firmware versions have been released.

[astuber]

Have you considered the TomTom Rider 2? It has most of the functionality of the Zumo (except XM) and is very similarly priced and includes a Bluetooth headset. I have a cheaper model and have been very impressed with the map data base and how quickly it acquires the satellites and updates routes.

[messenger13]

Have you considered the TomTom Rider 2?I appreciate the suggestion, but I really want to stick with Garmin. And, that bluetooth headset doesn't help me in the grand scheme of things.

[messenger13]

Click HERE (http://home.alltel.net/paulsey_dsl/messenger13/compare.htm) to go to a page that compares the two units. I was very surprised to discover that they both retailed for just about the same price.

All of the data is from Garmin.com.

[jwd98056]

Hey Joe, I know you usually research things very well so hopefully I won't be boring you with things you already know. I have been running with my Zumo 550, Verizon XV6700 and an Autocom Active Plus on my GS for a little while now so I have a little first person feedback.

You say you want to go totally Bluetooth so I am wondering if you mean wireless to your helmet as well? I suspect I am wrong here but if not the Zumo only supports mono Bluetooth. I know you are at least as demanding about your road music as I am so this would likely be an issue.

I don't know what intercom you are using or planning to use. The Autocom Active Plus (as well as the Pro AVI) requires a mod to it's circuit board to support stereo audio and Bluetooth cell phone at the same time. This is related to the overide configuration of the Autocom and the fix is a hardware hack to disable an override function. I managed to score some info that allowed me to do the mod myself. Popping a surface mount resistor off a circuit board does not give me nightmares either. Most folks just send the unit back to Autocom and pay for the mod.

There has been some reports of failures of the motorcycle mounts. Like other infamous failure reports that will remain unmentioned, how numerous these failures are is not known. The failure is reported as scratchy audio or loss of one or both stereo audio channels. The symptoms can be intermittent and affected by wiggling the Zumo in it's mount. Unfortunately I was bitten by this on my 10 day trip to SoCo and Arizona over my Christmas break. It was so annoying that I just disconnected my helmet. No tunes for over 3000 miles was torture. The mount has a double row of spring loaded pins that interface to the bottom of the Zumo. Apparently the springs are defective or go bad. The good news is that Garmin doesn't give you any grief about getting it replaced any more and they will expeditiously send out a new one as long as it is still under warranty. At $85 a pop I hope they have gotten the bugs out. I have only ridden about 500 miles since I got the new mount installed two weeks ago and so far so good.

My XV6700 is a WM5 PDA/Phone. For whatever reason the audio from my phone is not very loud over Bluetooth to my Zumo. I have adjusted the audio volume on the phone to max and even applied a registry hack to increase the volume. With the standard Autocom speakers in my Shoei Multitec helmet I can't hear the cell phone well enough to use it at speeds much above 50-60 MPH. If I had this setup on my LT I would probably be OK but on my GS I have more wind noise. On your GT with your cell phone I am not sure what you can expect. I don't know if this is a Zumo issue or a cell phone issue.

Currently the maximum number of MP3s that can be loaded on the unit is about 1000. This is actually one of those firmware improvements because it used to be much lower than this. Any more songs than this and the Zumo won't even boot up. The more songs that are loaded the longer the Zumo takes to boot up and display maps. There is a trick to keeping this boot time to a minimum. Do not put all your MP3 files into a single folder on the Zumo. You can have a single root folder like say MP3, Music or whatever but make sure you have your files in a number of sub-folders under that. If you already have your music sorted into folders by artist/album copy them to the Zumo that way. It will boot up much faster this way.

With the later versions of the firmware the Zumo supports the SDHD standard. I believe this was in the same update that extended the songs to 1000 files. I have successfully used 8GB SDHD cards. If you are like me, 1000 songs will take 3-4GB of storage space. 4GB SD cards will be good unless you are going to load a lot of album art or a lot of other files from other sources.

Garmin is updating the Zumo firmware quite often and adding new functionality all the time. It is quite easy to use with gloves, including the classic Gerbing heated gloves. The battery allows you to take it off the bike and do routing anywhere. The Sirf GPS system is so good I doubt an external antenna would ever be needed. I have yet to get anything less than a 3D fix sitting anywhere in my home. Even in the bathroom down in the daylight basement.

The worth it question certainly is a tough one. I wasn't upgrading so much as putting a system on my GS I hoped would be rugged enough to handle Dual Sport activity. My Lowrance iWay 500c didn't quite fit the bill for that but is great on my LT. The Bluetooth cell phone integration was also a consideration for me. It isn't as good as I hoped but it is adequate for my typical cell phone usage which is infrequent.

The price you are seeing at FotoConnection is almost $50 below the best price I could find last fall so it sounds pretty good. With any luck someone will know of a deal you can't pass up.

Overall I really like the Zumo. Not quite a 10 for 10 but I haven't found one that is.

[Ron_Kendall]

[/list]And what features would you be giving up on 2720? I like the Zumo 550, but it has more features than I care for & would never use.

Sorry Joe, I miss read your post:o...I thought you were saying you would be giving up some features on the 2720 that the Zumo does not have. Instead you were asking a question.

[messenger13]

I have been running with my Zumo 550, Verizon XV6700 and an Autocom Active Plus on my GS for a little while now so I have a little first person feedback.An EXCELLENT post Jim. Great information! Thanks for the details. :)


You say you want to go totally Bluetooth so I am wondering if you mean wireless to your helmet as well? I suspect I am wrong here but if not the Zumo only supports mono Bluetooth. I know you are at least as demanding about your road music as I am so this would likely be an issue.Yes, I do mean Bluetooth helmets. But I'm not going to rely on the Zumo 550 for my music source. I will still be using my iPod with a Bluetooth stereo transceiver.


I don't know what intercom you are using or planning to use.I'm either going to upgrade my current IntaRide RP-1 into a Bluetooth-capable unit, or buy an entirely new system that caters specifically to my demanding "needs" (desires? :o).


There has been some reports of failures of the motorcycle mounts. ... [snip] ... It was so annoying that I just disconnected my helmet. No tunes for over 3000 miles was torture. ... [snip] ... I have only ridden about 500 miles since I got the new mount installed two weeks ago and so far so good.Yikes!!! Well...hopefully Garmin has resolved this issue.


You're just a wealth of knowledge regarding this unit Jim. And once again, I REALLY appreciate you taking the time to type up that post. Excellent work my friend. :)

[messenger13]

After some shopping and much contemplation, I decided that the 2820 was the right unit for me. So I bought one on eBay last night, and sold my 2720 this morning. So Phase II of Operation: Bluetooth is a done deal.

Now I have to decide if I'm going to go with Bluetooth helmets in the near future . . . or wait until the technology is a little more mature and cheaper. We'll see...

[Lopaca]

Joe,

I have the 2820 and love it. Only issue is volume output. I am looking into putting in an amplifier which as I have read on other posts seems to be the answer. Are you aware that there is an updated ver. 8 map, hopefully the one you get has it.

See you in Cambria.

[messenger13]

I didn't have any issues with volume from my 2610, or 2720. We'll see what happens once the 2820 shows up. And yea, I know about the latest map update. I had ver8 on my 2720. But there is a newer version out now ... "ver 2008" maybe? :confused: I'll found out later this week...