honda1971's Full Review: Garmin StreetPilot??? 2620 Car GPS Receiver
This Garmin Streetpilot 2620 is my first GPS system (portable or OEM) so I don’t have a basis for comparison of features, but from what I’ve seen thus far, this is an excellent system for the price and it’s 4 to 4.5 of 5 stars in my book, even with the faults I’ve found thus far (explained later in review). I’ve read in other sites that the unit is being discontinued, not for faulty product reasons, but because newer units by Garmin have come out that are replacing the 2620. So, if you’re looking for a very good GPS unit, this could be the time to buy.
REVIEW:
Out of the box, you get the unit itself (which is under 1 lb. but feels heavier), the car adapter (which houses the speaker), an AC adapter for home playing, bean bag mount, stationary mount, along with a permanent and a removable mounting adhesive, USB data transfer cable, CD driver, an IR remote control, and of course the owner’s manual. My unit is the U.S. unit that is preloaded with Navigator Version 6.0 for North America, which according to boot up screen is copyrighted 2005. Garmin does have an updated version 7.0 on their webpage for I believe $150. From my limited use thus far (about 300 miles) around my state, all new roads (within last two years) are noted on the map and cul-de-sacs are correct.
I’ve used the unit for about four days thus far and it’s very easy to use. If you’re fairly good with navigating through PC screens, menus, and are intuitive with electronics, then you’ll only need to browse through the manual for some things which are not obvious, like how to set waypoints and addresses into memory. The unit is touch screen operated with four function buttons on the right side. I got the unit and opened the box, plugged the cigarette/speaker adapter into place, slid the unit into place on the beanbag mount, turned power on, and off we went on our first trip. No potential user should have any fear of not being able to operate this unit. It’s literally plug-n-play. The beanbag mount is a cross shaped base with heavy bean fillings at each of the four points. The bag is heavy enough to hold the unit on your dash because the unit itself is not that heavy and the bag has a plastic friction mount underneath. I’ve used it thus far in two cars, one with flat dash which works great, and one with a slight incline towards the cabin, which also stays put well but does shift slightly after going over the roughest roads. I would say for inclined dashes, use either the permanent adhesive with mount or get a plastic friction pad to adhere to your dash so the beanbag’s friction surface would have a better grip on your dash.
When you initially turn on the unit, it defaults to searching in the Asia region (Taiwan) for its location. I guess since the unit was “Made in Taiwan” it thinks that it’s still there. The initial satellite search took about two minutes or so, which for someone not expecting it, might think the unit is faulty. Don’t be alarmed, the two minutes only happens with the first boot up. Subsequent boot up searches are only about ten seconds or less. After the unit has established satellite reception, you’re sailing. I have only had a dropped satellite reception once (not including tunnels and long overpasses). It dropped on a weird stretch of road because there were no trees or overpass. It was clear freeway, with not much trees, but we did just pass through a short overpass. I would expect that the unit might drop in heavily wooded areas, but during our test through a wooded mountain area, it actually didn’t even drop once. Given that it is winter now, and the trees are bare to the branch, so reception might be better than if we tried it again in the spring time when the leaves are in full bloom.
During the day time, the unit display is yellow, with roads and text in black. In night mode, the display is black, with roads and text in white and shades of gray. The system will automatically adjust the display color and brightness according to light conditions outside, or you can choose to select the brightness and display colors yourself (i.e. yellow display at night). I find the unit does a fairly good job with adjusting the brightness.
Before purchasing the unit, I was fearful that the display might not be big enough to display much detail and would be hard to read. After driving a few days in day light and night darkness, the display size is not bad at all. A bigger display of course would be better, but the 2620’s display size does not hinder it. Garmin has done a good job of contrasting the colors and choosing the correct font sizes correctly, so there’s no straining to read the display. While on the topic of display and color, there are probably just about seven or eight colors used, yellow, black, white, blue (for water), green (parks), red, grey, etc. Not 256 colors, but more than enough to displays the various elements on a map. I’ve seen reviews that have stated that this doesn’t have a 3-D feature like newer GPS models. Coming from a 2-D paper map world into the GPS world, I don’t see the need for 3-D. I personally think it’s easier to see in 2-D what’s coming two or three blocks down, than a 3-D angular view from above. 3-D is more gimmick than function.
The unit has voice prompting of course, that tells you when to turn and in which direction. It gives prompts for each turn three times, once when you first go turn into the road, then about half way through, then as you’re within 300-500 feet from the turn. I have not tried the other languages, so I don’t know if the voices are male or female, but the English (American, not British) prompt is in a female voice. Not too synthetic, but you can tell it’s not a recorded human voice. The prompt volume is adjustable and the highest level I would imagine is more than enough for any car. I have mine set at volume five (of ten) which is loud enough for me. I don’t have a convertible, but I would imagine level ten would be loud enough even for them.
Finally, the unit also comes with a remote control which controls the basic functions (zoom, volume, etc.) along with address input. It's useful for if you need to zoom in and out of a map, without leaning over or looking away to hit the touch screen.
No product is perfect, so what are this unit’s faults. Below are what I’ve observed so far.
FAULTS:
The system interprets sharp bends in the road as turns, so the unit will say “turn left point two miles” when in fact the same road is just bending left. Therefore, take note not to actually turn into a different road, if there is one, when that point comes up.
The unit only gives voice prompts of distance and direction of turn. It does not actually tell you the street name to turn into. It does display the street however on the display. If you need to turn right onto Main Street, the until will only say “turn right two point three miles” but a display on the bottom right corner will show “turn right to Main St.” This is not too bad, but it does require you to take your eyes off the road rather than go purely by voice prompt.
The unit seems to measure about fifty to a hundred feet off in terms of exact location of an address. For my home address, the unit indicates arrived at destination with pointer at the end of the route, but my house is actually still three houses down. It will also say “turn left in three hundred feet” when in fact the turn is only maybe one hundred feet away. Little distance quirks that need getting use to.
It doesn’t always know the correct side of the street that the address is on. Our house is on the right side of the street on our approach, but the unit tells us “approaching destination on left.” Thus far, the unit has only misread our street, other destinations have been correct so far. Not sure how wide spread this error is, so be watchful on approaches.
Although the recalculation of the route is fast, if you miss your turn and somehow drive down a long road towards a cul-de-sac, the unit will say “off course, recalculation” but it will not know how to recalculate. Pretty much, the unit only knows how to calculate a route moving forward, it won’t say “make a u turn” and go back where you were. Besides a cul-de-sac or just plain dead end, I don’t know where this issue could be of concern.
CONCLUSION:
For $599 for the portability and function of the unit, I’d say it’s a bargain. I believe the unit first came out mid 2004 and sold for about $1400, so this makes the unit now even a bigger bargain. I have not found any hard faults with the unit beside the little quirks mentioned above. These are not dangerous faults (like unit freezing or showing wrong directions) but things that need getting use to. I would recommend this unit to anyone.
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