i bought the zumo but cannot get used to it having always used a tom tom in the car im thinking of selling the zumo XT to get a tom tom but has anyone made the switch and any pros/cons?
What can’t you get used to ? Both brands have their advocates and detractors and IMO, it’ll depend on what you use the sat nav for. Andy
I know you jest but for many, the Garmin or TomTom is just a simple tool to take you from A to B on the shortest route. There are also options for planning a day out but for me, it’s a detailed planning tool for touring. There are a lot more options to the basic sat nav on the market today, depends on how much time you are prepared to invest in planning your trip. Google, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay don’t cut it for me. Andy
I've got the XT, used it for about two years and all is good. I don't pre plan the routes but just too make sure I will get to that remote location up on a Spanish hilltop or similar. If I want to plan a more "fun" route I would use a map but the XT to find the final destination. In my opinion Sat Navs are great at finding the point you're after but not so good at getting you there on the best or quickest route. If you use one in your local surroundings just to check where it wants to send you, you soon realise they're not that sharp. The Garmin is very good for finding fuel, food a bed etc. Upt.
The most important thing to me about bike sat nav is the screen. My Zumo 590 which I'be had for years is far easier to see in sunlight than my Apple 'phone. The format of entering the destinations or postcodes is a bit wooden, but so what really. Besides why would I risk having a £1000 iphone exposed to damage & weather on the front of my bike when I can use a £250 sat nav? If I do come off the bike, I want the phone handy, not smashed... Carplay -in the car!- in the urban environment when looking for businesses is fantastic if you use Apple Maps. If you find yourself in traffic, switching to the Waze app will probably re route you out of it and to you destination quicker. The voice control for food, points of interest, messages & calls, plus music or news is beyond brilliant.
Yes, but are the screens better than a Zumo 590? How much is the cost to change over the benefits? Sat Nav allowing waypoints is -most of the time for me- better for bike rides around the countryside.
Mine cost about £116. It's hardwired and permanently attached to the bike. I've found the display to be excellent, even in bright sunlight, though have no experience of Zumo 590. Like many on here, I use MyRouteApp for route-planning and satnav duties. For simple A-B I can also choose between Apple Maps, Waze or Google Maps.
its the user interface and the screen layout etc that are too different for me compared to the tom tom i dont want to use my phone so its either stick with the zumo or get a rider 550 keen to hear from anyone that has used both
TomTom vs. Garmin is a long standing discussion. TomTom used to have a more user friendly user interface. Though Garmin did catch up on that one somewhat. Garmin is better for expedition planning and navigation. The learning curve is a steep one, especially with Basecamp which is pretty crap. With the advent of MRA (MyRouteApp) planing for Garmin became more intuitive. If you just want to put in your destination and just go, either is fine, though they'll both get you there by slightly different routes due to their differing routing algorithms. Though you might as well be using Google maps... I know Garmin can offer some varying route settings that will make this more interesting though I never bothered to try them. Long time Garmin evangelist but now firmly in the MRA with an android auto panel camp, a Carpuride W702 Pro; plenty bright enough, more so than the Garmin XT that I had previously and relatively cheap and disposable. All systems take some aclimatisation.
I have had both - including a recent Tom Tom 550 - I have had two of them. The early one, the screen went - non touch sensitive - at crucial times. It makes me ill thinking back to some of those times it let me down, trying to find my hotel in Florence at the end of a long day, getting dark, busy traffic - raining. Unreal, it really does make me ill thinking about it. I was so vindictive of the grief it had caused me I boiled it as threatened. I bought another one, no issues with the screen. I had it on my Monster 821. I really like the usability of the Tom Tom. Now I have a Zumo XT. It has lots more functionality - lots more, in a different league. As mentioned by others it shows hotels - whatever you want. Rain radar. It is very capable. But still I rather have the Tom Tom. In my Fireblade days, the next petrol station feature was priceless. If it took me down some random road - just go with it - it will be fun ! I hope this helps !
With Garmin no longer supporting Basecamp, their latest planning software offering is Tread which, in my experience, is awful and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to try it, if they value their sanity. I had to do a full factory reset of my XT2 mid Pyrenees, un pair my phone and delete the app. Spent a long night with the run leader, reloading 10 days worth of routes from his lap top. Andy
I also had issues with the 550 touch screen. I nearly threw it in a canal in Amsterdam! Bought an xt and never looked back. Very intuitive to use.
I had the Tom Tom on my KTM 1290 on a two week trip to Austria two/ three years ago. On the way home it died - stone dead. Luckily there was a decent sized Motorcycle superstore just off that road 10 miles away. I went in there and asked for a new Tom Tom because mine was kaput - I explained to the nice lady. We went outside and looked at the problem and how it was set up. She explained that the USB socket was not sufficient to run the Sat Nav. That socket was just for charging the unit and that over a period of time the battery in the unit would run down completely even if plugged in to the USB socket on the bike. It had taken a week and a half, but it had rundown completely. The nice lady said - when you get to the hotel plug it in to charge overnight and it will be fine in the morning - do that every night - which is what I did. Problem solved, lesson leaned - and money saved ! So just be mindful that the USB socket is not meant to run the device all the time. If you do this - rather than wire the device into the bike's electrics - it is advisable to charge the unit overnight using plug the charger.
I lost complete faith in TomTom when the very first Rider model had an issue with the charging mount. They were in complete denial about the issue despite many owners complaining about it. At the time I had a Garmin Quest and the Rider had piqued my interest, it seemed to offer so much more. Garmin were relatively small back then and had a UK office with staff who knew their product, support was great. Alas that's no longer the case, they scaled up and it's the usual outsourced call centre situation. As a result of the distain of disgruntled TomTom early adopters I stuck with Garmin.
I use MRA with the Garmin XT and find it excellent. As others have said taking time to learn how to plan routes and the issues that sometimes occur when transferring is well worth the investment. When I first started using a GPS I really didn’t know what I was doing and used to get frustrated with the ‘stupid unit’ (sometimes I still do!). Simple tricks like using plenty of waypoints, skipping points when necessary and adding a track to follow have improved my planning and use.
TomTom is an antiquated piece of shit! It drives me nuts but not quite as bad as Harley Davidsons own brand integrated sat nav which was Stone Age! Unfortunately I’m going to have to use TomTom for my next trip but as soon as I’m back in the UK I’m going to get a Carpuride screen and connect carplay. Linked with MRA it should do the trick. Then I can use any sat nav system I choose. I’m sure Waze has kept my license clean, if only it let you plot your own route with various waypoints. Personally I wouldn’t go for a new TomTom or Garmin. They’re just not up to date.
