Garmin Zumo 660 review

[JOF]

The overall size, weight and widescreen of the zumo 660 are real pluses for Motorcycle travel. It is about half the depth of the zumo 550 and while the zumo 660 isn't "shirt-pocket" size I do think it will see off-bike use.

The non-navigation features (MP3 Player, Language Dictionary, Calculator, etc.) and the built-in speaker and Stereo Audio-out jack (located under a rubber seal on the left side of the unit - along with a remote antenna jack) make it a useful tool for travelers.

A quick touch of the Power On/Off button and the unit powers on. Since this switch is actually software controlled I would like to see power-on changed so that the button needs to be held done for three seconds to avoid accidental power-on.

Being a software controlled button it can be programmed to do other things. A quick push and you have access to the Brightness and Volume control with Mute. This should be sufficient for most and I like it better than the zumo 550 implementation.



The new World Clock and the automatic Time Zone update of the on-screen Clock are indeed welcome.




The Fuel Gauge is still available but now you can actually turn it On and Off and it is much easier to set parameters. Oh, and no more funky "dashboard".



We will also get back some of the more navigation oriented features of a good GPS like the Satellite aquisition screen (of course Garmin software engineers had to make it only accessible by secrete hand shake).


The other feature that the Chartplotter crew have complained strongly about is the lack of user-customization. The zumo 660 has brought some of that back. The two info windows at the bottom left and right corners of the Map screen can be customized from information on the new combined Compass screen. If you select one of the windows you are taken to the Compass screen where you can select your desired input for that window (it gets the green check).





The Motorcycle Mount is much better than the zumo 550 and quite adequate to secure the unit for normal Forest Service Roads or mild off-road. Those more adventurous off-roaders may want to call Touratech to see when they will have a locking mount. Having the connector pins on the back of the unit will certainly cut down on water/dirt corrosion that plagued the zumo 550.


The microSD card is located underneath the Lithium battery. So it is not as easily accessed as on the zumo 550. Regarding user storage, much like the zumo 550, I tested this demo unit using a SanDisk 8GB microSDHC card. Garmin’s current official support is 4GB SDHC or less but I found no issues at all using this 8GB card. I loaded 1020 MP3 files for use with the Audio Player and the unit indexed all of them in a reasonable 30 seconds (the iPod can stay home now). Touch the Audio Player icon on the maps screen and you are taken to the Player screen.


The basemap has elevation and 3D terrain data so that as you zoom out on the map you begin to see a terrain map view. You have to be quite far out which is good otherwise it would interfere with road navigation.


If you keep zooming out you will eventually get to here...


When you are navigating a route - the image above - and go in to Browse mode there is a Route Elevation screen (button on lower right).


The Trip Log seems to function the same as the zumo 550 but has some new Management features which make it capable of sharing some or all of your log data quickly with other SD Card capable GPS's while your away from your computer.


The demo unit had a bug that didn't allow me to check out the "View All Segments" feature. I expect this will be fixed by release time.

The zumo 660 has enhanced Track Importing over the 550. It can import tracks with well over 1000 via points. Where the zumo 550 was limited to 250 via points. The test tracks I imported were rendered 100% faithful to the original when they were converted to Routes. Just make sure you your Navigation preferences set to Off-road mode and keep Recalculation set to Off.

Unfortunately this demo unit had a similar bug to the early zumo 550 and I could not physically ride my track within North America.


There are a couple of new Favorite (waypoint) attribute features that can be edited on the zumo 660: Name, Map Symbol (icon), Attach Photo, Phone Number and Change/Add Categories. Bringing back the Categories attribute to Favorites (waypoints) is a very welcome addition and will help with Waypoint management.


The following image only shows one Category (Homes) within my Favorites but these are the same Categories as would find in MapSource - there you can define up to 16 Category names.


Route color is still not editable and a Route created from an imported Track does not inherited color from the original Track data. So, those that have come to rely upon coloring their Tracks to convey information will still not like this unit. But, given the ability to name Routes with up to 36 characters there are alternatives. You can still not display multiple Routes on the Map screen at one time.

The zumo 660 has an active library of 20 Routes and 1000 Favorites which are reasonable numbers given you have the ability to import from the microSDHC onboard storage. And, you can supplement your Favorites with custom POI's as you can with the zumo 550.

[JOF]

660 -550 PIC

[NFN]

yep a big thumbs up from me ! top bit of kit and use it on bike and in the car ! 2 for 1 !

sold my 550 for the 660 ! and it is better.

[Roger]

Nice job Joff

[JOF]

Thankyou Roger, anyway
Zumo Startup Splash Screen Images

Custom startup screens for your Garmin Zumo GPS motorcycle SatNav. Change the image that is displayed as your Zumo powers up. Here's mine:

Transfer / upload new images to your Zumo via the USB connection then:
1. Go to options "wrench" icon
2. Scroll down to 'Display'
3. Select Splash screen option
4. Select any JPG as your splash screen
The screens can be found here zumo Splash Screens
you can load 1 or more to the unit then swop according to your ride at the time bike 1 HD 2 BMW vehicle 3 VW
just the job dont ya think.