Garmin StreetPilot 2610 - 3.7 in. Car GPS Receiver

This is top-based posting, so you need to read what follows to know what the history is.

Update: September 15, 2005

Finally (10 weeks after it began) I received my replacement unit from Garmin - to unjam the system I wrote a letter to upper management and sent it by fax. It seems to have made the difference. Interesting enough, the unit received was itself new, but the battery and memory chip were my originals. Interesting, to say the least, considering that mine was variously lost, shipped and so on.

Unfortunately, the replacement unit exhibited the same issues as the original - I believed at the start that this was a battery issue. I guess I was right and it says volumes about Garmin's knee-jerk approach to warranty repair.

I called - again - and spoke with one of the same people who was originally (keep records, it helps when negotiating) and after he wanted me to restart the process and I reminded him of my situation, they shipped out a brand new retail unit at their expense - THIS one finally works well.

Update: July 16, 2005

After EIGHT weeks I am still without my 276c. After spending literally tens of hours speaking with many pleasant, sympathetic, but ineffectual support people (including two supervisors) I have come to the conclusion that Garmin tech support is comprised of nice, but thoroughly incompetent individuals who make up story lines to suit their mood of the day.

The Canadian depot eventually admitted that they were having no luck getting information from Garmin and asked if I'd to them the favor of phoning and trying to get an update.

Support people with names like Joey, Lacie and Allan all promised to follow up and NO ONE ever did.

I was variously told that the unit was;

- Repaired and shipped back on the 14th of June
- On backorder, waiting a replacement unit (for a loose battery wire?)
- Sitting in the warehouse.
- Lost
- One enterprising support person had the temerity to suggest that "seven weeks isn't very long" because I "am in Canada"!!!

Last Thursday I finally had it and contacted Garmin and after Lacie spent an hour trying to locate my RMA, he said he'd call me back. Since I know that that's a secret code that means "you'll never hear from me again" I asked for a supervisor and said I'd not get off the line until I spoke with one.

The person who came on the line was (Garmin standard) pleasant and helpful sounding and apparently sympathetic to the cause - and Eureka,, he claimed he found the shipment - sitting in the "wrong part of the loading dock".

I was promised that the shipment would be sent to the depot overnight - rush and that I'd have the unit the following day.

I asked if they could just ship it to my office and was informed that because the RMA covered a number of units, they could not.

The following day I contacted the depot - no shipment (what else is new?) though they were aware of the situation. AND apparently they did NOT ship the entire shipment, only MY unit!! So just why was it that it couldn't be sent to me?

Need I state that the unit was NOT delivered to the depot overnight and that I am still without my 276c?

Oh - and the depot (Raytech Marine)? I asked if, in return for my heroic efforts to resolve THEIR problems, would they do the the favor of transshipping my unit to my office using a same day courier (costs about $10) so I'd have it - because they don't open extended hours). The reply? I was being unreasonable - none of this was their fault and if I wanted them to ship it, they'd do so collect - and Marc, the person I was speaking with there, slammed the phone down on me.

Garmin REALLY needs to get their act together.
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Update: June 27, 2005

Note that I own a 276c and that it recently required service. As I live in Canada, I dutifully brought the unit to the specified depot and they 'promised' that Garmin would exchange the unit in 2 days' time.

Two days later I was told that they sent the unit to Garmin for repair and that it would take two weeks.

Two weeks later they said it would be sent from Garmin back and that I would have it in the middle of the following week.

On the Thursday of THAT week they told me it would be back in their hands the following Monday (today).

Today they are saying that Germin will be shipping it to them in 2-3 days.

Now GARMIN says that they only opened the repair order a week after I gave the unit to the depot and that the unit was only received two weeks after that (3 weeks in) and that they *may* me able to ship ot out this week.

All-in-all I am waiting almost FIVE weeks so far and I MIGHT get my unit back next week. Note that the warranty period will not be extended.

If this was an isolated incident I would have assumed it to be an exception. However LAST year I sent in a Streetpilot-III and they pulled the exact same 'more than a month' to repair thing.

