Streepilot 2610

I was considering a GPS unit a while ago, and I got some great help here on CPF…thank you /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif! In the end I decided to hold off and wait for the technology to get better (i.e more memory).
I want to use the GPS unit mainly in the car…but it would be nice if I could still stick it on a bike, or go walking…ala the Garmin GPS V.

I was looking at the new Streetpilot 2610. Any opinions? Any one own one? How does it compare to the streetpilot III/GPS V? Is it possible to use it outside of the car…or is it designed almost exclusively for in-car use?

Many thanks for any help!

Here is one review. Seems to be very favorable.

http://gpsinformation.net/sp26xx/sp2610rev.html

Only usable inside the car - no battery option. Compares favorably to the SP III.

StevieRay-excellent site, thanks!
Darell -thank you!

Anyone have any comparison with the Garmin 2610 and the Magellan RoadMate 700? Looks like there's a few 2610 owners out there, but haven't seen any posts regarding the Magellan-
They seem pretty much equivalent in features, except that the 2610 has a remote control.
Any information on the quality of the maps and routing between Magellan and Garmin?

Of the units I have, the Magellan seems to maintain lock somewhat better than Garmin under adverse conditions, and I wonder if this may be the case with these two.

Question for those with the 2610:
Since the 2610 has no battery power at all, what happens if the power glitches briefly? Does it have any reserve to ride through it, or will it shutdown and restart?
Can the 128M CF card load all the maps for NY, NJ, CT, for example?
The Garmin V I have has the 19M capacity, which limits the amount of maps I can have on the unit at one time, and that's the only reason I'm considering another unit at this time. They probably didn't design in expansion memory into the V to enable them to continue selling their other units-

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Wingerr said:
Question for those with the 2610:
Since the 2610 has no battery power at all, what happens if the power glitches briefly? Does it have any reserve to ride through it, or will it shutdown and restart?

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There is no capacitance, I'm afriad. A glitch causes a reboot. The good news, is that it does boot quite quickly.

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Can the 128M CF card load all the maps for NY, NJ, CT, for example?

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Most likely. 128 is HUGE. Plus, CF is so cheap today, that if you stuffed a 256M card in there, you'd probably fit half the country. I used the SPIII with only 30MB without much problem. I could fit half of CA on that. Now I can fit all Western States and some...

I would expect the CF expansion capability to work out very well in allowing me to do a one shot download of the maps I need; it's just that I sorta expected 19M of the GPS-V to serve me adequately too, which turned out not to be the case, because of the all-or-none way the map sections get selected, and the POI load, which must trade off space needed for road info, claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

Just got the 2610, and it's sooo much faster loading up the maps than the GPS-V.. It zipped through 80M of map transfer in just a fraction of the time it took for the serial-ported V to do 19M-
Even if I did have to reload the maps frequently to cover areas I'm planning to travel, it's so much quicker that it wouldn't be a problem. Like you said though, the 128M covers a great deal, so I really won't need to reload too much- I was figuring it would take me a really long time to load up even 80M, based on the V, but it wasn't the case at all, with the USB interface.

Has anyone with one of these figured out how to reverse a stored route? I couldn't find that option in any of the sub menus, and it's GOT to be in there- doesn't it?
Maybe I have to read the manual in more detail, but I didn't see it on a quick look.
I found just by playing with it that you can step through the turn by turn screen by dragging your finger on the text box on the right either upwards or downwards; at first I thought I would need the remote to do that-

Assuming that it is very similar to the SPIII (which I have), Garmin designed this for street use only. You supply the destination, the GPS unit supplies the starting point and the route (with turn by turn instructions).

On streets, route reversal is not always a good thing (think of one-way streets and freeway ramps /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif)

Route reversal works better for hiking/flying/boating.

-Bill

It's true you normally would just want the end points to be specified, but stored routes can come in handy when you need to set up some via points to force routing to proceed a certain way. It doesn't actually store the information such as the ramps, but just the points that you pass through, so when it recalculates, it'll take the direction of travel into account.

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Wingerr said:
Of the units I have, the Magellan seems to maintain lock somewhat better than Garmin under adverse conditions, and I wonder if this may be the case with these two.


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Probably not.

The reason for the problems with Garmin units is the eTrex line. They are small, cute units. However, part of their smallness relates to their use of a "patch" antenna. AFAIK, all Magellan units use a "quad helix" antenna. As long as you have a unit with a quad helix, you should be happy with the reception.

The antenna makes all the difference. Ask a ham radio operator. They will tell you that it is better to have a good antenna and a cheap radio than a cheap antenna and a good radio.

Since the Garmin auto-routing units are anything but small, they have no need to use a patch and use the quad helix.

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Wingerr said:
It's true you normally would just want the end points to be specified, but stored routes can come in handy when you need to set up some via points to force routing to proceed a certain way. It doesn't actually store the information such as the ramps, but just the points that you pass through, so when it recalculates, it'll take the direction of travel into account.



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Actually, a couple of clarificatons:

You can store, manipulate, and transfer routes between the GPS and a PC. If you have maps with road information encoded for autorouting (as for the GPS V, SPIII and the new Streetpilots) you can control the routing using via points (manual re-routing, etc.). On a routing GPS it will display the proposed track rubber-banded only to logically identified roads. A non-routing GPS will simply show a straight line beteen any two via points.

