Garmin's connected PND: The nuLink! 2390 reviewed

willton · Lifetime Member Joined: Jul 29, 2007 Posts: 150

What about the custom POI importing process and display on the screen and while travelling, proximity alerts and voice warnings? I would like to see these reviews cover these aspects - especially considering one of the main features of the PGPSW website is the top quality speed cam database.

The manufacturers seem to mess with and alter the way the Custom POI process works almost on every release, so it needs to be tested and analysed to give an informative review.

Presumably this model doesnt have the tiny icon problem prevalent on the 800x400 res screen, but it will have the POI icon only visible at 200 feet or less zoom ?

Merry Xmas

Darren · Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 12:53 pm Post subject:

If you look at the video in the review you will see that this has been covered.

Garmin's POILoader installation process hasn't materially changed in a very long time.
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Darren Griffin

willton · Lifetime Member Joined: Jul 29, 2007 Posts: 150

I have watched both videos - the speed cam alerts that are displayed while en route are the Garmin built in ones - not Custom POIs, and there is no specific reference in the videos to the processes and features I have mentioned.

POI Loader is quite consistent across the Garmin range, but the subsequent display and alerting of the Custom POIs is not consistent across the product range.

Users of non Garmin products would not be familiar with POI Loader and the intricacies of the operation of Custom POIs within Garmin products, and if I was reading a review of Sygic products for example I would be interested to know how the software or device handled displayed and alerted Custom POIs and the ease or otherwise of so doing.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Razz

Steve208 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 24, 2006 Posts: 15

Great review thanks for posting it, can i ask you say poi's can be loaded to the memory card, i have tried this on my less spec 2340 and they don't show up (looked everywhere even extras tab) can i ask how you managed to to this

carl_w · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 13, 2004 Posts: 242

Just bought one of these off the back of this review, after having had Tomtoms since Navigator v2 on an HP iPaq 2210.

It's been sitting in my house so far, so I haven't used it in earnest but my initial impressions are:

1) UI is a bit clunkier than Tomtom's, and not as customizable. Screen layout seems a bit "busy"
2) Map updates take an *age* to download. Over 3 hours on a 20Mbit/s broadband connexion!
3) Voice is a bit more robotic than the Tomtom ones, but I guess this is because of text-to-speech. Pity they couldn't license the excellent Apple TTS voices
4) Browser plugin isn't as good as the Tomtom Home application, although I've now found a native Mac update application. Garmin website navigation is a nightmare -- it should be possible to get to a page with all possible updates and addons for your device, but that doesn't seem to be the case
5) Live services look good -- it's not clear to me if Safety Cameras are included in the free 1 year trial, but I uploaded the PGPS ones with no issues. Lowest-priced fuel at 0.95/month seems a no-brainer, will probably give that a go
6) I'm assuming it uses a GSM/3G mobile network (anyone know whose?) but there's no SIM card. All GSM networks need SIM cards, maybe it's soldered into the main board?

Andy_P · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 1:07 am Post subject:

carl_w · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 13, 2004 Posts: 242

carl_w · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 13, 2004 Posts: 242

Used it properly today and pretty impressed. Even goes to night colours when you're in a tunnel. I'm using the PGPSW speed camera database but the alerts aren't very "in your face" -- anyone know if there's a way to get the icons bigger and to change the default alert beep? I transferred the MP3 files over with the POIs but it doesn't seem to use them.

willton · Lifetime Member Joined: Jul 29, 2007 Posts: 150

This is the problem with Garmin devices which was overlooked in the review - the POI icons are ridiculously small for camera warning, and only show when you are being warned of one coming up - unless you zoom in to 200 feet, which is totally impractical and indeed highly dangerous whilst driving.
For the voice warnings you need to load the sox file (iirc) and use wav fils - details are on these forums. Ash10's Camera Manager Software is the best way to manage database uploads and warning configuration.
See thread on this board for details.

Rasbelin · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 17, 2007 Posts: 15

I finally made my choice and bought a nüLink! 2390. I have been a TomTom user ever since I first started using GPS navigation (TomTom NAVIGATOR on a Nokia E61i). Thus TomTom's UI is very familiar to me and I very much like the graphics etc. My main issue has been that TomTom has been on the decline for several years now. The wireless road traffic data (HD Traffic) doesn't impress anyone and it hasn't been improved at all - more so it's in a steady decline. As for the TMC over RDS, it's been hopeless with the external RDS TMC antenna. I've never ever picked up a signal with it. Thus there's no live traffic updates for TomTom that actually work smoothly and reliably.

My only choice was to abandon TomTom now. I have a ONE XL Western Europe, which I've spiced up over time with a 2 GB SD card and the East European map. Also I've been using TomTom's camera database as I've found adequate (I drive outside UK so the PGPSW database is useless for me). Besides a good set of maps, I also have loads of POI files and one national POI database of my own creation.

As it's impossible to plan an itienary that's on two different maps, plus I should once again renew my 18 month map update service, I decided to make the switch now. Also I've now recently read that TomTom has been idiotic enought to cripple the itienary planning feature. Call that progress...

So far I have been impressed by how well the Garmin browser add-on works. The initial map update went fine. I also activated my lifetime map update service. The UI is very different from TomTom and I actually find it lacking. As long as I can continue using Tyre for setting up itienaries and there's actual development going on, I think I can cope with Garmin.

I wouldn't have wanted to make the switch, but, hey, what other option do I have? Buying a new TomTom device with HD Traffic would have been a reshuffle of those deckchairs on that mail ship...

I haven't yet been out driving with the 2390, but so far the 3D Traffic service seems to report issues up to some 200 km away. This applies at least to Finland. When I compare that to the competition, it's like luxury. Honestly speaking I think one should be able to determine the perimeter in the device settings.

On very long journeys (let's say from Helsinki to some ski resort in Lapland) 500-700 km would be good, because just like in the UK when you head for London from up North, there's several options and those will affect your entire route. A small buffer just doesn't do the trick. Also in Central Europe I would certainly appreciate to know if I can't use some specific highway tunnel in the Alps on my way to e.g. the Italian Riviera, if I'm arriving with a ferry to Rostock or some other port.

As for the live traffic cams, I did enable the two week trial period. So far it works perfect. At least here at home. Razz

I'll sum up more as I get on the road with my first Garmin. Smile

Rasbelin · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 17, 2007 Posts: 15

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