If you buy your unit in Canada, DO NOT send it to the Canadian repair depot. Deal with them factory-direct.

The fact that I bought the unit in Canada implies that I ought to be able to get it serviced in Canada within reasonable delays and without incurring special costs.

My next units won't be from Garmin.

Back to the review:
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I have owned a number of different GPS units over the past few years. I decided I needed one when I was riding my touring motorcycle in rural New Hamshire, was close to being out of gas and hit the end of a dead-end road on reserve and with no civilisation in sight.

Having maps is nice - but to use them effectively you need to know where you are. High tech navigation units know where you are, can figure out how to get from here to wherever you want to go - and can tell you how long it will take, barring traffic issues - and contain lists of points of interest - restaurants, gas stations, attractctions and shopping.

I purchased a Streetpilot III in June 2003 and mounted it to my bike - I have upgraded units a couple of times and - when not riding it is in my car. When I travel, I carry the unit with me. I no longer get lost for long in North America.

The few units I've owned have been:

Streetpilot III
2610
276c (still have this one)

I have also 'played with' a few others, notably the Tom Tom Go and the Garmin Quest.

First the technological background:

What is GPS?

The acronym 'GPS' stands for Global Positioning System. It is a system that allows an appropriately equipped device to 'know' where on the globe it is located in three dimensions (including altitude) based on the propagation delay from each of the satellites that are 'in view' of the GPS receiver at any instant in time. It generally only works outdoors, in relatively open areas.

In the 1970's the US military started launching what was to become a constellation of 28 satellites that circumnavigate the globe. However their network is not the only one. The Russians have a system called GLONAS - but it isn't fully complete. The Europeans are busily preparing to launch their own network, called Galileo - a complete waste of public funds, but it isn't MY money, so who am I to argue? I guess they have lots of extra money over there.

The GPS system can be very accurate. Military receivers can have better than centimeter accuracy, allowing the U.S. to send precision guided devices to targets and know that they will reach the intended destination. However for the most part, civilian receivers are limited in accuracy to about 3 meters (about 10 feet), which is more than accurate for most of us. To further complicate matters, there is a feature that the Army can enable and adjust called 'SA' - Selective Availability. SA controls the overall accuracy of GPS as a service. Non-military users will see a degraded level of accuracy - that accuracy is adjustable and varies based on the whim of some Army colonel or other person in the military complex.

To offset the issues of SA 'correction' signals can be locally applied to a receiver. Generally this will consist of a separate 'reference' GPS receiver, located at a known location near to the operating area that will transmit DGPS correction signals (the D stands for Differential) over a radio channel and a second radio receiver in the user's system will decode and apply the correction to a local GPS receiver there, resulting in a reduction of the error generated by SA.

These days SA is turned off, making the system pretty darned accurate - more than accurate enough to allow units to be used without the DGPS signals.

Over the U.S., there is a system called WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System). Satellite signals carry the correction information so that one need not have a second radio nor be close to the correction station.

How useful this is in an era where SA is turned off is not clear to me - and in the event that SA is turned back on, they'll probably shut off the WAAS signals, which brings WAAS's utility into question.

In order to work properly, the GPS receiver in your phone, car or handheld device must know where each satellite is at every point in time and can then translate the signals being received from those that are in range into a latitude, longitude and elevation value. From this, application software can extrapolate and cross-reference the data into street names and addresses and heading and speed.

This information is known as the 'almanac'. It is constantly being sent by all of the satellites to any GPS receivers in range. When a receiver is first started up it searches for satellites. Then it starts to load the Almanac data. When that is acquired the unit can start generating position reports, so long as there are at least 3 satellites in view from which to triangulate the unit's location.

Developments in recent years has reduced the size of a GPS receiver into a tiny module comprising a few integrated circuits and the OEM price of that module hovers at around US$35 at this time. This is a long way from the original commercial receivers that were housed in luggable boxes and cost $50,000 and more.

