Log In | Register
Skip to main content
Topic: First impressions of Garmin 2620-long (Read 3 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
First impressions of Garmin 2620-long
Yahoo Message Number: 48285
I've been reading the posts regarding the Garmin 2610/2620 and thought I'd relate a few first impressions. I gave it to my husband as a birthday and retirement present in early December and we began playing with it immediately. We actually perused the instructions a bit-just to get started and noticed the instruction to use the "indoors" feature to get used to it. OK. Turn it on, press a few buttons til we get to the "Use indoors" feature, press that, and think we can begin. Wrong! We can't get out of China! That is the only map that will come up on the screen.  A little disappointing.
Then we have a great idea-lets take it out to the car and find some sattelites. Great idea-we're finally in California. We program it to take us to a small city not far away and it does a bang up job. So off we go. A few small problems develop. First, my husband is so busy looking and listening to "Gypsy"(GPS)that he has a hard time looking at the roads. Second when she says turn in 300 yards, 200 yards, 100 yards, he passes by the road because it less than a hundred yards ahead. Now he has two women telling him he missed the turn! He's thinking he'd like to turn us both off, but only knows how to silence Gypsy. However, Gypsy is very accomodating and tells him she is recalculating while I am not so accomodating. We continue to follow recalculated messages and even turn where she says we shouldn't just to test her. She remains calm and recalculates and gets us where we want to go.  Later, we pick another town, she calculates, and off we go. She wants us on the interstate, we think we'll try a back road instead. She informs us we are off course, but politely recalculates.
Unfortunately, we really didn't know how to get to the other town so she tells us to U turn. We do, and then find a road we missed. She then starts taking us through the back roads. We follow her, wondering where we are, but she is so confident, we do as intructed.
We're getting hungry, and I find a great feature that lists restaurants in the area. One just 3.2 miles ahead. Let's go. Pick that as new destination(I've finally figured out 90% of the remote functions) and follow new intructions. Someone misses a turn again, someone is very agitated and vocal, and someone is very calm, lets us know we are off course, and recalculates. Takes us around the corner to the restaurant. I guess it's not her fault it was permanently closed! Sounds like I can report that to Garmin, but don't remember the name. Now getting seriously hungry and head to the interstate and towards places we know have food, even tho Gypsy says there are none in the area. Alas, poor Gypsy is failing us. NOT SO! A few more miles down the interstate and restuarant names start popping up. OK, let's trust her again. Follow her to a very nice little out of the way place and have a great lunch-no, she can't rate the food! We headed back towards a third town and she got us there-even with three recalculates-not my fault! If finally found a page that my husband liked better than the map- it's the one that lists turns with names of streets coming up. Gypsy may now have to remain silent in the background until we miss a turn and she has to recalculate! If only I could be programmed to do the same.
But I made one serious mistake. I gave him the gift in Grass Valley CA, and we live in Dixon, CA. We turned her off to come home since we were taking the interstates. I was worried we'd have to start every trip from Grass Valley since that seemed to be the start position when I turned it on again. However, it only took a few more minutes of fiddling with buttons(instructions? We don't read no #* instructions!) to get Gypsy to realize we weren't still there.
All in all, she was great fun and will doubtlessly be useful when we are no longer in areas we know well and we get around to really reading the #* instructions and get more proficent at telling her what we want. It's always about communication isn't it. Mary-who can now be replaced by Gypsy because Gypsy can be silenced!
Re: First impressions of Garmin 2620-long
Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48301
Mary,

Thanks for the entertaining review. I loved it!
 I quickly learned to ignore the "400 feet to turn", etc because I'm a lousy judge of distance and turned early too many times. I now use the countdown timer and find that much more useful. If I see a turn with "30" left on the timer I know it's not yet time to turn.

Is that confusing?

NH Paul
Re: First impressions of Garmin 2620-long
Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48333
Quote
Mary,

I quickly learned to ignore the "400 feet to turn", etc because I'm a lousy judge of distance and turned early too many times. I now use the countdown timer and find that much more useful. If I see a turn with "30" left on the timer I know it's not yet time to turn.

Is that confusing?

NH Paul
Paul, no it's not confusing at all. Now we just have to find the page with the countdown timer!  I know it's there somewhere. Or......, maybe you could tell me where to find it? Mary
Re: First impressions of Garmin 2620-long
Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48348
Quote from: stratusrdr"

Paul, no it's not confusing at all. Now we just have to find the page with the countdown timer!  I know it's there somewhere. Or......, maybe you could tell me where to find it? Mary

Sure, Mary.
 Open your manual to page 14. In the top/middle of the page you'll see typical map page. The time to turn is on the right in the second row.
In this expample the time to go is 06:00 units. I use the term units as it's not minutes and seconds as the time to go will count down in relation to your speed.

On the left side of the manual page is the next turn page which appears as you approach the intersection. While the GPS is giving you verbal distances to go, the next turn page shows the time units to the turn in the lower right corner. In the example the turn will arrive in 00:27 time units. When the time to go reads :10 or so you should be starting to turn the steering wheel and at zero you'd better be in the turn.

Happy navigating, NH Paul
Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48357
"Now we just have to find the page with the countdown timer! I know it's there somewhere."
 Paul explained it well. Let me just add that the display's information tabs are extensively customizable: you can put just about any information you want on them, in any arrangement, at varying text sizes. The default settings are good, but when you get comfortable with the StreetPilot and delve into the many ways you can personalize its display, you may find that a few tweaks can make it even better.
 That's one of the nice features of the 2610 and 2620: you're not stuck with what somebody else thinks is the best display.

