Customer Reviews

Garmin StreetPilot 2720 Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(205)
4 star:		(71)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I have been playing around with GPS for 5 years. Until I got this Garmin 2720, it's all just been a waste of money.

The 2720 is a great practical tool. I travel all the time, and finally, I've been liberated from MapQuest, Yahoo Maps and Microsoft Streets & Maps. This is a practical tool that really works.

My last purchase was a Belkin Bluetooth GPS receiver to connect too my iPaq. A total waste of money, as were my previous GPS toys.

The 2720 is the first GPS product I've bought that really makes sense. It's simple, and easy to use, and it's ready to go right out of the box.

The screen is readable in all lighting conditions, and the 3D view is easy to read at a glance. The text-to-speech feature really makes it. You really don't have to look at the screen that often. It speaks the names of the streets and tells you where to turn exactly how to get to your destination.

You'll want to enable WAAS right away (It's disabled initially in the default settings) because it keeps the system from spontaneously recalculating your route and taking you on wild goose chases. After enabling WAAS, it has been very accurate.

The user interface is very intuitive and easy to use, and you really don't need a manual. I really love the ability to find nearby restaurants and shopping places.

The beanbag mount is great for all the cars I rent on business trips... Just slap it on the dashboard, plug it in and go. I was considering a Garmin C340 initially, but for the small difference in price, why buy a crippled low-end, hard-to-read-in-sunlight unit? You'll be sorry you didn't go for the 2720 if you buy a C330 or C340. The 2720 has the same easy-to-use interface as the C3xx with a much more readable screen, and far more features.

Honestly, I can't find anything wrong with this unit. Buy one. You'll be glad you did.

I am currently trying out the Garmin 2720 and the Magellan 6000, both top end units, to see which one I am going to keep. Tough choice ! Both are terrific for routing, have all the advanced features, like text to speech and traffic info option, but neither one is perfect.
Here are the pros and cons of the Garmin 2720, as compared to the Magellan Roadmate 6000:

Pros:
1. The maps of the 2720 are much more readable. On the 6000, it is hard to see which street label belongs to which line. The 6000 is also practically useless to use as a map (just scrolling and zooming around), since it is way too slow and jumpy. The 2720 is perfect in these respects. Scrolling is very smooth. When a destination is entered, the corresponding map is shown, and can be zoomed in. Very cool. I had first tested the 6000, and once I tried the 2720 I could not believe how good it was (or how bad the 6000 was). The map quality is a difference like day and night. With the 6000, I had trouble to understand the map even for the areas I am familiar with, like the block around our home or office.

2. Dash mount. I prefer the beanbag mount of the 2720, since it is easy to move from one car to another, or to stow away. Plus, the windshield mount is not legal in CA. For the 6000, no beanbag option is offered yet. With the beanbag mount, the unit does usually sit a little farther away from the driver (at least in my car), but this is no problem with the 2720, since it has a convenient remote control.

Cons:
1. No battery ! Very annoying that you can program your route on the 2720 only after starting the car. This problem is compounded by the long startup time of the 2720 (around 10 sec vs. 1 second for the 6000), and the fact that the 2720 does not start to navigate until it has a satellite lock. So when I start the car, enter my destination and start driving, there will be no directions. The 2720 then has trouble to get the inital satellite lock while driving, so I have to pull over and wait until it has the lock and gives directions. The 6000 starts navigating from the last known position. Also, I can take the 6000 home and program it from my sofa, then take it with me to the car and start driving.

2. Interactive POI: most POI (like restaurants) are not displayed on the 2720 map. You need to search for them via menu, and then get a list. On the 6000, you see the icons for restaurants, gas station etc. displayed right on the map, and you can click on an icon to get details or to have the 6000 plot the route to them.

3. POI search. On the 2720, you can only search for POI around your current location, or any other specific location that you need to enter first. If you don't know the approximate location, you are out of luck. With the 6000, you can enter a restaurant name and bring up matches for the whole state. I used it to find a restaurant in a city 300 miles away, and it only took a few seconds. On the 2720, it was very difficult to find it at all.

