Maybe you should learn how to use a gps. I have a Zumo xt2 and think it’s great. I use it for adventure riding. If the road or trail is not in the gps database then it cannot navigate if it doesn’t think there is a road or trail. Get additional maps such as backcountry maps or trail maps. You can also create a route from a track, ride the trail the first time to save your track and save it as a future route. Learn to navigate and use a gps!
Yes, its pretty good. Still I think it needs vast improvement. I didn't like it adjusting my plotted route without telling me. I think it needs a quick button to get you back home or to the start of the recorded route. The fastest route back at the end of the day or in an emergency. I don't want to use 5 other mapping software systems. I paid 600, I want it to do the job better. Some folks don't mind spending crazy numbers of hours making it work.. I'm not that person. I want to ride, not become a software engineer just to use a gps. It has too many critical settings burried too deep that have to constantly be flipped back and fourth or your going to get misdirected unknowingly. Yes, it has good stuff but it could be much better. I've have some experience with this stuff. Been using these system in Boats, cars, airplanes, etc.,since they came on the market. Boat nav stuff for years is so horrible I see tons of boaters barely bother to use it. Just try to update the clock on some of them and your in for a half day...Much of this stuff is way too over complicated and unintuitive. IMO these engineers or designers don't work with enough non engineer users to make it a better more intuitive tool. Just MO. Its good you like it.
Totally agree. I have persevered with the XT2 for 6 months and have now stopped using it. Having previously owned several versions of the BMW Navigator, the Zumo XT and a couple of TomTom's in my experience the XT2 is the worst route planner I have used. It's ok if you want to do simple routes on the device itself but the minute your step into the Garmin Explore and Garmin Tread world the poor overall architecture of the XT2 route planning is exposed. I think the Garmin systems designers just cobbled existing software components together to create a Frankenstein product.
Maybe play with it a bit to see if it works well enough for some rides. Try within return window. It is definitely frustrating for me but my brain tells me the way things should work. These particular engineers are very different thinkers to me.
I would like it to follow my custom track Unless it offers me the option of its own ideas. When it wants to take over it should put up a big QUESTION, "WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A SHORTER ROUTE" etc, etc.. then i could say, yes or no.
I'm looking for a new GPS, and came across your video. I use an old Navi model currently. Have you tried using Garmin's Basecamp software? you can use it to make routes on your computer, and even load alternative maps that have more dirt roads in it as well. Hoping I gave you some direction to a solution.
Thx, my friend uses it but doesn't like it. He says just use Google "My Maps" i never saw it until he showed me. Ive had limited sucess with Tread. It got us close today but there were roads beyond where it allowed me to plot. Its amazingly disjointed. I never thought it would be so complicated. We're in Moab at the moment. Thx
Hi, I did the same mistake buying Zumo 590 in 2015 before my trip to Pyrenees Mountains (Spain/France). And I knew it did not have option for enduro style roads/tracks at that time. It was and still is UNINTUITIVE interface. Wondering how many people wasted their money on this unfinished product? But unfinished for 9 years?
@@wetlifesports "I don't get why they can't make it friendly" - I guess they are lacking the proper collaboration between the Product Development Team and CX team (Customer Experience team). Google Maps, it is not ideal but...and I do not do off-road/trail ride. I should sell my Zumo590 right after the trip in Spain in 2015, cos it lost its value over the years just sitting on the shelf.
@@FirstName-qq6rqThx, on major trip now. It did something today I'll never understand. I built a route in "Tread" loaded it, selected it, rode it and 30 minutes in found out it decided to do its own route. I understand it has different settings, etc. But to build a route specifically and load it and hit start then have it ignore my route blows my mind. At minimum it should have warned me and forced me to accepts a route change. Crazy..!!! The customer service was horrible as well, disconnected, never called back.. i called again with further assurances they would call.. never did until I left a feedback, days later. I think ill sell it while it may have some value.
No, used it for the last 20 days on a big trip. It helps alot but is also very frustrating. I think i would just buy a second smart phone and use google maps.
@wetlifesports thanks. Currently, I'm using the quad lock wireless charger with my phone. Seems to be a common answer about the fancy GPS. Hopefully, they debug & catch up in the near future. Take care good sir
Hi , i nearly went and got one , but no not yet . i drive a Toyota car and had navigation on it , is amazing , better then Hondas ! period . Is Garmin has the route option from A to B , like payed road or national not pay road, quick or normal street ? that option i think is not included in the Garmin software.Thank you for your review . PS; i think a map holder on the gas tank will be way better they that garbage.
@@PurpleSonw its a frustrating unit on many levels but it has good points as well. I still like having it especially for my t7. For hard enduro i may just get a pocket emergency unit. I agree, i despised our Honda Odyssey electronics and loved our Toyota units.
