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GPS - Garmin Quest/Quest2 - Tech Help

FredRydr

Danger: Keep Back 500 Ft
I am new to GPS, which I intend to use in both North America and Europe. After comparing units at the CycleGadgets display at Lima, I settled on a Quest. I bought their Techmount and RAM cradle, but I was told to wait for the new Quest2. I did a bit of research and I am confused about the change in specs justifying the increase in price. Perhaps I should go for the first version as a bargain.

Quest:
Owner installs accompanying North American MapSource CitySelect software; 128 mgs memory - 115 of which is "uploadable map storage" (or 256 mgs European version with Europe maps).

Quest2: Preinstalled North American MapSource CitySelect software; unknown memory which seems to be a state secret, except that the manual (which covers both models) says "Full map coverage" for the Quest2; "140 MB supplemental map storage is available for downloading map detail from other MapSource products (U.S. versions only)." I get the impression that the preinstalled North American software cannot be overwritten in the Quest 2.

Otherwise, the two models seem to be the same. But what does it all mean? :dunno (I have always been a map and compass guy.)

Help me please. Is the Quest2 worth it? Do I just go for the 256 mg in first version? And so on. Thanks.

Fred

http://www.garmin.com/products/quest/
http://www.garmin.com/products/quest2/
http://www.garmin.com/products/manual.jsp?product=010-00454-00
(Look at page 51 of the manual).
 
An additional piece of information came from Garmin:

Thank You for contacting Garmin.
There is no difference between the 2 units. The only difference is the maps
are installed to the internal memory of the Quest 2 and the Quest has 115Meg
of space for the maps.

Thank You
Bill Shives
Product Support Specialist


What is the practical significance of "internal memory" versus "115 Meg of space"?

Fred
 
I just bought the Garman 276C and absolutely love this thing! It needs the additional memory card so I bought their 256 mg card and that memory pretty covered 11 states when I rode 5800 miles with it earlier this month. It only takes a moment to drag a map on the thing from your PC. If you buy their GPS unit that requires a card and don't put a card in, it will still read main roads and highways, but not the small roads. Drag the area of the US map you plan to use for a particular trip, load it to the card, and you'll have every home on every street with the exact address plus every restaurant, hotel, gas station, camp sites, and pretty much every thing you could want.

If you check out GPS CITY .com You'll find every possible GPS model plus the best prices anywhere.

One advantage of the 276C is the screen is easily read in bright sunlight and it's water proof since Garman considers it a Marine unit. Feel free to send me a PM if you need more details.
 
Thanks Randy. Your thoughts on memory size is helpful.

I really liked the 276C as well because of the large display, and I messed around with one at Lima. It was the other choice. However, I ride a naked Roadster sans windshield, and such a unit exposed on my Roadster bars would look massive and be subject to vibration. I concluded the Quest was more appropriate without a fairing to hide a GPS behind.

Fred
 
Quest Price

I've been interested in buying one of these and noticed Wal-Mart had an online price of something like $350 or $370, better than the SRP $599. Not that I like shopping at Wal-Mart or anything, but this looks like a good price. That's for the Quest and not Quest 2
 
Shopping on line is fine only you want to compare apples to apples. The unit is one price, but then you might be needing the CD of all the US and Canadian roads, perhaps a car kit so you can use it in your car as well, and the memory stick etc. GPS City .com sells these things bundled as a package deal so you need to do the math after you figure out what you'll ultimately need and compare.
 
Go with the Orig. Quest

I have been using the original garmin quest for about 2 months now. I LOVE IT!! I have it mounted on my 1200GS via a ram mount arm and a touratech bracket. The nice thing is, you can update maps, load topo maps for trails if you want more detail, etc. There's more options with being able to load your own. I also bought mine from GPScity.com, they're great. It comes with a car kit that has a windshield mount that works great and a speaker attached to the power plug end of it. THe batteries on it are great, I'm guessing here but it'd probably run 3 full days of riding, and recharges in about 2 hours. I intended to hard wire mine with one of the touratech cables. THe advantage there is the only way to get voice guidance is to have it hardwired in, there's no voice guidance through the speaker. SO far, I've just went without that aspect of things and been using the battery. I gotta tell you...I'm very pleased. Don't hesitate to emial me with any other questions you might have. You can see a pic of it mounted here:

attachment.php
 
I am new to the craft of satellite guidence myself and after my last trip, using a SPIII, my advice is to always carry a map regardless. Its nice to have that quick overall view than to pan out on the gps.
 