4. Destination search. If you enter a city or street that does not exist (due to typo), the 2720 will bring up a prompt "Not found". The 6000 is much smarter and does not even let you enter something invalid. If you enter the first city letter, for example, then it presents only those letters for your choice of the 2nd letter that correspond to actual cities in the database, others are grayed out. Very convenient.

5. Destination entry order. With the 6000, you enter the street first. You can omit prefixes like N or S. It will then show you the available range of numbers. This is very convenient if you just want to drive to a certain street (i.e. you know that a certain restaurant is on that street), but don't know the number. Enter the street first on the 6000, then pick some number in the middle of the available range and go. It will also figure out the street prefix based on the number. With the 2720, you need to enter the number first, and then later you get a prompt to correct it if it was invalid.

6. Locate button. The 6000 has one. Press it, and it shows you city and nearby street and other details, and you can also save it. The 2720 has no such feature.

7. Route options. Both have "shortest time" or "shortest distance" options, but only the 6000 also has options "prefer freeways" and "avoid freeways".

8. Screen size. The 6000 screen is a bit larger.

I have not made a decision yet. Even though there are only two areas where the 2720 has the advantage over the 6000, these two points weigh heavily. Especially the map readability, since this is one of the main reasons to have a GPS. As I said, tough choice.

UPDATE AS OF 08/21/06:
I returned the Magellan 6000. Due to the poor map display, it was of little use, no matter what features it offered.
The 2720, even with the shortcommings listed above, is much more usable and even enjoyable in daily use. I have also updated it's firmware with the latest version from the Garmin website (was very easy to do), and now at least item 3 (POI search) is pretty much fixed. It still takes quite long to find a POI that is far away (2 minutes vs. 10 seconds on the 6000, for a POI 300 miles away). But at least you can find it at all, plus it gives an indication of the increasing search radius while it is searching. Since such a search scenario is pretty infrequent, I can live with the delay. The fact that Garmin improved the firmware also makes me hopefull that some of the other shortcommings can be fixed over time (except for the missing battery of course).

As for the missing battery, we compared the 2720 against the Garmin nuvi 360, which has a very similar feature set and operation, but includes a battery. The nuvi 360 has some advantages, it's ideal for carrying around and has a few extras like MP3 player. Still, our verdict was to stick with the 2720. This was mosty my wife's decision who by now has fallen in love with the 2720. It was due to the follwing advantages the 2720 has over the nuvi:
- 2720 has a larger and brighter display
- 2720 sits very secure on it's beanbag mount and can be moved easily to another vehicle. It feels and is more robust.
- 2720 includes the City Navigator on DVD, where you can plan your route ahead of time and make changes, then download it to the 2720. This is invaluable for larger trips. Even if you don't make any changes, it is very helpful to preview the route on the larger computer screen, zoom into sections etc. We tried it for one route and found it to be terrific. (Only inconvenience again is that you need to connect the unit to an AC adaptor in addition to the computer as it has no battery)
- The audio is a bit better, due to the larger speaker

So bottom line, we decided on this GPS, the Garmin Street Pilot 2720. I'll keep it a 3 stars for it's missing battery and other smaller shortcommings, but after our research it's still the best unit out there.

UPDATE AS OF 08/28/06:
We have now completed our first longer trip with the 2720, and it worked out great. So we are confident that we made the right decision. Routing was efficient, it picked the perfect routes and guided us flawlessly. The best part however, as compared to other devices, is the terrific quality of the map display. It looks that the 2720 is smart enough to always show the right angle and zoom, depending where you are (on highway, approaching a ramp, in rural area, in city streets etc), to give you the most information. Also, the map is very easy and quick to grasp, even in an unfamiliar area, which is important while driving. Just to give an example: While on the highway, traffic was slowing, and we could see a jam ahead. There was also an exit just comming up. Wondering if I should take it, I glanced at the 2720 and saw that it displayed the exit, highlighted a parallel street a few blocks away, and even showed at a bird's eye view how that street would merge back onto our highway a few miles away. So I just took the exit, and the 2720 recalculated the route immediately and guided me on the parallel road and then back onto the highway later. Voila, the jam was gone. I did not have to press any button or interact with the 2720 in any way while doing the detour. I guess when using the traffic info feature, the 2720 would even do such recommendation proactively, but I have not tried this yet. It works just fine the way it is.

