Owners impressions of Garmin Zumos

Hi 990 Glen.

So far I have not got a great deal to report. However...this is what I've found so far....

I've used the unit in the car a few times to get used to it. The mapping seems pretty good (but I have only used it locally on the island). The Garmin units I believe are the only ones with Channel Island mapping (not that I need it but I like to fiddle). Some of the road names are wrong, but that may be down to the info sold to Garmin. The unit so far has routed the right way every time and knows the one-way streets etc.

I have paired it up with my Sony Ericsson K750i and it works a treat - even shows the caller ID on incoming calls and the speech quality is pretty good both ways (better than my old Pama bluetooth handsfree kit was ).

I have an Autocom kit 200 which I have not tried to link the Zumo550 into yet but will do soon. I am waiting for my local M/C accessories shop to get BT helmet sets in stock first (can't be arsed with wiring up all the time) but may find the headset battery life isn't up to the job. I'll wait and see how that goes.

Fitting to the bike with the standard kit should be straightforward but I wasn't happy with the way it sat on the left bar. The U clamp only fits a 22mm bar so it had to go right up against the controls - I didn't like it there so have taken it off again. I have a bracket I made up for the heated grip controller.......



... and I plan to mount it on this.. Not easy to explain without pix but in essence I will mount the ally block (supplied my Garmin) with the ball end on the bottom of this bracket (ball facing ign switch). The socket piece will attach to this and should place the Zumo above the bar clamp bolts making it visible when riding (will have to try with a tank bag also) and not blocking the ign of view of instruments. When removed the ball end will be barely visible. Well, that's the plan, anyway

Power - I plan to tap into the supply I use for the heated grips - feeds from battery via ignition via a small relay - but I need to make it removable as I don't want a permanent wire there when I mostly use the bike on familiar roads. I will most likely fit a socket on the side of the headlamp mask or next to the speedo for this (ditto radar detector). One like this probably...




That leaves the traffic report add-on. As I need to transfer this to the car from time to time I haven't yet decided on the best way to mount this part. Under the tank would be neatest (and a plastic tank won't affect signal much) but this makes it hard to remove quickly. Hmmm. Maybe I'll just tie rap it and tuck it inside the headlight mask.

Thanks for the prod, though. I think I'll do some more work on it tomorrow and post up some pix - although I don't have the sockets yet so it'll be a temporary job so I can see how it's all going to fit.

Watch this space over the next few days

Cheers
Rick

PS. I got mine from these people.

They did a deal on the traffic report receiver with purchase.

Cheers for that Rick,
There seems to be a few versions of iTech Clip blue tooth headsets available according to lads on VD. They look like they are a small lapel/collar/pocket mounted unit for the battery and button gubbins with a single walkman style earbud on a fair length of wire. Apparently they are more than up for the job and from what i can see they are only just over £30 if ye shop about. No one has mentioned owt about them being weather proof tho.
With respect to the software - can you load other garmin stuff such as Topo for trailriding. I already have this on an etrex vista, which is fine for the trails but would be pretty awkward to use on a big road trip. Sticking my vista on ebay would go well towards financing the zumo.
ATB, Glen.

advrider.com has a lot of feedback on the zumos. Check under layin' tracks sub forum.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a GPS this year, but I haven't narrowed it down to which one yet.

Ok,

I bought my Zumo last week after looking around for some time for something to replace the Streetpilot III which I had for Europe in 2004. Great piece of kit, that. Better than the Tomtom 700 I bought last year. Shite.

Plipton's middle picture is of a ZZR like mine. I also use the powerlet plugs and find them good quality. The Ram mount, however is useless (for my bike). I had to get a Ball mount custom made at Just give Bob a call tell him what you want and the part is there a couple of days later. THEN YOU PAY HIM!!! How good is that?

Anyway, back to the Zumo. It paired instantly with my phone (random Nokia) and once plugged into the Autocom one tap on the screen and I was ringing my Mrs in the house, (with Lid on and earplugs in), asking for a cup of tea to be brought into the garage. Perfect. Well, perfect until she told me where to stick it.

I had to get another lead made up from Autocom to enable bi-directional audio. Oh, it's got an MP3 player that uses SD cards. Music dims when speaking to passenger, or phone rings.

It has full postcode recognition, and Text to Speech voice. (Turn left onto Shitsville Road rather than turn left onto the B1234). The ONLY thing I don't like about Garmins is the Mapsource software. Hate it. The Zumo tracks journeys that can be imported into Google Earth, which is pretty cool for Europe trips, Scotland, etc.

To be fair I haven't used it much as I've been waiting for the mount for the bike and I have built in GPS in the car.

Glen, I'll pop down later in the week and you can give it a once over if you wish.

cheers

You asked how much. £28 delivered.

Glen, Zumo forum here