Andy Baird
Andy Baird
2021 Ford Ranger towing 2019 Airstream 19CB
Previously: 1985 LD Twin/King "Gertie"; 2003 LD Midbath "Skylark"
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48369
Ok - now has anyone figured out how to put GPS coordinates into the 2620 and ask it to find the location?

Sarah
[Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48384
Quote from: Sarah Blackwood

Ok - now has anyone figured out how to put GPS coordinates into the 2620 and ask it to find the location?

Sarah

Sure, Sarah, and that's one of the handiest features of a GPS unit.
Look at the top button on the unit and you will see Page and Mark (in a smaller font). To use Page you press and release the button. To use Mark press and hold the button.

When you're at the location you wish to input, press and hold the Page/Mark button. A New Map Waypoint window will open with the coordinates of your location (see picture at the bottom of manual page 11). Touch (or select with the remote) the waypoint number display and you can type in your own name for the new waypoint, i,e, Fido's Vet, My Supermarket, etc. Now that location/waypoint becomes your most recent find. To navigate to your new waypoint select Find, and then Recently-Found Places (page 27), highlight Fido's Vet and select Go To. Voila! You're on your way. Neat, huh?

NH Paul
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48413
Paul - I know about marking the site where you already are, but don't know how to enter coordinates of a place I've yet been to. (Whoops - those darned prepositions.)

One of the groups I belong to lists their gathering site by coordinates. Also, if we're going geocaching, it would be nice to enter the coordinates in to the 2620 to get to the trail head. I know I could just enter them in my hand-held GPS, but sure would like to be able to do the same on the 2620.
 I DO love the feature you were talking about - it has been an absolute wonder up here in the woods of Massachusetts. I don't know how you folks find your way around here without it. Maps? Yup - those work, and I still have them. Love maps. However, Miss Moneypenny just takes all the guessing out of it.

Sarah
[Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48432
Sarah,
 I don't know of any way to do what you want to do but I've got a query into Garmin to see if I'm missing something.

NH Paul
[Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #9 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48434
I have a Garm
bumper
"Yonder" '05 MB
"WLDBLU" glider trailer
Re: Garmin StreetPlot 2610/2620
Reply #10 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48442
"I know about marking the site where you already are, but don't know how to enter coordinates of a place I've [not] yet been to."
 John is on the right track. I couldn't find it in the manual, but a few minutes of playing with the unit this morning revealed a simple way to enter a new set of coordinates:

1. Press and hold the "PAGE/MARK" button to create a new waypoint.

2. In the resulting screen, you'll see your current latitude and longitude displayed under  the heading "Location." Simply click on the numbers to edit them; you can then enter any  lat/long coordinates you like. In the same way, you can edit the waypoint's name and icon  by clicking on them.

3. Once you're done, the buttons at the bottom of the screen let you save the waypoint,
 show it on the map, or calculate a route to it ("Go To").

Andy Baird
Andy Baird
2021 Ford Ranger towing 2019 Airstream 19CB
Previously: 1985 LD Twin/King "Gertie"; 2003 LD Midbath "Skylark"
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin 2610/2620
Reply #11 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48444
Paul wrote: . . . I don't know of any way to do what you want to do but I've got a query into Garmin to see if I'm missing something . . .
 Thanks, Paul - I haven't spent much time futzing around with the Garmin yet, but surely there's a way to enter coordinates in order to find a location. It would just add to the fun of it, right?

Sarah North of Manhattan

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin StreetPlot 2610/2620
Reply #12 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48450
Andy wrote: (snip) . . . a few minutes of playing with the unit this morning revealed a simple way to enter a new set of coordinates . . .
 Hot dang, Andy! Thanks a bunch! That sounds pretty simple - wonder why it's not in the manual. Well, I guess they can't put everything in or it would look like a cell-phone manual. (snicker)
 Paul - it'll be fun to see if the info you get back from Garmin is any simpler than this.

Thanks again - Sarah

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Re: Garmin StreetPlot 2610/2620
Reply #13 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48480
--- In lifewithalazydazerv@yahoogroups.com, Sarah Blackwood wrote Paul - it'll be fun to see if the info you get back from Garmin is any simpler than this.
Thanks again - Sarah

Hi Sarah,
 Here's the response from Garmin: "Easiest way to do that would be to set the location as a waypoint.  Press and hold the Page button and it will mark that location as a waypoint.  When the waypoint has been marked you can then give it a name and enter specific coordinates.
Pressing and holding the menu button will bring up the Route menu, then you can route to that waypoint (or simply by pressing the find button and choosing waypoints).  This will allow you to navigate to those specific coordinates.

Marking a waypoint should be on Page 11 of the owner's manual.  And Finding waypoints should be on page 24."
 I didn't read Andy's reply but I'll bet it's comparable to this, and I believe Thumper's solution was the same also.

NH Paul
 
First impressions of Garmin 2620-long
Reply #15 –
Yahoo Message Number: 48289
Second when she says turn in 300 yards, 200 yards, 100 yards, he passes by the road because it less than a hundred yards ahead. Now he has two women telling him he missed the turn! He's thinking he'd like to turn us both off, but only knows how to silence Gypsy.


 LOL!  Thanks for the humorous account of your first use of the Garmin!

Think we'll stick to paper maps! :-)

Linda & Earl 2004 23.5'  Red TK From Quartzsite, AZ
Linda Hylton