To round this review up, during daily use we have found that we do not miss the few firmware shortcommings that much (and Garmin is improving on them). The battery we do miss a bit, but less than we originally thought. You will have to decide for yourself, of course. We found that once the novelty of the GPS wears off, we no longer carry the unit home that much to play with it (for which we'd miss the battery). And while driving, we just enjoy the precise directions and the terrific map.

What in the world are the people giving one star ratings reviewing?

Surely they don't have the same GPS I recieved a few days ago. I'm sure they think their complaints are valid -- I just don't see it.

I've been using m[ine for four days and love. RIght out of the box and on my dash in forty minutes. Would have been even quicker but I took time t read the reviews and update the firmware to the latest version as well as the new voice (JILL) from Garmin's site. Perhaps that's what made the difference.

No freezes. No unexpected reboots. Been smooth sailing all the way.

A few things that weren't documented.

The GPS can be tiled forward and backward as well as rotated on it's mount. I was a bit concerned when I first put the unit on my dash because my dash angles back. I was afraid I would be able to get a good angle in sunlight to see the screen. Garmin's mount design is brilliant but I discoverd the tilt feature quite by accident when I grapsed the unit to push down on the self-adhesive gasket.

I live near Chicago -- very congested area constantly changing. I was pleasantly surprised the mapset has a lot of recent developments.

One thing I thought I would hate is the speaker on the power cable. But it angles back to lie flush with the dash and I LOVE the sound. My old TOM TOM could barely be heard over road noise once I got over 55 mph. The GARMIN speaker is high quality and the female voice isn't drowned out. Very responsive as far as routing and prompting turns. Much faster than my old GPS 60CS in fact.

I have a route to a local beach on Lake Michigan which features a series of rapid turns in succession. The 2720 keeps up with amazing speed. And if I miss a turn it seems to detect it much quicker than my 60CS and reroutes almost immediately.

I couldn't be more pleased with this purchase. I toyed with the idea of getting the 2730 but XM Radio/XM Traffic just wasn't something I was interested in at this point in time.

I highly recommend this device.

If you buy it UPDATE the firmware immediately and update the voice. The new firmware features a new interface/map layout than what's shown in the promo pics on Amazon and Garmin. The Turn Arrow icon has been moved of the sidebar and now overlays the map. And the Direction Text is no longer across the top in a greenbar but on the sidebar in a box. Much more pleasing to the eye in my opinon.

It's also a much more stable device than it apparently was several months ago. WHich is typical of GPS units. THe bugs get worked out slowly in a series of firmware updates.

We did a lot of research before purchasing the StreetPilot 2720. We travel on road trips a great deal and have been looking forward to having a tool that would make the trips more enjoyable. Relying on MapQwest, maps or an atlas is sometimes less than reliable. Based on reviews, we thought the StreetPilot 2720 was the best model available for the price.
Two days after it arrived we took a trip from Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL for a wedding. This trip also involved a lot of driving in and around Chicago for the prenuptial dinner, wedding and reception. The StreetPilot 2720 never once let us down.

We are very impressed with the StreetPilot 2720 and believe it was worth every dime we paid for it (much less on Amazon than at local stores or other online sites).
We will list the Pros and Cons that we have discovered (Cons first).

CONS

Occasionally the computer-voice will mangle the name of a street or exit. For example sometimes "50th" will sound like "15th".

Once outside of Council Bluffs, IA on the way home we lost the satellite signal going through some hills at about 2 AM. This was the only time we had to `reboot' the machine and it acquired a new satellite signal immediately. Other times when the satellite signal was lost included driving into a garage or under a car port (duh).

