Customer Reviews
An excellent product - and just in case - also excellent service 
2008-06-12
Until a week ago I owned the 2720. Unfortunately a map update failed and I had to send the unit to Garmin. The service folks from Garmin just sent me their latest streetpilot 2820 (free upgrade, just great). So, from being unhappy due to the failed update, I am now quite happy. Also, that took place within 4! work days. Dropped it off at the post office on Friday, got it back on Thursday moring the week after. Really quick.
It is a great unit, just like the predecessor 2720, but now also has bluetooth and an audio book reader and MP3 Player (things I will likely not use). Bluetooth is great, though, for mobile phones in cars even though you will need to connect a speaker and micro.
The unit does what it needs to do - get me where I want to go. Especially on a motorcycle. Waterprrof, with enough room to save half of the US and CAN (mine is a european unit).
I used the previous version for 3 years and never has it failed to get me where I wanted to go. It is fast, has excellent routing, is VERY easy to use, the screen is large and very easy to read even under unfavorable lighting conditions and as I said - support is great and is located in the US or Europe, exactly where you are. No call centers in inner Mongolia or other such nonsense. Whoever had to contact a call center other than in your own country knows what I am talking about. But you will likely not need tech support, since it just works reliably and every day.
If you need to have a unit for an MC this is the unit I would recommend. Even more so, since you can use it your car and on business trips, ...
It does not come with a picture viewer, but that is useless from my point of view to begin with. The only drawback is the somewhat flacky reception of the GPS signal in difficult areas - namely skycrapers all over the place and narrow roads for example in Spain. Still I always arrived with minimum stress. Far better than what you would get built into cars at a far better price.
Excellent motorcycle GPS 2008-06-07
After spending a few days researching GPS receivers that were good candidates for motorcycles I narrowed my list to the Garmin Zumo 550, Garmin StreetPilot 2820, and TomTom Rider.
Although the Zumo 550 seems to be the more popular choice lately, I decided upon the StreetPilot 2820 because it has more features (ex: multiple via points on a route and a higher resolution screen).
It is an excellent choice for a motorcycle --it can easily be operated with gloves on, it's waterproof, it's easy to read, and it can pair to two Bluetooth devices (in my case a Bluetooth helmet and my Blackberry).
The maps that come with this unit are outstanding --I can fairly reliably tell the difference between paved and unpaved roads (something you can't do with Google Maps, for instance).
I have found one bug with the device: If you're using the music player and attempt to voice dial a phone number, the Bluetooth connection gets flaky and I need to reboot the unit --I'm hoping a future firmware update will fix this issue. At least I've found a work around to this annoyance --if I manually pause the music and then make (and complete) the call and then unpause the music everything seems to work okay.
Garmin technical support while I was trying to diagnose this issue was outstanding.
I highly recommend this unit.
Great for Motorcycle Touring... Loaded with features.. But a bit big 2008-03-01
Going on my third season with the 2820, I can't imagine touring without it. Easy to use with gloves, big enough to see without reading glasses, accurate guide, and more. The connectivity can't be beat either, plus it is a very rough and tumble sturdy unit. I was very happy with the XM radio, and in the car I plug it into my auxiliary jack. I'm happy to report that there has not been one glitch or problem over 8,000 mile of bumpy twisties and harsh riding through the elements on my motorcycle. I had the Garmin Quest before upgrading to this unit. There is no comparison. The Quest was way too cumbersome in controls and directions and screen display to be very useful on while moving fast on the road, espically if you wanted to make changes to it on the fly. My only wish with this 2820 unit is that it wasn't so big. You don't want to leave an expensive unit like this on the bike when you stop, and, although it does fit in my jacket pocket, it's very bulky. Overall, I have been very happy with this unit and highly recommend.
Garmin 2820 Works well with Bluetooth 
2007-08-03
I bought this item several months ago and recently took it on a motorcycle trip to New England and Canada. I managed to hook it up with Bluetooth with my helmet and my cell phone which hung on my belt. Amazingly, it worked for cell phone calls going down the road in Toronto. The only drawback is that one needs to do a "reality check" for routes it may decide on. Some routes were out of the way or no longer in existence. A bonus was looking up the weather on areas I was planning to go to.
Garmin 2820 GPS 2007-07-27
My wife and I just returned home from a 5,351 mile trip on our motorcycle. The trip went from California into Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. This GPS worked amazingly well throughout the trip. It provided lodging information and fueling information as well as complete directions for our entire trip, which I had pre-loaded before departure. Any changes we made enroute were easily entered while on the road.
