276c or,,, 2610 GPS???

[Austin city limits]

Ok... Let me say this up front... I am sorry... :D

I have a Street Pilot III that is having some issues... I am going to find out Monday about sending it back to get fixed as it will not "Find" as the toggle,,, will not toggle over to select...

Also,,, I have a 8,000 mile at least trip going to the west coast,,, up into Canada planned for late July and August... I will be riding solo at LEAST,,, 1/2 of it and I want to be able to trust my GPS and all...

My Street Pilot was in the wreck last fall when I was thrown through the back window of a Cadillac at 45 mph,,, and the Cadillac was going the same direction at 25 mph... :eek: I walked away,,, amazing enough... But even MORE amazing is,,, the SPIII was found 200 ft down the road laying there,,, still working and just very very small scratches that you could have gotten on it riding in your saddle bags!!!

With this "Find" not finding going on from my GPS,,, and all it went through my confidence is not really 100% on it...

So,,, Finally,,, my question...

I am seriously looking at the Garmin 276c and also the 2610... I like the Screen/Color/buttons from the 276c over the touch screen of the 2610...

The 276c is,,, more money after adding in the Street Software but,,, I already have the Software and it can be licenced to 2 GPS's...

I wanted to hear some others opinions...

[sttourer]

I can't really give you a good opinion since I'm still an SP3 user. But here is a link that might help.

http://www.cycoactive.com/gps/276vs2610.htm

Pat

[Fred D]

Here are some more opinins....

http://www.cyclegadgets.com/Products/gps/default.asp

mho, if I was buying, I'd go the 276 route (I'm running a 176 now, no one told me the 276 was just over the horizon, at the time I bought the 176!!)

[Austin city limits]

Thanks for the info guys!!!

Man,,, just last year over at the COG site (((Concours Owners Group))) I asked about getting a very small,,, itty bitty,,, gps just to show my speed... Those guys yacked me into getting a Street Pilot III... :rolleyes:

Ok,,, yeah,,, I am 100% glad I did buy it... And,,, to be honest,,, hope I can just get this one fixed cheap/free from Garmin... But,,, I know me,,, and I am still betting I upgrade... ;)

[SpEd]

Man,,, just last year over at the COG site (((Concours Owners Group))) I asked about getting a very small,,, itty bitty,,, gps just to show my speed... Those guys yacked me into getting a Street Pilot III... :rolleyes:


Boys will be boys. The difference between you and them is that you're sending your GPS to be repaired, and they'd have theirs in a million pieces in the garage putting a wrench to it. :)

I'm really torn about your problem. I really like my SP3, but I'm a fool for the latest and greatest. I DO like the buttons over the touch screen, especially with gloves in the Winter, so there's another thing to worry about. The big screen of the 276 is the best feature I think.

Basically I don't envy your position, and I'm not going to be much help. LOL:D

[joema]

One of the cheapest moving map GPS solutions is a used Garmin StreetPilot (the original black & white version). Used units are sometimes available for under $100.

It will run off batteries for quite a while -- several days riding for me.

With no power cord, it's quickly detachable from a RAM-ball mount. It doesn't do routing, doesn't have voice output, and pan/zoom is probably slower than the newer units, but it's cheap and convenient.

[SpEd]

[QUOTE=joema]One of the cheapest moving map GPS solutions is a used Garmin StreetPilot (the original black & white version). Used units are sometimes available for under $100.QUOTE]

I agree wholeheartedly. If you're just getting into the GPS arena, the original SP is a great value. I paid about $200 off of Ebay for mine once the SP3s came out. Another added feature is that while it doesn't do autoriouting, it is really easy to upload maps from Street Atlas software. It's not perfect, but it is still a very viable option for someone getting into GPS.

The monochrome screen works great in the sunlight. If my GPS3 had that option, I'd probably switch from the color screen to the blac and white screen.

[Wes]

I have the 276c and have found it very easy to read on the road. The display is bright enough to be easily seen through a clear helmet screen with dark sunglasses on.


I also use this unit some in my truck and in that application the 276c is not quite as readable. It is really designed to be used in the open -- on a boat or motorcycle is where it shines (no pun intended). I debated between the 276C and the 26XX models and the larger easy to read screen won over the other choices. It's controls are also easy to use with gloves on.

:04biker:

[NormanPCN]

I have the 276C and like it a lot.
1) I wanted the transreflective display.
2) I wanted battery operation.

It is a more expensive solution and you cannot get a large enough flash card to load the entire US. Since the 276C has a Marine heritage and Garmin sold preprogrammed cards they kept that flash interface and 256MB is the biuggest they sell. Terry, for you in the east this might be more of an issue. Not for me. I have the entire western US loaded into a 256MB flash card. New Mexico to Montana and to the coast.

The display weakness of transreflective (276C) vs transmissive (SPIII, 26xxx) is that the backlight cannot be as bright as pure transmissive. The only situation I have seen thi come up is in bright shaded situations. On a bike this would be when the sun is up and bright and your body is shading the display. In a car this comes up in backlit situations. Sun in front of you. The advantages are that the brigher the sunlight the better the display gets. There is no "perfect" display.

The current software for the 276C has all the routing features of the 26xx series. Previously it had the routing features of the SPIII.