Happy with Quest

I too am pleased with the Quest GPS. Easy to read in direct sunlight, small with a big enough screen for MCing. I mounted mine with the Garmin Motorcycle mount ($76.00) with power supply and audio jack to a Z-Technic handlebar mount ($69.00). Looks great works great.

For those who are using it with batteries only, hardwire it to a switchable power supply, the screen is meant to be back lighted for easier viewing day or night.

One very cool feature of the Quest is its ability to change from daylight to night time colors automatically.

One draw back, small buttons hard to manipulate with gloved fingers, (mostly ZOOM control on the move).

I don't know if the 176c does door-to-door directions but this was the selling point for me between the Street Pilot and Quest. If you get lost or make a wrong (right) turn it will automatically start computing the new course.

As far as down loading your own maps it was easy, don't need to spend any extra money for someone else. If you communicate on this web site you have the needed skills to download the maps with Garmin. :thumb

Lastly, once you buy the darn thing and get it home, after what ever directions to begin, goto the Garmin Update site and update both your computer software and the then the GPS software.

Have fun... :clap

Russ
 
On the Quest II the internal memory that holds the preloaded mapping is not accesible so they put an additional 140 MB of memory for adding additional mapping. All of this is on the Garmin Website (www.garmin.com)
 
More from Garmin on loading routes from PC to the Quest2 GPS unit:

Q: What is the method of preparing routes in my PC and loading them into the Quest2?

A: Thank you for contacting Garmin International. This is not advised with the Quest2 since it is pre-installed with the entire US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. You would need to purchase City Select v7.0 as a stand alone product to install on your computer ($139.49). All routes must be created on your Quest2.


:mad

So, that's the way it is. :rolleyes

Fred
 
FredRydr said:
More from Garmin on loading routes from PC to the Quest2 GPS unit:

Q: What is the method of preparing routes in my PC and loading them into the Quest2?

A: Thank you for contacting Garmin International. This is not advised with the Quest2 since it is pre-installed with the entire US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. You would need to purchase City Select v7.0 as a stand alone product to install on your computer ($139.49). All routes must be created on your Quest2.


:mad

So, that's the way it is. :rolleyes

Fred
That's a biggie - good find FredR...
 
If I read some reviews correctly, the Quest2 has a hard drive just like the 2620, and not recommended for motorcycle use due to hard drive failures.
 
It is my understanding that the Quest 2 does not have a hard drive. Its memory is solid state, about 2GB covering all of US and Canada with about 140mb of room left over.
 
I stand corrected. I went back and reread the information and it seems it is just preloaded into internal memory. I wontder how difficult that will be to update in 5 years or so.
 
Decision made.

I bought the Quest2 as well as CitySelect North America v. 7 for routing on the PC. Too bad they don't offer a Quest2 package with software for routing on a :type for uploading to the GPS unit, but I am not going to :banghead over that issue anymore.

Besides, the discount more than covers the cost of the additional software.

All that remains is hardwiring to the Roadster.

Fred
 
I figure I will share bits and pieces on mounting my Quest2.

I was trying to avoid the Garmin Quest motorcycle cradle/transformer/adapter and RAM ball mount system in order to have a less massive set-up on my naked bike's handlebars. I opted for a RAM cradle connected to a Techmount mount. For power, I would hardwire under my tank a Touratech power/audio cord with integral 12v to 5v transformer. Things looked great until last weekend, when I started to use the Touratech cord from Germany. The four spring-loaded contacts on its plug are poorly designed and break off when you slide the Quest unit into the RAM cradle. I was prepared to splice the 4-contact Garmin plug from my extra A/C charger onto the Touratech cord, but no dice - it was only a two-wire cord (no audio). By coincidence, the Touratech employee who sold me the power/audio cord had the same experience over the same weekend! He kindly offered a refund or an exchange for the Garmin motorcycle kit; I threw in the towel and chose the latter. Touratech has added a warning on their website, saying their power/audio cord cannot be used with the RAM cradle.

Therefore, the RAM cradle does not support a weatherproof powered mount installation for the Quest. (With a tiny Torx T5 driver, you could move the wire from the Garmin car cradle to the RAM cradle, but the speaker/transformer unit may not handle the wet very well!) There appear to be only two over-the-counter options for a weatherproof powered Quest installation: (1) the OEM Garmin motorcycle cradle and power/audio cord kit, or (2) the aluminum Touratech cradle and their separate Touratech power/audio cord.

The Garmin cradle is designed to fit a RAM mount. My RAM cradle was also designed for the RAM mount, yet it also fit my Techmount. If A=B and B=C, then shouldn't the Garmin cradle fit my Techmount, too (i.e., A=C)? We'll see when it arrives. Fun fun fun. Spend spend spend!

Fred
 
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