I love my XT2, I suggest you learn how to use it before slagging it off! Most, technical gadgets, usually don’t work, because of user error, I’ve done the Pyrenees, the Balkens! Spain, Scotland, on, off road, no problem.
To some degree your right. However, IMO it still has room for lots of improvement. If your a main road adventurer, which 99.9 of folks are its is ok. If your trying to get deep it starts to get annoying. Its hard to force it down a route its not aware of. Just powering it up out of the box can be tricky. They say nothing about that in the directions. I'll bet they get a ton of them back only to learn later it needs all sorts of special treatment to get to come alive.
The mount is ok but 2 of my buddies have had theirs fall off and it was just dumb luck we found them. Again, if your just riding roads and occasionally hit a nice gravel known road, it's ok. If your going deep it needs lots of improvement.
I definitely think it needs a more in your face set up so you know 100% its going to change a custom route you loaded. I know it has settings to allow redirect or not but I don't like the fact that I have to keep that in mind on every route I build or load. It should notify you with a big Notice either way and make those features more fluid yet obvious. Many of our rides start out very custom digging deep and therefore we need to turn off all the reroute features. Then once we've done our tough technical ride that may have been unknown to Garmin, we want to go home or go to the nearest gas station, then we need to turn on the reroute stuff. This needs alot of improvement.
I often find it very unintuitive in that basic settings are burried in areas that don't make sense to me. Some settings I think should be easy and quick to do become a hunting mission.
so how do I learn how to use it when the fin screen blanks out or all the text on the screen randomly is spelled out in reverse? Please explain how that's a user error because you've got me.
The XT2 is just pure garbage. Bought one and returned it when the dam thing would freeze, give a blank screen and best of all flipped and reversed all the text backwards. At one point I found a menu listing all the open source software in the device like google protobuf and I cant imagine why you would need protobuf library on such a simple device. And, spoiler, I actually work in embedded hardware and software touch panel designs for cab mounted displays in agriculture and construction vehicles. In the industry, this practice of throwing a bunch of open source libraries together and hoping to stich together some functionality is direct evidence that Garmin software engineers are just really bad. There is no hope for that thing, return it and get your money back if you can. For $500 or so bucks you shell out, it doesnt come close to commanding that kind of price.
@@revealingfacts4all im in agreement. I have gotten use to it and it's playing a decent role. But i can't return it now so i gotta do something with it. Gl
@@wetlifesports ebay or facebook marketplace it. I honestly am a bit appalled that a company, like Garmin, would have such shotty engineering. Consequently, I'll never buy any more of their gear just knowing they lack the internal know-how to write decent software much less glue random open source software together. I mean the literal text was backwards on my display on the maps, the menu items... tells me some Garming software guy is not using the font library correctly or something. unreal. I can't explain the electrical type failures with the all white frozen screen.... AND to make matters even worst, I purchased my XT2 in a retail store about 3 hours from my house and to avoid a trip, I attempted to return it using an RMA shipper and Garmin refused me requiring me to work with the Garmin store. Not some store selling Garmin gear but an actual Garmin outlet store in a strip mall. Yea, I'm done with #GarminSucks
@@georgemikodesigns yes, we literally spent an hour on the laptop trying to get some cumberland tn maps onto it and Basecamp was saying, not compatible, etc... we had to give up and we wound up using a phone. Garmin is getting like everyone else, pay for everything...block stuff that does pay them.
@@wetlifesports kinda like my inReach, my Garmin watch, my Garmin Connect..what the hell why do I need Tread, Drive and Explore for ONE device....just make it work where I don't have to spend more time researching how to use it when I should be riding!! Too much to ask for?
@@wetlifesports the Garmin "Routes" is what was messing me up...if I deviated from the "route" it tries to re-route me to the start..whereas the "Tracks" just show the saved path I wanted and if I deviated from that I could see the color "track" disappear as I continued on. We'll see how that approach goes this weekend as I tackle the Chattahoochee BDR-X route....or should I say TRACKS! LOL
@@georgemikodesigns good luck. My riding buddy has been guiding us with his extra phone and Gaia. Is seems the way i should have gone. Key when your really bushwacking your way thru. Our Garmins had none of the trails he had and so we would have been blind without him and would have never found the shortcut thru the mountain we did yesterday day here near Brimstone.
I think you should just buy the off road maps. You should have bought the Garmin Tread that already has the proper maps for what you want to do.
Maybe you should learn how to use a gps. I have a Zumo xt2 and think it’s great. I use it for adventure riding. If the road or trail is not in the gps database then it cannot navigate if it doesn’t think there is a road or trail. Get additional maps such as backcountry maps or trail maps. You can also create a route from a track, ride the trail the first time to save your track and save it as a future route. Learn to navigate and use a gps!