[hippo888]

Terry,

My SPIII broke after nearly 3 years of service. Something was rattling around inside. When I sent it in, I discovered that Garmin has a repair/refurbish rate of $250.00 no matter what is wrong with it.

Looking back at it, I should have just tossed the SPIII and gotten a 2610. The prices have dropped dramatically on the 2610's. Instead, I got my SPIII fixed. I think my main reason was that I didn't want to re-wire all the bikes again.

[Austin city limits]

Thanks for all this info guys!!!

I just,,, got off the phone with Garmin AFTER waiting 49 minutes on hold :mad: but,,,

SHAZZAM!!!

my SPIII is fixed!!! I guess the data was not fully being removed from the memory card and it was screwing up anything downloaded into it... That made the SPIII unable to find anything,,, because the data was screwed...

After walking me through it and deciding that the data was not getting fully erased I took it to a friends Data Card reader and erased all my memory and

SHAZZAM!!!

I am back in business!!!

Best news is,,, I get to keep all my money,,, for now at least... They are sending me a new Data card reader thingy for free... ;) But,,, this discussion and info you all provided will pull me into that quick sand called "Upgrading my GPS" as soon as I can hide it from "The Lovely Cindy"... :rolleyes:

[joema]

I have the 276C and like it a lot.
1) I wanted the transreflective display.
2) I wanted battery operation.

It is a more expensive solution and you cannot get a large enough flash card to load the entire US...
The serial port on my old monochrome StreetPilot broke, so I gave it to my brother and got a 276C.

I considered the 2610, but like NormanPCN said, I love the high resolution, transreflective screen and battery power on the 276C. On several rides I've popped it off the bike at a restaurant and show the other riders in my group where we are, upcoming points of interest, etc. You can't do that on a 2610.

Touch screen vs buttons is a personal preference. Personally I like buttons, so the 276C was a natural for me.

I mostly ride rural secondary roads, so the high res screen allows me to zoom out and still see lots of detail. I can't stand GPS or map programs that prematurely drop detail as you zoom out.

I like the fine control over many parameters: font size for roads, zoom level where road types appear, etc.

I also like the "techy" orientation of the 276C. No simplification or watered down features -- they assume you know about navigation, which I like.

I like the huge 10,000 point configurable tracklog. You can control how fast it's used, plus save user-defined tracklog segments to separate memories.

I used a RAM mount from GPSCity.com. I love how easily the 276C snaps on/off the mount. No wires or plugs; takes less than 1 second.

I don't like the proprietary memory card, but the 256MB card holds a huge area -- approx the entire southeast US. For a planned cross country trip it could easily hold your entire path and many miles on either side.

On the negative side, I've seen a couple of software glitches. Had a couple of lockups when searching points of interest. It could use a few refinements such as smaller size waypoint symbols, better control over road detail at lower zoom levels.

Another negative (for automotive use) is the voice prompts don't work without an external speaker. There's no internal speaker.

All in all it's a great unit and I really like it. Especially in the bright ambient light of a motorcycle application, the transreflective color screen works great -- usually I don't need any backlight yet the display is bright and colorful.

I put a velcro strip on the bottom and it works fine on my car's dash, on top of the steering column. No power connections make it very fast to move between car and bike.

[Putt]

Hey Terry,
Look at this new Lowrance... 10g of map storage +10G of MP3 storage

http://www.cyclegadgets.com/Products/gps/detail.asp?prod=IW500

Putt...

[rocky17]

I've had the Garmin 2610 for about 4-5 months now. I haven't done a real long trip with it, just mostly local riding. But I do program it so I can learn to use all the goodies on it. The software is definitely not user friendly. I've spent hours with the 2 manuals and the software on the computer trying to learn to operate it properly. It seems that the geeks who write the software programs are definitely not users. I have an aviation Garmin GPS that I used in my small airplane to fly to Alaska twice and it's a snap to use it. I don't think that you should have to do a semester of study to use the 2610. :mad:
Ken

[maxified]

NormanPCN & Joema pretty much summed it up for the 276c. I enjoy its many features and swap it utilization between two motorcycles and 2 cages. Obviously great on trips, but I like the track recording feature (breadcrumbs) that lets me review new roads I've ridden when I get home. It even worked well in a summer time down pour being water resistant. I really like the large display and banner notices that tell me what street is coming up next (handy when transiting through cities & towns). The Quest display was a tad small for me to use while actually moving on the bike(s). Whatever one you choose, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

[grogglefroth]

I've had the Garmin 2610 for about 4-5 months now. I haven't done a real long trip with it, just mostly local riding. But I do program it so I can learn to use all the goodies on it. The software is definitely not user friendly. I've spent hours with the 2 manuals and the software on the computer trying to learn to operate it properly. It seems that the geeks who write the software programs are definitely not users. I have an aviation Garmin GPS that I used in my small airplane to fly to Alaska twice and it's a snap to use it. I don't think that you should have to do a semester of study to use the 2610. :mad:
Ken

Huh. I mostly learned to use it just playing with the 2610. I find it pretty easy to use, albeit with a couple quirks. I liked it so much that when my 2610 was stolen (from the car, long story there), I ended up replacing it with another 2610, despite newer/fancier things being out there.

The dumbass part of me, of course, was that I shoulda put the money towards an aviation gps instead. But at that point, I had not yet made the decision to pursue getting a pilot's license. Doh.