TomTom Rider 2 vs Zumo 550

[zukirob]

Santa gave me carte blanche to go get a GPS for my scoot. Which of the above two is better? I like the Zumo but that means buying a Scala Rider or some other bluetooth headset to hear the prompts.

[Clint]

Come on, guys. Find the right forum! Moving.

[Rickster]

The Zumo has a much better antenna than the Tom Tom, other than that, they are pretty much the same.

What that means to you as a consumer is, you will not be loosing your signal as often. To me this is very important.

I can take my Zumo off the bike, and take it inside a restaurant with me to plan/map any changes I might want to make in my route, also you don't lose your signal if you put it in your pocket at a gas stop/potty break.

Others that I ride with have used BlueTooth with there MP3/cell phone/radar detector/GPS, and said it worked fine both with, and with out a helmet, but I don't have any personal experience.

I have a Zumo 450, and it's not Bluetooth compatible like the Zumo 550 is, so I just use a set of high quality ear buds. The ear buds work great, both with, and with out a helmet.

Read some of the previous posts in this section for other ideas.

[zukirob]

Thanks Rickster. How much does it cost to update the maps?

[Rickster]

Garmin sends all their latest mapware with the unit, and if I remember right, you get one free upgrade from that.

I haven't seen any map up grades since I bought mine last June, so I have no personal experience with that, but I do have a friend the has a 5 year old garmin StreetPilot, and he is still using the map package that came with his unit. When we both set the same destination, we both get the same route, so the maps don't change that much.

The one thing that I don't like about the mapware is, even though this is a motorcycle specific GPS, it still doesn't list any motorcycle dealers in the POI's (points of interest), it lists all kinds of car dealers, garages, and emergency tow company's, but nothing for emergency road services concerning motorcycles. I don't know if other makes are set up the same or not. Other than that, the mapware is quite good.

I do know that Garmin makes two Quest units for Harley that have all the Harley dealers listed as part of the mapware, but they won't sell me that data for my Zumo. Something about Harley owning the rights to that database, and they are only allowed to download it in units that say Harley on them.