Which GPS To Buy Now

[carolinarider09]

Gee whiz, there is lots of stuff here I did not know. Thanks for all the responses.

[Oop North John]

Gee whiz, there is lots of stuff here I did not know. Thanks for all the responses.

One rule of thumb I'd say is that the newer the unit, the better the screen and how many functions it tries to do and how configurable it is.

How many it succeeds at is the problematic area, the biggest one being how well you like how it manages the very basic thing a GPSR is meant to do "get you from A to B, maybe via C and D"

[twowheelstom]

I use wired audio earbuds to 3.5mm audio jack on my Zumo 550 cradle, the 396 has no 3.5mm jack, so the 396 only uses bluetooth to a earbuds/headset, which means the bluetooth earbuds run on battery power.

[carolinarider09]

So, some things got in the way of the purchase and I did not buy a new (used) GPS. I am now, looking at this thread and the making of the decision in the near future to go or not.

I just looked on eBay and a new 590 was $800 and a used one was $480. WOW!!!! Is it my imagination or did the prices almost double for these devices in the last 60 days or so?

[ZFtracker]

Wow, that's crazy. Of course, neither 590 or 595 are being made so supply may be limited. A new XT is only $500.

I hope 590 hangs in there, I really like it.

[jfheath]

The weird behaviour of a route after Skip is pressed, we have a solution for.
The changing of route point names on Transfer - we now have a fix .

The XT has now become a very usable machine. After 3 years I'm starting to like it.

You should be able to get a 590/595 for less than £200 in vgc with all cables and mounts. But with the recent fixes, the XT has become more desirable, so expect the 59x 2nd hand market to be flooded !

[Oop North John]

The weird behaviour of a route after Skip is pressed, we have a solution for.
The changing of route point names on Transfer - we now have a fix .

The XT has now become a very usable machine. After 3 years I'm starting to like it.

You should be able to get a 590/595 for less than £200 in vgc with all cables and mounts. But with the recent fixes, the XT has become more desirable, so expect the 59x 2nd hand market to be flooded !

The fastest roads not the fastest time bug is still present with the XT, which is why I bought myself a 595.

If only the XT was as good at navigating as its display

[jfheath]

The fastest roads not the fastest time bug is still present with the XT, which is why I bought myself a 595.

If only the XT was as good at navigating as its display

It's not really a bug. It is intentional on their part, apparently. It was one if the first things that I queried tech support about. They pointed out that they don't have a 'Fastest Time' option. Only 'Faster Time'.

Except it isn't faster than the option that I want to take.

My own belief is that they may have sacrificed selecting a faster route from a number of calculated alternatives in order to use a more simple algorithm - which seems to look more like "which is faster, getting to point A or getting to a main road that leads to point A ?".

The purpose may be to reduce processing time.

We are used to this behaviour if we ever need to plot a route that runs anywhere near a motorway. Easier to cope with, since motorways have a limited number of entry points. But in both cases a few extra carefully chosen shaping points fixes things.

But I agree - it is far from ideal.

I get the impression that Garmin are moving away from point to point navigation in favour of track navigation judging from how Explore works and from the comments I have read about Tread. But at the moment, the XT has a number if options which I can use. I'm not a fan of the 'returning you back to a track that you have decided to abandon' concept. I prefer the point to point idea, where if you abandoned the planned route, it still gets you to the next route point. Now we have a fix for the RUT issue, this still works well if you ignore the demands to head for the nearest fast road.

Superimposing a track of the original intention onto a route that may change is a pretty good security blanket to have.

[rbentnail]

Yeah, the XT's faster road thing still aggravates the crap out of me. I've gotten into the habit of selecting a destination to let the XT calculate then touching the screen to get an overall view and then selecting a couple points (farthest away first, select as next stop, repeat) to shape a route more in tune with how I want to go. My 595 is much more intuitive to my desires, my nuvi before that even more so. Turns out for me as well having the larger & brighter display are the only reasons to have an XT. Routing is much better on my 595. I will certainly never buy an XT2 based on what I now know.

[twowheelstom]

I will certainly never buy an XT2 based on what I now know.

isn't an XT2 the better upgrade to the XT ?