Garmin Quest GPS opinions?

[Miata]

My brother asked what I thought of the Garmin Quest GPS and I thought it looked like it would be nice for $369. He wants a dash unit with a fairly large display with voice directions from the auto routing. The color screen looks to be a nice touch too.

The unit he was looking to buy.

Any opinions?

[This message has been edited by Miata (edited 03-05-2006).]

[Digital_Dan]

It kind of depends on what he wants the unit to do for him. This unit does not have detailed maps of the USA like a Garmin 2620 or 2720 would have. For a $118 more, you can purchase a Refurb’d Garmin 2620 from http://www.refurbdepot.com. You can see the specific one I’m talking about here: http://refurbdepot.com/productdetails2.cfm?Product_ID=4266 If he’s looking for a unit that can navigate him to hard to find cache locations in some of the more remote locations, I don’t think he’ll be very satisfied with that particular unit. Just my opinion. The Garmin 2620 comes with ALL the detailed maps of the US & Canada preloaded so you don’t have to load any specific local maps for an area you may be going to. It will take you coast to coast right out of the box.

[Miata]

I am guessing that it would be mostly used for longer trips, so having the full set of maps preloaded would be a huge plus.

I find the hassle of trying to unlock my Garmin V to add maps just not worth the trouble so I gave up all together.

He has not done any Geocaching other than tagging along with me, so the remote cache thing isn’t going to come into play.

[This message has been edited by Miata (edited 03-06-2006).]

[Jeremy]

A friend of mine uses a Quest on his motorcycle… bucking the trend of all the other touring riders I know (including myself) who swear by the StreetPilot 2xxx series. He didn’t want to run the power cable needed for the StreetPilot, plus I think he was scared of the large size of the StreetPilots and the touchscreen which can be tough to operate in gloves.

The Quest is smaller than the StreetPilots and has an internal battery, so you can use it when you are away from AC or DC power. The screen is noticeably smaller than the StreetPilots, but has about the same resolution and the same brightness so you can read it in the sun. I only played with it for a couple minutes, but it did seem to be slower when panning and zooming in. (Plus panning and zooming with the touchscreen (or remote!) is just so much cooler. )

The Quest does come with the unlocked City Select maps so you can download detailed maps for whatever will fit in its small internal memory (maybe one or two states). But the StreetPilots either have all the detailed maps preloaded or the ability to use large memory cards.

Bottom line… I’d spend the $100 or $200 extra bucks to go with the StreetPilot series. Amazon has had the 2610s on sale for ~$450 recently… this model and the 2620 are technically discontinued so these prices may not last too long.

[Miata]

Looks like he decided on a Garmin StreetPilot c330. A bit pricier, but it looks like it will do the trick for him

Thanks for the feedback!

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