Garmin 2610 or 2620 – Does anyone have one?

[GrouseTales]

I’ve been shopping around for GPS designed for auto navigation. About the time that I think I know what model I like, they come out with new models.

Does anyone have this Garmin 2610?

I want something with a good sized color screen, and auto-routing. Some of these newer models do address routing, but I have seen not how to enter coordinates. I’d still want to be able to enter coordinates still so I can get near caches. The handheld gps can take over once I park the vehicle.

I tried out a few at Best Buy recently, but cant figure out how to enter coordinates, and maybe you can’t .

So if anyone has a Garmin 2610, 2610, c320, c330, or Lawrance Iway 500c, please let me know. I’d like to ask you some questions by email

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“There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting and grouse hunting.”
-Aldo Leopold, A sand county Almanac

Brian
WGA President
Grousetales at wi-geocaching dot com
KC9GMW

[This message has been edited by GrouseTales (edited 04-29-2005).]

[rpaske]

Brian, I have sent email re 2610.

[Cathunter]

I might be alone on the matter, but I think that auto-routing takes away from the enjoyment of geocaching. If it were not for all the wrong turns I have made driving to a cache site, I would have never seen some very interesting things.

[river_rat]

quote:

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Originally posted by Cathunter:
I might be alone on the matter, but I think that auto-routing takes away from the enjoyment of geocaching. If it were not for all the wrong turns I have made driving to a cache site, I would have never seen some very interesting things.

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you want an adventure? try autorouting with just topographic maps loaded….it’ll take you to the middle of nowwhere about 10 miles away from the cache and tell you to go cross country.

[greyhounder]

I have a Magellan Roadmate 700. It can really only be used for navigation in terms of addresses and finding points of interest. At this point, with this unit, you cannot enter coordinates.

It’s really a nice way to have a map handy when you’re driving by yourself.

The Garmin 60CS does autorouting to caches. But I turned it off on mine.

Bec

[Jeremy]

quote:

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Originally posted by GrouseTales:

So if anyone has a Garmin 2610, 2610, c320, c330, or Lawrance Iway 500c, please let me know. I’d like to ask you some questions by email

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I have the 2610 and recommend it for people wanting an “in car” GPS that can provide the same features as the built in (and big bucks) “satellite navigation” systems. Biggest advantage over the previous autorouting GPS I had (GPS V) is speed… autorouting, finds, scrolling, are all lighting quick.

Again I stress that the 2610 is not an all-round unit, as it is huge (relatively speaking) and you need 12V power. A friend of mine recently bought a Garmin c320 for motorcycle use… I played with it for a little bit and it seems to have most of the same features in a slightly smaller package with a rechargeable battery. Screen on the c320 looks better indoors (more colors, higher res), but it supposedly doesn’t hold up as well in the sun. The c320 is also a little cheaper.

Don’t go with the 2620 because a) it is cheaper to buy a 2610 and a large memory card and b) the internal hard drive in the 2620 has been known to crash if you use it on a motorcycle (and I know you’ll try Brian ).

Of course you can enter coordinates… hold down the “Page” key for 2 seconds to perform a “Mark”. Or you can just download them with Mapsource like any other Garmin unit.

If you ask nice , I might drop it off at your place and let you try it for a couple days. Contact me with any questions via email.

[rpaske]

FYI. go to http://www.rv.net/ and do a search for 2610.

[GrouseTales]

Thanks for everyone’s help and emails !!

My personal preference was for the C320. The display resolution looked nicer then the 2610. If I cant enter coordinates the old way, I’ll have to find a unit that can. I’m glad to hear that the 2610 fits the bill.

I don’t imagine that I would be using one of these for Geocaching. My main interested is for navigating while I’m out storm chasing. It gets a little hard to see my Legend’s screen when it’s propped up on my dash.

[Author]

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