The difference between the SPIII/etc. and the Etrex lines are that the SPIII/2xxx/GPSV use the "extra" data that comes with the map (road type, direction, limitations, intersections, freeway ramps, etc.). The Etrex, basically only has the "scanned" map information (it knows there is a street, the name, and the address ranges). It does not have the logical map idea of intersections, on ramps, etc...

For example, the routing type GPS units (or if you have a route-able database on your computer) know that you must take a freeway cloverleaf--whereas an Etrex would just say hang a left at the next overpass.

Of course, you can use a computer to make an Etrex route follow a cloverleaf..., but it only knows that there are several via points very close together--not that there is a logical road underneath.

And, the routing GPS does take into account the direction you are heading and the next intersections/U-Turn possibilities to regenerate a route if you go "off route".

A non-routing GPS will simply point to the last via/way point until you go back to it (or manually point to the next waypoint--some GPS's have logic in them to automatically select the next waypoint--for example in an aircraft, you probably will not hit a waypoint dead on so you still want to go to the next waypoint, and not circle back for another try).

I am sure that there are many variations available from different vendors--but the basic information should apply.
-Bill

That's the reason the via points come in handy, since the routing GPS only needs your input on a endpoint basis, and calculates it based on the stored information. I was referring to the stored route when I mentioned that it doesn't store information like the ramps, etc. Because the 2610 has that information stored already, a reverse route should have no problems, since it would take it into account.
On a non-routing type GPS, having a reverse route would definitely be less useful for the reasons you mentioned.
One particular destination picks a route going down a busy local road, when it's actually better to overshoot the destination a bit and take the highway, so that's where the via point feature comes in handy. It allows you to tailor the route to your liking. The routes are useful in being able to store the via points for immediate recall instead of having to reenter them every time. It would work the same way in reverse, since it does take the direction of travel into account like you said. Creating another route would do it, but that doesn't seem to be too efficient.
Since the autorouting GPS-V already has the reverse route feature, it's odd that this one omits it-

From what I understand, the GPS V is a combination Hiking/Car GPS. So, it would have the reverse route for hiking (Garmin, typically, takes the "bread crumb" trail, reduces the total number of points to a couple hundred, then reverses the order of the track), but, as far as I know (I have not played with a GPS V), there is no logic to invert an autorouted route in SPIII.

Sounds like an interesting question regarding the GPS V. If it had more memory and some other method to upload maps besides RS 232, it would be my second GPS (assuming my wife were to approve /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif )

-Bill

PS. Users need to be careful with the Garmin habit of dropping points in a track-back. Imagine you went around the rocks in your boat on the way out... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Yessir, if the GPS V had CF and USB capability, it would be near perfect for me- it's slower on the redraw, but I could live with it to get the portability feature.
As far as the extra 2610 features, the voice prompt is just a cool gimmick for me. Touch screen definitely adds a lot to it; makes operation a relative breeze compared to the regular pushbutton units. Alpha entry on the GPS V is pretty fussy because of the way the rocker switch is designed, so this is a nice step up. I would have liked to have things laid out in QWERTY format instead of ABCD though- guess it's a concession to the non-typists. Too bad they couldn't make it selectable. Color screen is nice, but the mono V screen is fine too. The IR remote control is nifty, but not a necessity.
The on/off switch wasn't really the best design on the 2610, because it's all too easy to switch the unit off accidentally when shifting it around. I wouldn't mind if it were recessed or at least harder to toggle than it is..

As far as the rocks, maybe it'd be worth the effort to mark the rocks with a skull waypoint to make sure you steer clear..

Wingerr,

On the touch screen--is there any glare from finger prints? I try to keep my SPIII clean because finger prints can be seen in sunny conditions.

Also, have you looked at the Magellan 700 unit? It is a car only version with a 10 Gbyte hard drive. I have seen it in a few stores now. USB and large storage--it seems that they are giving Garmin a run for their money.

Although, Garmin has always had a pretty good selection of Maps for its products.

-Bill

I only got it recently, so I haven't really tried it on a sunny day yet- and with the snowstorm in progress, it may be a few days before I do. It has a matte screen surface, so problems of glare from fingerprints should be minimized. The mounting scheme doesn't seem to allow for up/down tilt, which I found surprising, since the V does make provisions for that, so if there is a glare problem, you'd have to handle it by angling it left or right. Display is clear from all angles though, so you have a lot of <pun alert> latitude in angling it to suit.

I really don't think I'd need any more memory capacity than the 2610 is able to provide, because the CF format makes expansion a non-issue. The supplied 128M suits me fine as is, and like Darell mentioned, larger cards are relatively dirt cheap nowadays. The beauty of it is that it can be loaded it so quickly, compared to the V. I was reluctant to select a full 128M worth of maps because I was anticipating an all night download before I could start playing with it, and was pleasantly surprised how quickly it finished. So, even if you did need to swap maps on it, it's painless because it's so much faster. That was the main reason I decided to go for the 2610- the V didn't have enough memory capacity to cover all my frequently travelled areas, and you have to plan on having enough time to swap the map data- no spur of the moment operation, that...
I was looking at the Magellan RoadMate 700, but wasn't aware that it uses a 10G hard drive (!)- I saw a RoadMate 500 in a local store along with the 2610, but all it would do is turn on to the Magellan opening splash screen, and nothing else, so I couldn't try it out. It did have nice colored backlit buttons, but I couldn't see much else.