Nuvi 3598-D First impressions / Latest firmware (4.80)

[PeterSm]

Hi,
Sorry saw this come up in the middle of the thread but whilst looking into this myself after the voice commands stopped working on my 2597LMI found this buried in the previously posted link from Garmin

[sussamb]

No you don't. Voice command works with newer maps provided you follow the rules:

https://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId=%7B1df288e0-19f9-11e0-d39a-000000000000%7D

But how did you install the map update? You shouldn't normally end up with two maps on your GPS after an update?

[Tomo]

Hi, can I jump in here please?

Yes? Good, thanks

Ive got a TomTom1005 at the moment but wondering if there is anything better out there to suit my needs... and this Garmin unit seems to be a candidate.

What is the Traffic like on the Garmin? The TT with 'Live' seem to have it nailed, I can say its pretty reliable and accurate. Sometimes, the slow traffic on the map is exactly where the queue starts on the road.

I assume you can use your own POI's as per the older tom-toms? IE, I have severel files, all with 10,000+ items in each. Any issues here?

What does the traffic receiver thing look like? Is it cumbersome? Ugly? Easy to install and route?

What is the routing like compared to TT? My 1005 seems to be pretty quick, far quicker than previous TT's.

What is re-routing like when you take (or forced to take) a wrong turn? Again TT is pretty quick, older TT's took quite a long time, and in London, not been able to stop to wait for it to catch up, you would of made another wrong turn waiting!

Cant say I've ever had any routes through farms, one way streets etc with TT... whats this like with Garmin?

Thanks :-)

[PeterSm]

[sussamb]

That's the issue then. If you send the map first to your PC and then to your PC a number of things happen.

First you'll end up with both maps on your nuvi, as you've discovered. Using Express to send them to your nuvi would have automatically deleted the earlier map.

Second, and more importantly, MapInstall just sends the map. It doesn't send associated files, like the ones for junction view, voice files etc. This will explain why you're not getting voice command to work.

If I were you I'd delete the up to date map files, and use Express to send them again to your nuvi.

[wibbley]

HI Tomo,

I would give the 3597/8 a miss.

I have a tomtom go & upgraded to the 3598. I can only compare the two, not having played with a tomtom 1005 or 9000

The tt go is a basic model & the garmin 3598 is meant to be top of the range....

Firstly the good points for the 3598, traffic updates are good & seem to be accurate. The lane assist is really good, the rh side of the screen automatically changes to a layout of what lane you should be in, with clear arrows, whilst the lh remains as the map. Once past the junction, it changes back to the full map. Took it round the wandsworth one way system & the lane assist was a god-send.

The screen is high resolution & very crisp. Having a large & hi res screen compared to the tt go is good.

The don't likes.

Tomtom remembers which way you were facing when switched off, so when returning to the vehicle & set a new route, tt will guide you from this position & direction. garmin however pay no attention to your last position & direction & often starts its route from another street behind you. I do multi-hops every day & this is a right pain compared to the tt. You have to look at the screen, see which way your little car is pointing, then find the start of the route on the map & work out if you need to do a u turn or can do a left, left left etc. Not much fun in heavy city traffic, tt will just say 'when possible make a u turn' or 'in 20 yards turn left' I can only guess the softies at garmin have never had a tt to borrow & compare.

garmin will pop up traffic & roadworks ahead, good but it does not pop down, thus you have to muck about trying to hit the X on the screen. Even more silly, it pops up to advise of roadworks reporting no delay!

If there are delays on route garmin will advise if you are still on the quickest route or offers an alternative, the problem here is that it is so many button pushes to get to the map to see the alternative, by which time you have missed the turn off.

There is the dreaded grey screen issue. The map is built up of blocks on the screen, normally it is so fast you just see a normal moving map as per tt, however sometimes it cannot display the map fast enough & big chunks or sometimes all of it are blank grey squares. It seems to happen most often on long journeys & in poor weather conditions. I am guessing the processor cannot run fast enough with loads of travel delays coming in. The model is almost a year old now & garmin have not fixed the issue & I'm guessing never will.

