Garmin Street Pilot 2610 and 2650 Review
Before the release of the Garmin Street Pilot 2600 range, the Garmin Street Pilot III Deluxe had always been a very good selling In-Car Satellite Navigation product, mainly because Garmin know exactly what the driver wants and produces a product to equally match the requirements of the average driver.
Garmin now have available the complete Street Pilot range, the Street Pilot 2610, Street Pilot 2620 and the Street Pilot 2650. If you are looking for a transferable in-car satellite navigation system, then the Street Pilot range is extremely attractable.
Box Contents
The Garmin Street Pilot 2610 and 2650 comes with everything you need for a complete and transferable in-car satellite navigation system including:-
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StreetPilot® 2610 or 2650 receiver with built-in antenna
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Alphanumeric remote control
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External speaker with 12/24-volt adapter cable
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PC/USB interface cable
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A/C power adapter
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Integrated dash mount
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Portable bean bag mount (friction mount)
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Garmin Atlantic Autoroute basemap and MapSource City Navigator Europe CD with full coverage and full unlock
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256 MB Compact Flash memory card
Garmin MapSource European Coverage
Garmin ship the 2610 and 2650 European Street Pilots with MapSource City Navigator 6.
MapSource City Navigator 6 is Garmin's leading Mapping program that installs to the PC and allows you to transfer and download maps to your Garmin GPS Receiver. You can transfer either the entire country, region or a specific segment to your Street Pilot. City Navigator 6 comes with unlock codes to cover 19 Western European countries so no matter where you are in Europe, you will get not only full maps of the location you are in but also full routing and voice navigation (providing you have downloaded the correct map segments for your location). European countries supported include support for:-
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Great Britain (England and Scotland)
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Republic of Ireland
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Denmark
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Finland
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Norway
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Sweden
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Germany
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France
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Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
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Italy
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Austria
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Switzerland
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Liechtenstein
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Spain
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Portugal
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Czech Republic
Powering the Street Pilot
The first thing you will want to do when you get into the car is power up the Street Pilot 2610/2650. This entails placing the charger cable into the in-car socket and pressing the power rocker switch on the Street Pilot. The satellite acquisition process is extremely quick and in most cases you will receive a fix within under a minute before it knows where you are in the country and you can start the route.
Entering Address / Destinations
With the older Street Pilot III you had to use the buttons supplied on the front of the Street Pilot which could be a little cumbersome to operate.
With the new Street Pilot 2610/2650 you can still enter addresses in this fashion, or you can use two new features that Garmin have incorporated into the product. These are a new touch screen which makes navigating menus extremely easy, or if you would prefer to keep the screen clean then you can use the free remote control that comes in the box. The remote control requires 2xAAA batteries and operates the Street Pilot by means of Infrared (just like a TV Remote Control) and works extremely well. Once you start using the remote control, you won't want to touch the Street Pilot apart from when you leave the vehicle to remove it from the dashboard.
On the remote control you have all the buttons you need to access the main features of the Street Pilot including a handy Zoom IN/OUT button, a QUIT button, PAGE to cycle through page screens (good for menus), a FIND button to quickly jump to finding an address, MENU to access the on-screen menus, ROUTE to select routing options and SPEAK to re-speak the next turn instructions, coupled with a full numeric keyboard which doubles up as a full alphabetic keyboard like a mobile phone uses and a 4-way joystick, makes the remote control a very versatile and easy way of operating the Street Pilot 2610/2650.
Entering text is easy via the remote control by simply tapping a number key so many times to show the desired letter, or you can use the touch screen and tap out the street name you require.
Navigating your journey
The Street Pilot 2610 and 2650 come supplied with NAVTEQ European maps which provide both country and street level maps which can be zoomed into for the greatest level of detail. When navigating your journey you will be shown on map a highlighted journey which can be orientated to screen up or north up display, and you will also receive the latest information regarding the journey like ETA, Speed, Distance to Next Turn. This all creates a hassle free journey and enables you to reach your destination and with time to spare without having to worry about getting lost, asking for directions, Garmin give you everything in the package.
Points Of Interest
Garmin have included Points Of Interest into the Street Pilot so whenever you are on a journey you can always find the closest petrol station, restaurant or any other Point Of Interest easily without having to refer back to a paper map or even calling directory enquiries, and if you wish you can take a detour to the POI you select and then return to your journey using it as a quick detour.
Voice Navigation
The Street Pilot 2610/2650 comes supplied with a car cigarette/accessory charger plug with an integrated and very loud speaker which will enable you to hear voice instructions even in the noisiest of cars at motorway speeds.
Street Pilot Feature Comparison
A brief comparison of features between the Street Pilot 2610, Street Pilot 2650.
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Technical Specification
The Street Pilot 2610/2650 comes with the following specifications:-
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Routes
- Automatically calculated with turn-by-turn instructions; Up to 50 stored; Using built-in basemap, routes include interstates, highways and major thoroughfares; With detailed data from CD-ROM, routes include residential street-level detail within metropolitan areas
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Voice
- Navigation instructions and warnings
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Waypoints
- 500 with name and graphic symbol
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Track Log
- 2000 track log points
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Trip computer
- Resettable odometer, timers, average and maximum speeds
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GPS Receiver
- 12 parallel channel GPS receiver continuously tracks and uses up to 12 satellites to compute and update your position
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Acquisition Times
- Warm: Approximately 15 seconds
- Cold: Approximately 45 seconds
- AutoLocate®: Approximately 2 minutes
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Update rate
- 1/second, continuous
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GPS Accuracy
- Position: < 15 meters (49 feet), 95% typical**
- Velocity: 0.05 meter/sec steady state
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Dynamics
- 6g's
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Interfaces
- USB 1.1 device USB 1.1 device
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Display
- 3.3"W x 1.7"H (8.4 x 4.4 cm)
- 305 x 160 pixels
- bright, automotive-grade 8-bit, 256 color LCD w/automatic dimming back light and touch screen; compatible with polarized sunglasses
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Infrared
- Remote control, IR port
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Photo sensor
- Senses lighting conditions for automatic back light dimming
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Case
- Rugged; fully gasketed
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Temperature Range
- 5°F to 158°F (–15°C to 70°C)
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Data Storage
- Indefinite; no memory battery required
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Map Storage
- Compact Flash® (CF) memory cards; Type I and II compatible
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Power Input
- 12/24 Vdc
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Power Usage
- 6 watts maximum @ 13.8 Vdc
Accessories
For a complete list of Street Pilot accessories click here.