PROS

* The STREET NAME is provided by the computer voice and the screen. This is EXTREMELY helpful when driving through an unfamiliar city.
* The street pilot is able to locate the nearest gas station while driving on the interstate.
* The street pilot also will tell you the actual street name to turn on and not just "turn left in 500 feet."
* The Garmin can detect all restaurants in the vicinity.
* Screen color adjusts to day or night time conditions automatically
* Satellite view allows you to view signal strength from the satellites tracking you (this is really cool but not necessarily functional)
* Remote control allows for easy input of data without having to touch or smear the screen
* Programming allow you to specify avoidance of toll roads in your route (particularly helpful in the trip to Chicago)
* Bean Bag base is quite SOLID, flat, heavy, balanced and possesses a slip-resistant base (other reviews commented that the Bean Bag was unstable---we do not think this is the case and were actually expecting the worst before we received the StreetPilot)
* Recalculates if off course very quickly.
* Capable of detecting virtually any deviation off course...we were only a few yards from the main road---on a parallel access road---and it recognized this and calibrated to get us back on the main road.

Got my Garmin from Amazon with the free shipping, and recieved it on the first day of the estimated arrival dates (Thanks Amazon, you've yet to let me down). It started snowing here and I thought that the weather makes for a perfect time to see if it is a help or hindrance to those in unfamiliar areas (known for bad traffic by the way) in some of the worst conditions.

I pulled it out of the box, and in less than 10 minutes, it was mounted properly in my car, turned on with a great satellite reception, ready to be used (and I hadn't even cracked open the manual).

I searched for some restaraunts in the area and found an unfamiliar one in a place I haven't driven before (I'm new to the area). The Streetpilot guided me turn by turn. The screen and turn-by-turn directions were extremely accurate (even with my apartment complex roads!). I had no problem focusing on the road and the traffic tonight in the snow while listening to the directions and occasionally glancing at the screen to see where I was on the map.

She led me safely there to the pizzeria I'd entered and back home again. And trust me, in the past week, I have gotten lost THREE times, so this is no easy task.

I've read the other reviews on this site and would recommend anyone in the market for a machine like this to do the same. And again, I've just moved here and this is NOT an easy place to get to know immediately. So the Streetpilot 2720 has made quite the first impression on me. If little bumps and annoyances come up, I'll be in touch. Until then, 5 stars, no question.

NOTE 12/2/05--Still keeping at at 5 stars, because it has brought me safely home without getting lost through two road trips since I got it. One hiccup was that it had an incorrect address for a Denny's. It turned out to be the same road, but Denny's was NOT where it said it was...no real biggie. I found the Denny's pretty easily.

I bought this for big vacation around the West. I picked it up and had it running within 5 minutes, without reading the manual. I got in the rental car and it directed me around traffic jam from San Francisco. I used the Points Of Interest feature to get me to REI to buy some camping gear and then on to walmarts. It allows you to find the shortest route (for when gas is high) or fastest time. It tells you how far to your destination which was very accurate. It took me around road works easily. I used it to get to Yosemite - just typed in Yosemite - and immediately brought up location. It was very accurate in Yosemite valley even with the mountains and trees. It never lost connection. I then used it to get from Yosemite to Las Vegas and then on to the Grand Canyon and back.

It was the greatest gift I ever bought for myself. I never once got lost, it connected to sat very fast when I turned it on. It allowed me to select restaurants, hotels and to customize points of interests.

I love how it speaks the name of the street to turn on to rather than just say "turn right" It says "Turn right on next light on Main Street" There is a button for "speak" that you can press to quickly get the machine to speak the next direction. You can also get it to display all your next turns, or to show you all the turns you have taken. WIth one button you can set current location as home for when you want to return. I give it 5/5 for ease of use. The screen is bright and the sound is loud to hear over engine and traffic.

I recently purchased a 2720 after my wife appropriated my 2620 on a full time basis. So I am an experienced Garmin mobile GPS user.

I had the 2620 for about 18 months and did a fair amount of research into competing products (Tom-Tom, Magellan, etc.) before deciding to go with the 2720.

I like my 2620 a lot, but I like the 2720 even more.

The 2720 acquires a satellite signal very quickly - substantially more quickly than the 2620. Two days ago I turned my 2720 off at the Avis return center at LaGuardia Airport in NY and flew home to Chicago. When I turned the unit on in the parking lot at O'Hare it took less than 10 seconds to acquire the satellites and display my location.