Yes, its pretty good. Still I think it needs vast improvement. I didn't like it adjusting my plotted route without telling me. I think it needs a quick button to get you back home or to the start of the recorded route. The fastest route back at the end of the day or in an emergency. I don't want to use 5 other mapping software systems. I paid 600, I want it to do the job better. Some folks don't mind spending crazy numbers of hours making it work.. I'm not that person. I want to ride, not become a software engineer just to use a gps. It has too many critical settings burried too deep that have to constantly be flipped back and fourth or your going to get misdirected unknowingly. Yes, it has good stuff but it could be much better. I've have some experience with this stuff. Been using these system in Boats, cars, airplanes, etc.,since they came on the market. Boat nav stuff for years is so horrible I see tons of boaters barely bother to use it. Just try to update the clock on some of them and your in for a half day...Much of this stuff is way too over complicated and unintuitive. IMO these engineers or designers don't work with enough non engineer users to make it a better more intuitive tool. Just MO. Its good you like it.
Did you set the map layer on topographic setting? Before putting in a route/track?
Played with it but not sure where I left it.
Totally agree. I have persevered with the XT2 for 6 months and have now stopped using it. Having previously owned several versions of the BMW Navigator, the Zumo XT and a couple of TomTom's in my experience the XT2 is the worst route planner I have used. It's ok if you want to do simple routes on the device itself but the minute your step into the Garmin Explore and Garmin Tread world the poor overall architecture of the XT2 route planning is exposed. I think the Garmin systems designers just cobbled existing software components together to create a Frankenstein product.
@@lpbonney Agreed!
Alarmingly unprofessional Garmin GPS software, Mine just arrived yesterday, still in the box, and I'm returning it... today! Thank you for the review.
Maybe play with it a bit to see if it works well enough for some rides. Try within return window. It is definitely frustrating for me but my brain tells me the way things should work. These particular engineers are very different thinkers to me.
I would like it to follow my custom track Unless it offers me the option of its own ideas. When it wants to take over it should put up a big QUESTION, "WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A SHORTER ROUTE" etc, etc.. then i could say, yes or no.
I'm looking for a new GPS, and came across your video.
I use an old Navi model currently. Have you tried using Garmin's Basecamp software? you can use it to make routes on your computer, and even load alternative maps that have more dirt roads in it as well. Hoping I gave you some direction to a solution.
Thx, my friend uses it but doesn't like it. He says just use Google "My Maps" i never saw it until he showed me. Ive had limited sucess with Tread. It got us close today but there were roads beyond where it allowed me to plot. Its amazingly disjointed. I never thought it would be so complicated. We're in Moab at the moment. Thx
Hi, I did the same mistake buying Zumo 590 in 2015 before my trip to Pyrenees Mountains (Spain/France).
And I knew it did not have option for enduro style roads/tracks at that time. It was and still is UNINTUITIVE interface.
Wondering how many people wasted their money on this unfinished product?
But unfinished for 9 years?
Yes, I don't get why they can't make it friendly. What are you using now?
@@wetlifesports "I don't get why they can't make it friendly" - I guess they are lacking the proper collaboration between the Product Development Team and CX team (Customer Experience team).
Google Maps, it is not ideal but...and I do not do off-road/trail ride. I should sell my Zumo590 right after the trip in Spain in 2015, cos it lost its value over the years just sitting on the shelf.
@@FirstName-qq6rqThx, on major trip now. It did something today I'll never understand. I built a route in "Tread" loaded it, selected it, rode it and 30 minutes in found out it decided to do its own route. I understand it has different settings, etc. But to build a route specifically and load it and hit start then have it ignore my route blows my mind. At minimum it should have warned me and forced me to accepts a route change. Crazy..!!! The customer service was horrible as well, disconnected, never called back.. i called again with further assurances they would call.. never did until I left a feedback, days later. I think ill sell it while it may have some value.
My friend. This is not a Garmin flaw. It is a map problem. The map you uploaded does not have that road/trail
@@cologambaretto3226 i didn't upload any maps
Did you sell it? Im trying to find something similar but not garmin. Take care
No, used it for the last 20 days on a big trip. It helps alot but is also very frustrating. I think i would just buy a second smart phone and use google maps.
@wetlifesports thanks. Currently, I'm using the quad lock wireless charger with my phone. Seems to be a common answer about the fancy GPS. Hopefully, they debug & catch up in the near future. Take care good sir
@@patrick87100 thx.
Hi , i nearly went and got one , but no not yet . i drive a Toyota car and had navigation on it , is amazing , better then Hondas ! period . Is Garmin has the route option from A to B , like payed road or national not pay road, quick or normal street ? that option i think is not included in the Garmin software.Thank you for your review . PS; i think a map holder on the gas tank will be way better they that garbage.