Modern receivers can decode up to 12 satellites at one time - and the accuracy of the location is improved somewhat as the number of satellites being tracked increases.


What is a navigation system?

A portable navigation system is a pretty complex device. It needs to know where the device is located. It also has to know about the streets (what they're called, where they are, what type of street and so on) and the rules for navigating them (where you can turn, what direction the streets are, whether traffic is even allowed on a street (it might be a pedestrian mall, for example).

Beyond all this it needs to be able interface with the user - to accept data, to display it - and be able to calculate routes, determine timings, direction, speed and so on.

A few companies now specialise in manufacturing these systems - all of them purchase the mapping information, so there is little benefit in terms of map quality of one over another. In addition, most navigation units provide 'points of interest' (POI) data. This generally consists of lists of various types of business and services, along with locations, phone numbers and related information.

The user can look for restaurants, for example, often narrowing the list by choosing a style of food and a limit of the search radius.

Navigation adds one more factor to the mix. The street navigation information can be used to plan routes between points. Routes always have a start and an end point. Optionally, waypoints (locations) along the way can be specified if necessary to allow an automatic route between points with a stop at Aunt Betty's along the way.

Waypoints can be previously stored or may be generated on the fly by entering an address into the unit or by pointing to a spot on the map using a cursor. Once marked, waypoints can be stored, named and used in routes.

Routing is where a system is made or broken. Systems generally allow the user to specify preferences as to road type - for example one might want to avoid toll roads or dirt roads - and the navigation unit will plan routes keeping this in mind.

As one travels along the route, the GPS unit will issue driving instructions. Higher end units will have speech abilities and will announce upcoming turns and such. Should you miss a turn, the system will let you know and may automatically plan a correction and guide the user back on course - this feature can usually be disabled if the user wishes to handle his own backtracking.

Navigation units will maintain 'track data'. After a trip this data can be extracted to a computer and used for analysis - each point of track data generally includes date, time and heading at various steps along the way. These points can be linked into a track - they can be analysed - they can be displayed on a map or for any of many other purposes.

Some units allow the track data to be recalled and used as the basis for a route - so that the user can either retrace his steps in reverse (like the famous bread crumbs that Hansel & Gretel tried to use when they were taken through the woods). Or they can be used to locate and plan a route to allow one to travel back through a particularly desirable stretch of road.

The user's computer can store and organise tracks, waypoints and routes. The user's computer also generates trip logs and other functions through the application software that the manufacturer of the unit provides.


Garmin

One of the better known of the navigation unit manufacturers is Garmin International. U.S. headquarters is located in Kansas City. They have been providing navigation units for a number of years and their line includes a very comprehensive selection of devices for Marine, portable and automotive use - including a number of 'crossover' devices that serve more than one market segment.

I have personally owned three models of Garmin's navigation units - and I've played extensively with others. These are all current models and all use the same underlying application software and have similar (but different) user interfaces. A quick comparison:

Garmin Streetpilot III Deluxe
- 3.4"W x 1.8"H (8.6 x 4.5 cm) (305 x 160 pixels), high-contrast, 16-color LCD with backlighting
- Pushbutton operation
- 12 Channel receiver (no WAAS)
- Internal non-rechargeable batteries
- Garmin's proprietary memory chip - 256 megs max
- 2000 trackpoint memory

Garmin 2610
- 3.3"W x 1.7"H (8.4 x 4.4 cm) 305 x 160 pixels bright, automotive-grade 8-bit, 256 color LCD w/automatic dimming backlight and touch screen; compatible with polarized sunglasse
- Touchscreen operation with infrared remote control
- 12 Channel receiver (with WAAS)
- No battery operation available
- Compactflash memory (up to 2 Gigabytes available today)
- 2000 trackpoint memory
- Faster processor

Garmin 276c
- 3.8-inch diagonal, 480 x 320 pixel, 256-color TFT screen with adjustable LED backlight
- Pushbutton operation
- 12 Channel receiver (with WAAS)
- Internal rechargeable LiOn batteries
- Garmin's proprietary memory chip - 256 megs max
- 10,000 trackpoint memory
- Faster processor
- Dual mode (Marine/Automotive)

All of these units are water resistant and meet IPX7 standards - They will sustain total immersion in water up to 1 meter deep for 30 minutes without damage - so if the caps are in place and the doors are closed you don't need to worry about getting rain on the unit.