I've read about the problems others have reported in their reviews. And to be honest, I've never experienced any of them. I have never had trouble acquiring satellites quickly; the connectors don't come undone; the voice quality is fine, and I've NEVER had a problem with the beanbag mount sliding off (or even moving around on) the dashboard. And I use this unit almost every week in a different rental car in a different city.

Maybe I don't go too far off the beaten path, but I am seldom unable to find a location with my Garmin. In fact, the 2720 is superior at finding locations by name - type the word "Marriott" in for hotels and it will (unlike the 2620) display all flavors of Marriott properties - Residence Inn, Fairfield, Marriott Hotels, Marriott Resorts, etc. - far less frustrating than the old technology.

Menu choices in the 2720 are simple, straightforward and intuitive - far easier to find categories quickly than in the 2620. Plus, the 2720 allows one to save favorite locations by user-defined categories. I have set up categories for the states I travel to most frequently and save restaurant, hotel and client locations by state.

The 2720 voice guidance feature that now speaks the name of the street, highway exit number, destination name or destination address, is a significant improvement over the 2620's generic "in 400 feet exit right" or "in point-five miles arrive at destination on right". It is much easier to just listen to the 2720 say "in point-five miles take exit 11A on right to I-294 Tri-State Tollroad north". I don't have to look at the screen nearly as much because the voice commands are so concise.

And finally, although I've only scratched the surface of why I love this thing, I've never had a problem with getting turn or exit cues too late. Anyone who has ever used a Hertz Neverlost system will know what I'm talking about - it seemed like the turn/exit cues always came right after I passed the street or exit I was supposed to take. The 2720 announces these cues as much as 2 miles in advance (depending in part on your speed), and gives continuous cues at about 1 mile, half-mile, .2 miles, 400 feet, etc. I've never missed a turn because of a late cue - only because I was in the wrong lane.

In short, I'd recommend the 2720 to anyone. I can't imagine how even a very demanding user would be disappointed.

I purchased the Streetpilot 2720 several days ago after doing alot of online research about GPS units I could use in my car.

My selection process was as follows:

Pioneer AVIC-D1 in-dash combination car stereo/dvd navigation unit. This was the slickest solution available, but there were two major problems: 1) It requires a double-sized car stereo slot, but my car has a one and a half slot. This means they would have had to tear up my dashboard to install it, which I did not want. 2) The AVIC-D1 only allows you to enter navigation data while stopped with the parking brake on, which is a big problem for me. I want to be able to enter and search for destinations while driving if necessary. Result: PASS

Pioneer AVIC-N1 in-dash combination car stereo/dvd navigation unit: Has a foldout LCD screen, so it requires only a single-sized stereo slot as opposed to double, which means my dash wouldn't require refitting. Cool. Problem is, it has only 1 DVD slot instead of 2 like the AVIC-D1, which means you can't listen to music while navigating at the same time. Also has the crippling drawback of stopped-only input to the nav system just like the AVIC-D1. Result: PASS

Garmin C330, TomTom 700: Screens are unreadable in bright sunlight. Result: PASS

Lowrance iWay 500c: This was the close frontrunner. Passed on this one because the navigation apparently has issues and produces incorrect directions at times. Result: PASS


So I went with the Streetpilot 2720. Garmin is well-establish and appears to be the genre-leader most highly recommended by GPS types.

