I have TomTom 5 (soon v6) on my XDA, but it’s a pain to use on my bike, so I’m thinking of going even further into my overdraft and getting a dedicated bike GPS system. With TT Rider being discontinued, I’m left with 2 options, getting Garmin Zumo 550 for around £480 or chasing a TT Rider on eBay for around £250.
In many ways I’d prefer to buy from a shop that I can ride to, they install it properly for me and I ride off again. Can anyone recommend somewhere in North London I should go for this?
Or am I better off getting TT Rider at half the price and then fitting it myself?
dont get v6 tomtom, it doesn’t let u flip the screen orientation to differ that of the PDA’s normal use setting. This is a massive pain when u use the pda on the bike landscape off the bike portrtait. Ill soon be dropping back down to TT5 on my PDA.
I’ve upgraded to v6. All I do to use landscape on the bike is change the screen orientation on the XDA before I open TomTom. As it just uses whatever the Operating Sys is using, I just flip and rotate the screen physically, then as the OS changes it to portrait, I just hit the icon to make it back to landscape and then start TomTom. TT6 is then in landscape.
i went through three of the original tomtom riders, so definitely wait for the new one.
what xda are you using, one with the inbuilt gps receiver? i only ask cos i love mine. best bit of kit ever. i’ve got an otterbox rigged up for it, but most of the time i keep it in my pocket and just listen to the voice instructions
well, so far ive had a garmin, not the zumo, and i didnt like it, i bought the tomtom rider and it works very well for what i want. i May go for the tomtom rider 2 when it comes out, but i like the fact its fully waterproof, and practical. The downsides are the crale isnt that strong and is prone to snapping, im on my second one.
Well its not so much a pain now I have a Bluetooth headset in my helmet. Before though, I have to set it up in the tank bag, plug in the headset and then look down at my crotch to see the screen… If I get off, I have to be careful not to pull it all off with the headset lead (like if I forget).
Anyone know if TT Rider will connect to any BT headset, or only the one it comes with?
Ive just bought a Zumo 550 after months of pondering of whether to go for a TTR or wait til the TTR2 comes out.
Took it out for its first test a couple of days ago to the Lake District and must say I was very impressed with it, took me where I needed to go with lil hassle. Only issue was with the waypoints I had programmed into the gps, this was more my fault than anything else and maybe using a bit of common sense would not have went amiss!
Only thing really is that I have lost the end cover from the security screwdriver and the security screw has disappeared from the mount when I did not have the Zumo fitted due to vibration… should have tightened both but didnt.
Overall I cannot fault it, but if the TTR2 is on the horizon and you are not in a particular rush hold fire til it arrives and make your decision then.
I’ve been amazed at how good the TTR is - mine has gone up the road a few times, it’s certainly been dropped onto hard concrete on more than one occasion and it’s still solid. I have very few problems with it at all. Worth every penny if you can’t wait. BUT it’s biggest issue is the mount it comes with - it’s not the best in the world at all, and you’ll have issues with it at some point. TT made a stronger mount in their later versions but it looks like they’ve gone back to the drawing board for the new one.
The Garmin really un-impressed me, there’s not much more to say about it. I found it quite slow to find the satalite, slow in The City, and a real pain to program.
I’m keeping my TTR and buying a Touratech mount for it and it’ll happily navigate me all the way to Russia and back
It’s funny, most opinion I’d found had said the Zumo was the better piece of kit for Bike GPS. Now I own it, comparing it to TomTom 6 (not Rider) I have to say I’m not all that impressed.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great bit of kit, I received my first call while out on the bike today for example, and everything worked great. Connecting a BT headset AND a BT phone is easily done. It plots routes well enough for me, only once did I have a problem finding a satellite, all other times it locks very quickly. If you’d never seen a SatNav before, you’d be very impressed.
But, there seem to be many things I can’t do (Or haven’t found how to do yet). How do I look at a summary of my planned route, a map view? How can I set to avoid road blocks? I can’t record POI as I ride, only favourites.
I’m told the software that comes with it is very good, but it doesn’t seem all that user friendly to me.
A may well look at giving TTR2 a go, when it hits shelves in stores.
yeah you’re right - that’s basically the crux of the problem for me too - the software is a bitch to use, it’s confusing and needs a steep learning curve to get your head around. The TTR is really straight forward, you can use it from the get go with no understanding of how stuff works… it just works - the phone and BT integration is top notch too.
So far as I understand it, the current Tom Tom itinerary software is basically sh!te… Is that right?
I can see the benefit of GPS, but I’d like one where I can (easily) punch in an exact route rather than just “destinations”.
For the moment the only benefit I can see for me personally is to help find petrol stations in France, and there’s usually some other mug around that has one anyway
I can navigate London with ease (about the only benefit of having spent 32 years living here ), if I don’t know where somewhere is I simply look at a map before I set out I can get to where I need to go without further reference to it… But occasionally this isn’t practical and for those times a GPS would be handy.
Is there one that lets you (easily) plan an exact route so you use exact roads? Or the ability to save a stretch of road as a favourite to incorporate those into a route?
nah the itinerary stuff is just as good on the Tom Tom - I can plan my journey in google earth or even mapsource or autoroute or anything like that and just slap it on the Tom Tom - what a lot of people don’t realise is that it’s not just a list of destinations… you have your start and finish points but there are lots of way points in between - unless you set them as way points you do just have a bunch of start and stop points… which is pretty useless… plus when I get back from my trip I just download the ITN file and it shows me exactly where I’ve been, what time / speed and everything else… dead easy.
I’m sure you saw the stuff from the St. Davids day run… if not here it is…
bugger can’t find that - here’s the one from Dartmoor couple of weekends ago
), if I don’t know where somewhere is I simply look at a map before I set out I can get to where I need to go without further reference to it… But occasionally this isn’t practical and for those times a GPS would be handy.