I bought the Garmin 396. It's going back. No electronic device sold today should be this slow with a really awful interface. Not to mention one of the worst instruction pamphlets I've ever seen.
Just as an example, the quick start guide never actually even tells you how to turn it on. Once I figured that out (trial and error), I chose to update the maps. It's going to take over 2 hours connected to WIFI. Like, what?
And I still haven't figured out how to import a GPX file.
I feel like I just bought 1990 technology (maybe I did). Garmin should be embarrassed to still be selling this piece of... um, bad thing.
Sorry - I haven't really been tuning in to this thread - except to find out about UP's Chinese device.
I do not have personal experience of the Zumo 396 - but it isn't going to be that different fromt he Zumo 590 and 595 that came before it, and the Zumo XT and XT2 that followed it. All of them have only slight variations on the same basic method of working.
Years back, after nearly throwing my New Zumo 590 against the nearest brick wall, I decided to do something more useful instead - decided all it needed was to find out how it worked, and write my own documentation. At the time, I used Basecamp - and I still do, but the the process is the same for any gpx file.
If you haven't already sent it back, you might find this file useful. Many other people have.
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Incidentally - A track is one of two things - a breadcrumb trail of points which record every few seconds exactly where you have been. Joined together they form a line which follows the roads on a map, and can be used as a record of where you have been or for transfer to a mapping program or even as a way of flying through the 3-D countryside in Google Earth.
But they can also be aids to navigation. Most route planning software can create tracks.
Think of a track as being like what used to happen when you got a Paper Map Book and a hi-lighter pen before setting off on a tour. You mark the roads that your want to travel with the highlighter pen. You have to keep looking at it, or you have a partner who makes special use of their finger to indicate your progress along the route. The route doesn't change, you don't get instructions, and if you go wrong, you have to work out where you are and get back to it.
A track displayed on the Zumo screen is very much the same - it displays the line on the map - but the map is always centred on your position. If you have strayed away from the track - you can zoom out and scroll around to try and find where you are in relation to the track. It doesn't give you any help or issue any instructions.
A route is different. A route consists of a series of route points which are used to mark places on the map through which you want to travel. the satnav's role is to get you from one point to the next. If you wander away from the plotted route, then (if you allow it), the satnav will recalaculate from where you are now, to the next plotted route point. The route is therefore very flexible. It also issues directions maybe from about 3/4 mile before reaching the location where an insruction is necessary. "At the junction turn left.", and it highlights the junction on the map - on the Zumos this is typically with a white arrow superimposed upon the route. The fewer route points that you have, the more flexible is the route. If you put a lot of route points in, the Zumo has fewer opportunities to alter the route, but that can become a problem if you are forced to deviate because of traffic or road closures - because you may end up missing one of your many route points - and the zumos job is to make sure that you visit them in the correct order.
To address the latter point, Garmin introduced two type of route point. Some which really have to be visited (Via Points) and othere which also have to be visited, but which will be ignored if you find your own way back to the plotted route (Shaping Points).
I like to have routes with as few route points as I can get away with. If I have to stray away from the route - I want it to navigate me ahead - not back to any points that I have missed.
So I also have a track of my route, and display the track and the route on the screen at the same time. One lies underneath the other - and Garmin changed which one was shown on top at some point between the 595 and the XT. So I don't know on the 396 which one will appear on top. Whatever when the route alters - you have a clear line showing you where you had originally intended to go. If you follow that and you have as few route points in your route as possible, then the satnav will soon calculate the route in the direction that you are heading.
I've come across many users who cannot get to grips with their route being altered like this - so another feature is to use the Zumo screen to convert the track into a route or into a trip. This follows the originally planned route and it will not alter - unless you deviate from it. Then the satnav will get you to the point on the plotted route that is closest to your current position. (And that can open up all sorts of weird behaviour if that closest point happens to be behind you !) Personally, I don't like this method - there are no points of reference (route points), and I like to have staging points - where my pillion can see how far we have to go before the next rest break, which is displayed in time and miles on the side of the Zumo screen.
I know of lots of people who have had serious issues with the Zumos since the 590 - but they have often turned out to be problems with the user. The commonest one is that a route has to have a start point and an end point. You have to pass through the start point - and the zumo needs to see that you have passed through it. That means that it cannot be placed where you jump on your bike - because you will pass the start before the stanav has got an accurate satellite fix and by the time it has, you are a few hundred metres up the road, and the satnav is asking you to go back. Do a U turn.
So fed up with this, without realising what the problem is, the user turns off recalculation. What happens then is that the Zumo cannot get you to go back. Although you are following the coloured line on the screen - you are not actually on the route, cos the route is trying to get you to go back to the start. The Zumo throws a sulk and stops talking to you. NO more instruction, no more white arrows or info about junctions ahead. You have completed the entire journey keeping to the plotted line, but the Zumo is apparently broken. It hasn't helped at all - but it is the rider's fault: the rider did not pass through the start point.
The answer is often painfully simple. Do not put the start point at the start of your ride. Put it a mile or two up the road. If you are in a city, then put it on the road that you want to be on when you escape the city. That way you can go and get fuel, avoid traffic jams, head out in the wrong direction to get to the ring road or circular - and the satnav will keep changing its instructions to get you to the start whatever you do. And when you get there it will continue navigating the rest of the route.
There are lots of simple techniques to make the Zumo do what you want.
As for the maps - the maps are massive files and sending by BT is not a very rapid method. I connect the Zumo by USB to my computer and use Garmin Express. In the old days they used to take about 5 hours - I think Garmin throttled the bandwidth. Now maps tkae about 30 minutes to download by USB. Modern Zumos use wifi, but then thing ahppen without my knowledge, so that facility is never turned on on my Zumos.
) either on MyRoute (then saved as a .itn file) or direct on the satnav and then ride. I don't need a start point, just a destination or first waypoint, then ride. If I have multiple waypoints and then decide not to use the next waypoint, the TomTom lets me 'skip next stop' then recalculates to the final destination using the remaining waypoints if they exist, that means that I never have to ride back to a waypoint if for some reason I can't reach it.
