C550 comments

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

I have been using my new C550 for a couple of days. It's the first GPS I have owned, although I've played with a few others and done a lot of research. Here are a few comments about it that might be of interest.

1. I wanted traffic info, but was disappointed to find that the TMS is not integrated in the C550 as the adverts suggest. It is a separate unit that plugs into a cig lighter socket. As I want to fit the whole unit tidily out of sight this will need an adaptor to be bought or made. The TMS has a separate wire aerial that needs to hang up in the car. I'm going to see if I can get rid of this by taking some signal off the car radio aerial.

2. The maps aren't wonderfully accurate. The unit tells me to go down a narrow alleyway where even bikes are prohibited. Even if I change the vehicle type to a truck or bus it still sends me down there.

3. It would be nice, after you have entered a destination and the unit has calculated the route, if you could browse along the route to see where it will take you. I haven't found a way of doing this.

4. The times predicted to get to the destination are always optimistic, some calculations are just laughable. It seems to always assume a speed of 30mph on town roads, even in London when a realistic speed is more like 10 or 15mph. There is no way of editing the journey speeds that it uses for different types of road or vehicle.

5. The camera warning seems to work on straight-line distance rather than road distance. It gives an alarm when you are close to the camera, even if you are on a parallel road and half a mile away by the nearest route.

6. The bluetooth handsfree for my Samsung phone sounds OK but is limited in function. The C550 can't read the phonebook. I did find from the Garmin website that I can send the whole phonebook to the C550 by using the phone's menu. It is then stored on the C550, and you can use any of the numbers. But as soon as you power off the unit, the numbers are all lost and you have to resend them from the phone. I rang the Garmin support line (20 min wait) and the person I spoke to was useless. He insisted that the C550 would read the phonebook automatically, and when I told him how the website says you have to send it from the phone he said this was impossible because the C550 "has no way of storing the phonebook". When I have the unit properly fitted I will just leave it switched on permanently.

I looked at the TomTom 910 before buying the C550, and it is a lot better in some respects, but it doesn't have the 'integrated' TMS which is why I didn't get it.

I would be glad to hear if anyone has any comments on this.

Sal

DracUK · Regular Visitor Joined: Aug 02, 2005 Posts: 133

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

swing · Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:47 am Post subject: Re: C550 comments

mikealder · Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:19 am Post subject:

There are some people reporting better TMC reception using an External antenna (see HERE) This was used on a different product to your device, you will need to work out how to terminate the lead into the c550 though - don't bother with the addaptors listed on the link - not applicable, in your case you will need to find other compatable components - Mike

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

Thanks for all the advice

swing · Posted: Sat Jun 24, 2006 8:53 pm Post subject: Re: C550 comments

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

HughGW · Lifetime Member Joined: May 31, 2006 Posts: 40

Um, Sal, I have the C510D - The receiver on the GTM 21 is the little black oblong closer to the GPS plug, out of which comes the aerial wire with the 2 suckers on it. The cigarette lighter plug is the power supply for the GTM21 and the power for the GPS itself.

Gotta have an aerial somewhere, depends on the car a bit I guess, but mine routes behind the steering wheel out of sight and then comes up to the dash/windscreen by the right hand bottom corner of the screen, where the GPS firs nicely, which lets the aerial stretch along the bottom of the windscreen - and voila! as they say. Idea

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

They must have changed the design then. Mine doesn't have a "little black oblong", and the aerial wire comes out of the back of the extended body of the cigar plug.

Sal

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

Just to finish this off, I had the opportunity to try a Mio C710. It is superior in every way to the Garmin, so I have now replaced it with the Mio which doesn't need a separate TM aerial (It comes with one but seems to work perfectly well without it)

Sal

cantgetlost · Frequent Visitor Joined: Nov 14, 2005 Posts: 291

All though the Mio Package may seem quite good, my experience through others of Mio tells a different story. And the Mio's Tele Atlas mapping if anything is not any where near as good as Navteq.

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

swing · Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:47 pm Post subject:

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

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