Here's my review

Plusses:
1) Text-to-speech spoken directions. It actually reads the streetnames as you approach them, and it is very accurate with the pronunciation. This is amazing and nice. It means you can ignore the screen and just listen to the voice for directions.
2) Accuracy. The directions are ridiculously accurate. Every single route I've tried it tells you to turn exactly, I mean EXACTLY, where the turn occurs. I don't know how they pulled this off, but it's nice. I haven't managed to throw it off yet. It recalculates routes in seconds if you stray off course.
3) Point of interest database: Seems comparable to Yahoo Yellow Pages, at least, and very complete. Every place I've tried to lookup has been there and has been accurate. It has everything from jazz clubs, to restaurants, to electronics stores like Fry's or Best Buy.
4) Location lookup. Looking up street names and names of businesses or locations in the Points-of-Interest database is done intelligently. The system will halt your typing and show you a list of all relevant matches once it has enough to narrow your search, so that you don't have to know the exact name of what you're looking for, or even type in the entire name. For example, if I type in "San J" for the city, it will automatically bring up a selection screen with the choices "San Jose" and "San Juan Batista". With businesses, all I have to do is type in part of the name it will find everything and list all matches in order of proximity.
5) Operating speed. The unit performs operations quickly. Looking up locations, switching between screens, and calculating direction routes are all fast.
6) Sharp, bright, high-resolution screen. Readable in sunlight (although not as easily as if shaded), and the screen automatically adjusts brightness based on ambient light, as well as changes the color scheme for night driving.
7) The interface is visually slick. Well-designed layout of buttons, and menu navigation is mostly intuitive and fast.
8) Remote control. At first I was like "I don't need a remote". Then I started playing around with it and it's a HUGE plus. Being able to navigate screens without leaning forward and touching the unit is a big advantage. I can zoom in, zoom out, hit the main menu, search, and much more, just with the remote, all while leaned back. Very nice.

Minuses:
1) At times it can take more than 10 minutes to acquire a satellite signal. While leaving San Francisco last weekend, it was not able to acquire a signal the entire time I was driving out of the city. It did not get a signal until I left the area. So I was without nagivation for about 30 minutes. This was a gigantic problem. Also, once when driving home from the grocery store, it was not able to acquire a satellite signal for the entire way home, about 12 minutes. Yet despite these two cases, most of the time it seems to acquire a signal within seconds. So the bug is inconsistent signal acquisition perfomance. I don't know if all GPS units have this flaw or not.
2) Price, price, price. This baby is expensive. You can probably go with the iWay for $400 cheaper and still be happy. Or you can wait 6 months for the price to drop on the 2720.
3) Included mount. The beanbag mount is barely adequate. It works, but it slides around quite a bit and seems like a second rate fix. They should have included a suction mount or a heavy duty mount like the Lowrance iWay used to come packaged with.
4) Instruction manual. Many parts of the user interface, especially the options screens, are not touched at all in the included manual. They should have put more care into making the manual thorough.
5) Power connection to the unit is flimsy and comes out easily when handling the unit. It should lock in place more securely.

Overall:
Recommended if the price doesn't rack you with guilt. The thing is slick and if you need directions often, or simply are in the mood for a cool new technology toy (*ahem*), you'll be awed by this technology. But you might want to buy from a place with a good return policy in the event that the satellite acquisition times prove too much to bear.

I have had this device for about 2 months now, have used it for an extensive trip to the east coast and absolutely love it. Terrific screen, very bright and always visible in direct sunlight. Text to voice feature is priceless. Guidance is as good as can be expected from any of these devices (this is my third).

Downside....Beanbag mount is unsatisfactory if you care to use any amount of acceleration in your car. My unit has flown off the dash several times onto the center console. Good news is the unit is built like a brick and hasn't been damaged. I could use the adhesive dash mount, but really don't want to deal with the residue when I eventually move on...either the car or the 2720. Wish there was a windshield suction mount available.

Before purchasing a GPS navigation assistant, I read a great many user reviews on a great many models. I felt the Garmin 2720 earned the best feedback and let that decide my purchase. I wasn't disappointed.

The unit is easy to program and user-friendly. The screen automatically adjusts for evening and daytime use, and the display (a convenient touch-screen for entering data) is crisp and clean...and so far hasn't washed out even in direct sunlight. The instruction booklets (one detailed and one quick reference) are simple to follow and well-organized.

There are only a couple of negatives to mention, and neither are deal-killers. There is a new toll road (open two months) that's not on the updated software, and it was mildly amusing to see my vehicle traveling over rolling green cow pastures on the Garmin display. I'm sure FL SR 429 will be added shortly. Second, and more importantly, the unit will often not permit me to enter rural addresses I know to be valid. Either the street name doesn't match the unit's list (and then you are on your own) or the unit will not allow me to enter the numeric portion of the address, defaulting instead to a different number. The latter case is not so bad, since there's a good chance you're on the right road.

I dare say that no civilian GPS system is perfect. But for the money, ease of use and awesome display, the Garmin 2720 is a solid performer and a good value.