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| Picture Previews - Garmin AIOs : nüvi 660 "HD" and zumo |
2. Navteq meeting - Garmin zumo 550 for Bikers, with routes
Navteq hosted an "Ateliers de la Navigation" event in Paris nearby the Champs-Elysées on September 14th to have their customers meet the press and to explain their own work methods. A very interesting event overall and we'll focus here on the new Garmin units that were on display.
PART II - Garmin zumo 550
Another unexpected encouncter at this Navteq meeting was the zūmo 550 on display by Garmin, it had apparently just been flown in a few days before. Let's see what it has to offer.
HARDWARE
   Looking at the connectors - "extension" on the base and external MCX antenna in the back, note the central piece in the back.     This seems to be Garmin's new standard power/Traffic receiver connector  Top view with the zumo in its cradle
SOFTWARE
   "Home" screen and main menus   The navigation map and the two odometer pannels      The big news here of course is the new "Route" menu that lets you add/create routes that you can then follow. The return of "off-road" navigation on a unit with the new UI launched in early 2005 on the C320  The satellite status screen is back !
First Impressions
The zūmo 550 is less impressive than the nüvi 660 with its large bright screen and not being a biker myself I probably won't be able to put it to much good use. Having said that, the zūmo has a nice "rubbery" feel, think waterproofing, that does recall the TomTom Rider a bit. Unlike TomTom who have the same powerful user interface across their line of GPS systems, Garmin tweak it depending on the planned use, simpliflied on the C550, a bit more advanced on the nüvi range. The zūmo feels closer to the nüvi with the presence of the satellite status screen, but I'm not sure the one-tap 2D/North Up map mode is here too.
The big news on the zūmo is the route menu of course that many have missed since Garmin launched the new UI on the C320 in early 2005. I wasn't able to check the format of these routes, but I would assume they are created/compatible with the ubiquitous MapSource, whih would of course require Garmin to ship the zūmo with CD/DVDs of the maps, something they have unfortunately stopped doing concurrent with the launch of the new UI. The screens above show that the "active log" can be used as a route, the old "trackback" feature I suppose, but I didn't find a menu to control the way the log is recorded.
Availablility is announced for October in Europe and possibly earlier in the US.
If you have questions or comments, you can use this thread of the forums
 A case for the zumo...
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