Streetpilot III (SP3)

From the perspective of specifications and it's operation, the Streetpilot-III is certainly capable, but it has a somewhat slower processor that impacts slightly on screen redraws and on the time it takes to calculate a route.

Having said that, it is certainly fast enough. I have never managed to 'outdrive' the unit. And the high contrast display is MUCH more readable than the pastel-on-pastel color combinations used in the other two units.

Application software is the same as that of the other two units - the buttons are very intuitively organised and their function is very clear. I purchased my Streetpilot III after the 2610 was released and I personally stand by my decision to purchase it over the more expensive 2610.

One factor in the SP3's favor is that is has a 'standard' detachable antenna and can be used with batteries, albeit for only limited (5 hours max) periods of time.


2610

The 2610 was introduced in 2003 to a lot of fanfare. It is quite small - because it has no push buttons or batteries. It is not the lightest unit on the list, the 276c has that honor and the Streetpilot is a bit heavier with batteries installed.

The faster processor in the 2610 makes screen updates noticeably faster. But the color pallet is not configurable and the unit has some readability issues because of the limited contrast between the base colors and the text. Screen resolution and size is about the same as the SP3.

I personally do not like the idea of a touchscreen on a motorcycle - and given that it is the most expensive of the three units on this list I did not consider it to be my first choice - though the small size of the unit is attractive. One advantage of the 2610 display is that it has a matte finish, which doesn't show fingerprints and reduces reflected glare as compared with the other two units which have high gloss coated display protectors.

The unit has an internal antenna - an external one can be used, but the connector on the unit is non-standard - both of the other units have external antennae and they use BNC industry standard connectors for their connections.


276c

In late April of 2004 Garmin released the 276c as the successor to their 176c marine unit. Based on the same form factors as it's predecessor, the unit is dual-mode and can be switched from marine to automotive modes, which changes the suite of options and the display colors.

A pushbutton-controlled unit, the 276c buttons are organised differently from the SP3 which does result in a learning curve - and in some confusion if the user has both models. Certainly this is something that is easily overcome with use.

I personally have no need for the marine modes in the unit, but from what I can tell this unit is amazing - it has two serial ports (in addition to the USB port used to load and extract data from the unit). It supports connection to external devices and has alarm outputs in addition to the speech output. Dragging anchor and other alarms are standard in marine mode.

Where the 276c shines is it's display. Slightly larger than the other two units, the display has more than three times the number of pixels, which results in a much more refined display - mind you, they use the same pastel-on-pastel color scheme that they have on the 2610 - so it's really not very readable IMHO.

In essence - and I'm sure it comes across in the review, the unit I favor is the 276c - it is small, light, has amazing battery operation and a very bright, high resolution display.

I also spent some time evaluating the Quest with a view to using it as a travel machine - but because I will not allow myself to own more than one of these things, I quickly decided that the Quest's small screen and lack of replaceable memory was a deal breaker.

So do I recommend the 2610? Yes, I do. However for my own applications I continue to use the 276c

The 2610 does some very interesting things, including having the ability to enter a list of up to addresses and to ask the unit for most efficient way to cover them all. Extremely effective for people who drive routes.

It can support the entire North America database in a single standard CompactFlash card so that long haul users or people who fly around can conveniently use the device without having to lub around a programming computer or spare cards - and it has the touchscreen.

SO while it is a nice, fairly small and fast unit - it just wasn't quite right for me.

It WILL be right for the majority of casual drivers and for the professional delivery person who is less concerned with tracking routes than I am and who won't miss the fact that it has no batteries.