Garmin zumo 550 GPS Receiver

Pros: Small, Powerful, Bright display, 4+ hour battery operation. Very sensitive. Car & Bike mounts included.
Cons: Fuzzy display graphics. Poor TTS quality. Not configurable.

May 31, 2008 A note on the various versions of the Zumo series; The Zumo 400 series is similar to the 500 with the exception of satellite music/traffic support, the supply of the car mount bracket and the exclusion of Bluetooth. I firmly ...

Pros: For motorcycles, but also great for car and handheld usage; Works for geocaching
Cons: No Mac OS X support yet; Routing sometimes takes you onto very secondary roads

Introduction My review of the Garmin Zumo 550 is from the standpoint of a longtime Garmin user. My first Garmin GPS receiver was a 45XL bought in 1996, and I also own a Garmin V and a Garmin Streetpilot i2. I bought it to use it on my ...

Pros: Bluetooth, MP3, JPEG's.
Cons: No altitude readout, no compass, no heading indicator on route page.

I purchased a Zumo 550 to go along with the many motorcycles I own. I thought it would be a nice tool to help navigate on my trips. It is a GPS and should be able to provide basic navigational information, right. Wrong! While Garmin added a lot of ...

Pros: super fast routing, very bright display, preloaded US detailed maps.
Cons: There really aren't any worth mentioning.

I bought the 550 to replace my trusty Garmin GPS V that I've been using for about 3 years now. I bought the V so I wouldn't have to worry about getting lost on the motorcycle in the North Georgia mountains. Compared to the V, the 550 is nothing short ...

Pros: Rugged construction, bright display, good support, large POI database.
Cons: No audio while on battery, limited control over route legs.

This ZUMO 550 is my second car GPS navigation system.  I briefly owned the 450, but then realized I'd spend more money buying the additional accessories (mounting brackets and cables) to bring it up to near 550 capability, so I sent it back for the ...

Pros: water resistant, shock/vibration resistant XM Radio ready, Bluetooth, MP3 player
Cons: SLOW at bootup, slow at USB transfer on PC, expensive

I have been using this unit for several months on my motorcycle.

This unit is great for a motorcycle if you want MP3 player, XM Radio, and/or Bluetooth integration with your phone. It is water resistant, vibration/shock resistant, dust resistant, you can use it fairly well with gloves on, and the motorcycle mount kit is excellent.

If you were thinking of getting this for a car, I would think that it would be an expensive choice if you didn't need those environmental features.

Pros: Easy to see and use.
Cons: User manual is not extensive enough.

I recently purchased a zumo after seeing it at the Garmin Store in Chicago. It will replace my Garmin 2610 which replaced my Garmin V.

By far this is the best Garmin GPS unit I've owned. It has a large easy to read screen. It has all the necessary functions without being too deep in sub-menus or sub-screens to distract you. Its touch screen functions easily with gloves on.

It does not come with features, such as XM antennas that you may not need but could easily add in the future.

I understand that aircraft must have altimeters and compasses. But these are not required on a GPS for a motorcycle. I am going riding not flying. So knowing the altitude and exact compass direction is not essential.

I believe that a person going from a zumo to one of Garmin's 26xx or 27xx GPS units would find the screen small with overwhelming information.

The zumo is great. I highly recommend it.

Pros: Excellent display, good mounting hardware provided, nice array of capabilities.
Cons: Auto-routing software chooses non-intuitive routes. No audio functions on external power. Weak speaker audio.

I've owned a number of Garmin units in the past and still have and use a GPSV. The Zumo hits most of the targets and functions one could want in a land vehicle GPS but does have a quite few weak quirks.

The audio (spoken directions) routing does not work unless it is powered up externally in a mounting system. Same goes for the MP3 player, which will not work on the internal battery...strange. The speaker audio is also quite weak even turned up full bore. You need to use a headset with this one to hear it.

The routes chosen by the software are sometimes not very efficient, are longer than need be and can use more secondary roads than you would want to drive on. And, you have to own a DVD player to access the mapping DVD provided. No MAC support for the included software. If your want a user's manual you have to print it yourself from .pdf files...all 70 pages of it.