POI handling is nowhere as good as my tomtom go.
With garmin, it is all pois or none. TT allows you to load loads of poi categories & display which ones you want. on garmin you cannot delete one poi category, you have to delete them all then reload the ones you want! (ok you can go in & fiddle about yourself to delete one poi category, provided you loaded it individually) You cannot select which pois to display (other than all or none), thus in built up areas the screen can show more pois than roads!

The tt remembers which of your pois you use the most & displays them on the main poi screen. The best you can do on the garmin is make a shortcut to custom pois on the fist screen, then wade through all of your poi categories. TT orders your pois in most used order, garmin displays them in order loaded then alphabetically. So you imagine all of the pgpsw speed cam pois, you never need to drive to a speed cam location but have to wade through all of these to get to the pois you do want. tt neatly shuffles these to the end of the list as they are never selected by the user. The way round this is to load all of your pois on first and then load the pgps files.

My old tt go fins my custom pois much much quicker than the new 3598. It is the same list of pois. Route calculation is far slower on the 3598 as well. This may be to it trying more routes or waiting for traffic data. However this does not help when you are holding up traffic frantically trying to calculate a new route when going wrong & at a junction waiting to be told to turn left or right.

My TT go is set to ask how I would like to route, fastest/shortest/cycling/walking. Sometimes it is nice to select a different option, shortest for example will often avoid motorways & give a scenic route. When I jump out of the vehicle and have to walk the last part of the journey, it was easy to swap on the tt, garmin does not even have a walking option. Garmin however does not have the option to offer this option.

The digital receiver is a big lump moulded into the power cable which is in itself a twin cable and heavy gauge. Firstly this makes it difficult to easily tuck away & route, but also if you do, it means you cannot easily swap vehicles. My tt has the receiver as a lump which plugs into the sat-nav & then the power lead plugs into that, so it is simple to get any 12 to 5V USB lead to use in a second vehicle.

How many of these shortfalls will be addressed in a new model I don't know, however I understand the POI handling & not routing from your last direction have always been the same on garmins, so guess they will not improve anytime soon.

I just hope tt realise what a clanger they have dropped by crippling the functionality of their latest models & bring out a new range with all the user set-ibles back on.

Why did I get a garmin when I think they are so bad? Well I did not know at the time. There is only so much you can do playing with one in the shop. Also I had decided on buying a new top model, either garmin or tt. At the time garmin were doing free lifetime maps and their top model allowed user POIs. The TT 9000 at that time did not have lifetime maps & did not allow user POIs.

However I must reiterate I am comparing the functionality of my old tt go with the new garmin. I have not played with the current TTs.

I'm hoping somebody will be able to do a review in the opposite, highlighting how much better the garmin is over the tt, that way I won't feel so bad about the £300 I dropped on the 3598.

[PeterSm]

@sussamb - that worked thanks.... now what to do with a 16gb memory card that no longer needed for the maps!!!

Thanks for the advice.

[sussamb]

Send it to me

[sussamb]

[sussamb]

[wibbley]

I assumed tomo was asking for details about the 3598 specifically, as this is a 3598 thread.

It would seem sensible to me to build the receiver into the unit itself, may make the unit a little bigger, but that in turn means they can fit a bigger speaker instead of the horrible tinny thing, ok for sat nav but useless for hands free use. The tt go also has a horrible speaker, the best was the tt 300.

I'm guessing garmin will address the grey screen issues with a new model, which will probably be along soon. Maybe I should dump mine on ebay now whilst it is still current.

[Kremmen]

[Kremmen]

[sussamb]

Update available here for the 35x7 and 35x8 series, hopefully it will resolve the gray screen issues:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=5967

Change History

Changes made from version 4.00 to 4.20:
◦Enabled DAB traffic reception in Germany.
◦Added support to the Voice Command feature for calling a contact with multiple phone numbers.
◦Fixed an issue that caused portions of Arabic characters to be truncated.
◦Fixed an issue that caused problems when importing GPX files from third-party applications.

[wibbley]

will be interesting to see if it does solve the grey screen issue. It is not mentioned in the bug fix list.

My money is on 'it won't'

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