Bigtallfatbloke
New Member
..I don't know if it's of any interest but here are a nobs initial experiences/thoughts about this unit and the Garmin city navigator europe sd maps. I will try to avoid the negativity I feel right now and be honest:
1) The buying experience was horrendous. No easy to understand info from manufacturer or dealer. I give Garin 3/10 and the dealer 0/10 for customer help during the sales process. Hopeless. Thank gawd for Cycle chat forummers.
2) The courier who deleivered was a ****ing tosser...excuse my french but he was.
3) ok...the unit itself. Smaller than I thought, look cool. manual is the usual mix of promises and incompetent discriptions /directions. I found it easier to staret pushing buttons.
4) No batteries included...hmmm...easy enough to load some up though...but..
5) the memory card is located under the battery cover...boy talk about fiddly and fragile...not ideal.
6)The handlebar mounts work ok...I had to get the oversized version for my Galaxy bars. I will however still tie the GPS onto the bike as I dont trust it not to jump out of the clamp and fall under a tractor or something.
7)The compass isnt as good as my £2 job from Decathlon...I dont trust it yet. It has to be totally flat to operate, which is a pita because the unit cannot be fitted horizontal to the bars because of the bar bag, not to mention ease of viewing the screen in the light. It also gets affected by the steel frame and does not indicate where I know true north
to be unless held away from th ebike frame and horizontal...therefore useless to ride along a compass bearing.
8) The base maps are fine if you are a 747 pilot, but for a cyclist they are pathetically useless.
9) I have yet to manage to be able to navigate even around the corner on this thing yet. The map thing isn't anywhere near as easy to read as even a basic motorists tom tom screen.I am hoping I can get used to it .
10)Using the find facility did not throw up any of the two campsites withing 5 miles of my house, just hotels under accomodation, again not much use (this with City europe installed)
11) the City europe card box contains a big warning saying not to save routes to this disc because it will over write and cannot be undone. Great. How hard would it have been for them to disable over writing on this disc 9or at least offer an option)...I am bound to forget which disc is installed as they both look exactly the same.
12)There are a lot of superfluos options on this unit for me...like anchor dragging for boats, star wars games etc
13) It has some reasonable colour display options if you like lilac or sapphire I guess.
14)the new batteries I installed are already 2/3rds depleted and I dont have the back light on.
15) the trip page has some useful fields/options..I hav eyet to learn how to set them corecctly...so right now I am tempted to get a cheap normal wired bike computer i CAN TRUST.
16) It came with abelt clip and a usb cable if anybody is interested.
...I have to say that after so much hassle to buy this thing, I was looking forward to its arrival. The shitty attitude of the courier just compounded an already dreadful buying experience. The unit has a BIG learning curve and I am definatly going to have to take all the paper maps as well 'cos I do not trust this unit yet (or my ability to drive it).
So right now I am disappointed and wishing I still had my £300 in my pocket.
However, I have yet to install the mapsource Cd...hopefully that will help. Also I am aware that this is just the initial few hours and hope that the experience will improove with practice.
My thoughts at the moment are that for a cyclist this unit is akin to using a sledge hammer to bang in a drawing pin...way to complicated and full of unecessary stuff.
I wish Tom Tom just did a the same unit as my wifes car sat nav with longer battery life, that would be vastly superior for my needs I feel.
...anyway next stage is to install the CD and try and plan a route on th epc, 'cos looking this I would categorically say that it is impossible to plan a route on the unit alone in what is left of my lifetime.
Frankly if this doesnt become a LOT easier tomorrow I will ask for my cash back...which I wont get 'cos the Garmin dealer is an arse, so it'll go on ebay and I'll take a serious hit and put it down to another shitty hi tech life experience.
I will try to update this 'review' with my progress as and when I can.
1) The buying experience was horrendous. No easy to understand info from manufacturer or dealer. I give Garin 3/10 and the dealer 0/10 for customer help during the sales process. Hopeless. Thank gawd for Cycle chat forummers.
2) The courier who deleivered was a ****ing tosser...excuse my french but he was.
3) ok...the unit itself. Smaller than I thought, look cool. manual is the usual mix of promises and incompetent discriptions /directions. I found it easier to staret pushing buttons.
4) No batteries included...hmmm...easy enough to load some up though...but..
5) the memory card is located under the battery cover...boy talk about fiddly and fragile...not ideal.
6)The handlebar mounts work ok...I had to get the oversized version for my Galaxy bars. I will however still tie the GPS onto the bike as I dont trust it not to jump out of the clamp and fall under a tractor or something.
7)The compass isnt as good as my £2 job from Decathlon...I dont trust it yet. It has to be totally flat to operate, which is a pita because the unit cannot be fitted horizontal to the bars because of the bar bag, not to mention ease of viewing the screen in the light. It also gets affected by the steel frame and does not indicate where I know true north
to be unless held away from th ebike frame and horizontal...therefore useless to ride along a compass bearing.
8) The base maps are fine if you are a 747 pilot, but for a cyclist they are pathetically useless.
9) I have yet to manage to be able to navigate even around the corner on this thing yet. The map thing isn't anywhere near as easy to read as even a basic motorists tom tom screen.I am hoping I can get used to it .
10)Using the find facility did not throw up any of the two campsites withing 5 miles of my house, just hotels under accomodation, again not much use (this with City europe installed)
11) the City europe card box contains a big warning saying not to save routes to this disc because it will over write and cannot be undone. Great. How hard would it have been for them to disable over writing on this disc 9or at least offer an option)...I am bound to forget which disc is installed as they both look exactly the same.
12)There are a lot of superfluos options on this unit for me...like anchor dragging for boats, star wars games etc
13) It has some reasonable colour display options if you like lilac or sapphire I guess.
14)the new batteries I installed are already 2/3rds depleted and I dont have the back light on.
15) the trip page has some useful fields/options..I hav eyet to learn how to set them corecctly...so right now I am tempted to get a cheap normal wired bike computer i CAN TRUST.
16) It came with abelt clip and a usb cable if anybody is interested.
...I have to say that after so much hassle to buy this thing, I was looking forward to its arrival. The shitty attitude of the courier just compounded an already dreadful buying experience. The unit has a BIG learning curve and I am definatly going to have to take all the paper maps as well 'cos I do not trust this unit yet (or my ability to drive it).
So right now I am disappointed and wishing I still had my £300 in my pocket.
However, I have yet to install the mapsource Cd...hopefully that will help. Also I am aware that this is just the initial few hours and hope that the experience will improove with practice.
My thoughts at the moment are that for a cyclist this unit is akin to using a sledge hammer to bang in a drawing pin...way to complicated and full of unecessary stuff.
I wish Tom Tom just did a the same unit as my wifes car sat nav with longer battery life, that would be vastly superior for my needs I feel.
...anyway next stage is to install the CD and try and plan a route on th epc, 'cos looking this I would categorically say that it is impossible to plan a route on the unit alone in what is left of my lifetime.
Frankly if this doesnt become a LOT easier tomorrow I will ask for my cash back...which I wont get 'cos the Garmin dealer is an arse, so it'll go on ebay and I'll take a serious hit and put it down to another shitty hi tech life experience.
I will try to update this 'review' with my progress as and when I can.