@@PurpleSonw its a frustrating unit on many levels but it has good points as well. I still like having it especially for my t7. For hard enduro i may just get a pocket emergency unit. I agree, i despised our Honda Odyssey electronics and loved our Toyota units.
I love my XT2, I suggest you learn how to use it before slagging it off! Most, technical gadgets, usually don’t work, because of user error, I’ve done the Pyrenees, the Balkens! Spain, Scotland, on, off road, no problem.
To some degree your right. However, IMO it still has room for lots of improvement. If your a main road adventurer, which 99.9 of folks are its is ok. If your trying to get deep it starts to get annoying. Its hard to force it down a route its not aware of. Just powering it up out of the box can be tricky. They say nothing about that in the directions. I'll bet they get a ton of them back only to learn later it needs all sorts of special treatment to get to come alive.
The mount is ok but 2 of my buddies have had theirs fall off and it was just dumb luck we found them. Again, if your just riding roads and occasionally hit a nice gravel known road, it's ok. If your going deep it needs lots of improvement.
I definitely think it needs a more in your face set up so you know 100% its going to change a custom route you loaded. I know it has settings to allow redirect or not but I don't like the fact that I have to keep that in mind on every route I build or load. It should notify you with a big Notice either way and make those features more fluid yet obvious. Many of our rides start out very custom digging deep and therefore we need to turn off all the reroute features. Then once we've done our tough technical ride that may have been unknown to Garmin, we want to go home or go to the nearest gas station, then we need to turn on the reroute stuff. This needs alot of improvement.
I often find it very unintuitive in that basic settings are burried in areas that don't make sense to me. Some settings I think should be easy and quick to do become a hunting mission.
so how do I learn how to use it when the fin screen blanks out or all the text on the screen randomly is spelled out in reverse? Please explain how that's a user error because you've got me.
The XT2 is just pure garbage. Bought one and returned it when the dam thing would freeze, give a blank screen and best of all flipped and reversed all the text backwards. At one point I found a menu listing all the open source software in the device like google protobuf and I cant imagine why you would need protobuf library on such a simple device. And, spoiler, I actually work in embedded hardware and software touch panel designs for cab mounted displays in agriculture and construction vehicles. In the industry, this practice of throwing a bunch of open source libraries together and hoping to stich together some functionality is direct evidence that Garmin software engineers are just really bad. There is no hope for that thing, return it and get your money back if you can. For $500 or so bucks you shell out, it doesnt come close to commanding that kind of price.
@@revealingfacts4all im in agreement. I have gotten use to it and it's playing a decent role. But i can't return it now so i gotta do something with it. Gl
@@wetlifesports ebay or facebook marketplace it. I honestly am a bit appalled that a company, like Garmin, would have such shotty engineering. Consequently, I'll never buy any more of their gear just knowing they lack the internal know-how to write decent software much less glue random open source software together. I mean the literal text was backwards on my display on the maps, the menu items... tells me some Garming software guy is not using the font library correctly or something. unreal. I can't explain the electrical type failures with the all white frozen screen.... AND to make matters even worst, I purchased my XT2 in a retail store about 3 hours from my house and to avoid a trip, I attempted to return it using an RMA shipper and Garmin refused me requiring me to work with the Garmin store. Not some store selling Garmin gear but an actual Garmin outlet store in a strip mall. Yea, I'm done with #GarminSucks
it's definitely not a user-friendly GPS when importing my own GPX files from RWGPS app...lame
@@georgemikodesigns yes, we literally spent an hour on the laptop trying to get some cumberland tn maps onto it and Basecamp was saying, not compatible, etc... we had to give up and we wound up using a phone. Garmin is getting like everyone else, pay for everything...block stuff that does pay them.
@@wetlifesports kinda like my inReach, my Garmin watch, my Garmin Connect..what the hell why do I need Tread, Drive and Explore for ONE device....just make it work where I don't have to spend more time researching how to use it when I should be riding!! Too much to ask for?
@@georgemikodesigns no kidding! My thoughts exactly!
@@wetlifesports the Garmin "Routes" is what was messing me up...if I deviated from the "route" it tries to re-route me to the start..whereas the "Tracks" just show the saved path I wanted and if I deviated from that I could see the color "track" disappear as I continued on. We'll see how that approach goes this weekend as I tackle the Chattahoochee BDR-X route....or should I say TRACKS! LOL
@@georgemikodesigns good luck. My riding buddy has been guiding us with his extra phone and Gaia. Is seems the way i should have gone. Key when your really bushwacking your way thru. Our Garmins had none of the trails he had and so we would have been blind without him and would have never found the shortcut thru the mountain we did yesterday day here near Brimstone.