Addresses were easily found by typing the address into the 2820 and then punching "Go to". We never failed to find any address so entered. This came in handy for finding laundries and other places which weren't listed in the Garmin database.
My wife carried a back-up map. On a couple of occasions early on, she doubted the GPS and we went a different way than where the GPS wanted us to go. In the end, we found that the GPS really knew best most of the time. As our confidence in the GPS built, we used it almost exclusively.
The Bluetooth feature worked well with our cell phone allowing us to make and answer calls while riding the bike. We also had the XM Radio as well as MP3 tunes loaded on the unit. When tall mountains and trees blocked our XM signal, we simply switched to the MP3, which gave us ongoing tunes to listen to while traveling.
All in all, this is a great product!
Don't drive anywhere without one! 2007-07-08
With preloaded street maps and built-in Bluetooth wireless capability, Garmin's StreetPilot 2820 is the ideal road companion for your car or motorcycle. Featuring hands-free calling, real-time traffic capabilities, MP3 player, audio book player, and an extensive points-of-interest database - this deluxe navigator has it all.The StreetPilot 2820 integrates wireless technology with a microphone and speaker that lets you make hands-free calls on a compatible Bluetooth phone. Motorcyclists can connect a Bluetooth-enabled headset or helmet simultaneously with a Bluetooth phone to the StreetPilot 2820 to talk hands-free on the road or receive wireless navigation audio prompts to their destination.In addition, easily look-up and dial numbers from your personalized phone book or from your phone's call history log. Don't know the phone number for your destination? Simply find and dial it from the StreetPilot 2820's extensive points of interest database - including hotels, restaurants, stores, and attractions.The StreetPilot 2820's MP3 player, audio book player and optional XM Radio keep you entertained on the road. The MP3 player allows you to browse music by artist, album, and/or song.
Pretty Good GPS, Small Issues 2007-07-03
I bought this GPS system mainly for the fact that I needed multiple point input, and it does that rather well. The program that Garmin includes is a bit rustic looking, but works well.
Before this I used Streets and Trips on a laptop, and the laptop just wasn't able to handle the road vibration, so when I say these negative things, that's what I'm comparing it to:
1. The voice on this unit grates on my brain like nails on a chalkboard, nevermind that there are far more voices to use, it just announces way too often...I'm still looking for a way to reduce the vocalization without turning off the volume entirely.
2. Related to number 1, there should be a mute button on the hardwired buttons on the front.
3. The speaker is attached to the cigarette lighter power cord, so I'm having difficulty trying to figure out how to hardwire it into my system without getting rid of the speaker.
4. USB transfers of audio books are so slow I just put them on my Rio (another unrelated mp3 player)
Pros:
1. EXCELLENT navigation and recalculation times. This thing definitely works as a GPS. The recalculation is superior to Streets and Trips IMO.
2. The night mode really does reduce stress on your eyes.
3. The included bean bag mount really works well, it doesn't slide at all!
Love It, Love It, Love It 2007-06-27
This was a Christmas present for my daughter, who is directionally challenged and living in a city where few of the streets run true north and south (not that she understands north and south anyway.) It's fabulous, and does everything she needs it to do and more.
If she wants to find a McDonalds, it'll ask her if she wants one close to her destination or close to her current location.
This was pricey, but one of my best purchases ever.
Fantastic System 2007-05-12
This unit is far superior to the one I have built into my other car which cost 2 1/2 times as much. Very easy to use and accurate!
Don't leave home without it!! 2007-04-19
I've had this unit for about 6 mo. and I'm extreemly pleased, well worth the $550 I paid on Amazon. I've taken local and long distance trips, in car, van and motorhome. Very easy to use right out of the box, easy to see in the motorhome at distances greater then in a car, even with my sixty year old eyes. We live about 30 miles from Fort Worth and occasionally go into the city, we have used it to find banks, stores and places to eat. On a recent trip to Phoenix, AZ the guidance was especially helpful, I really appreciated the early warning to navigate the freeway interchanges, when to get in the left lane for left exit or how far to next change. On the trip it was helpful to find places to eat. On business trip to Houston I find the ETA info helpful to plan meetings. The remote is helpful in the motorhome, but I knocked off one star becouse of funky power cord connection, and no FM modulator.
