Garmin Zumo XT or a TomTom Rider 550. Which of these GPS’ is better than the other?
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my TomTom Rider 550 for the last couple of years, and so you might think that this is an easy question for me to answer. Well, it is, and it isn’t. They both have big pluses and some crushing minuses.
Product support direct from the manufacturer for both products sucks (in Europe). It relies heavily on forum groups to help consumers work their way around the individual peculiarities of either unit.
In the article below, I’ve broken down the comparison into a series of key points. Hopefully, depending on what is important to you, this will help you choose between the Garmin Zumo XT and the TomTom Rider 550.
Desktop Software
It may be strange to start with desktop route planners, but one of the significant advantages of a GPS is the ability to plan the route you want to take and then receiving turn by turn instructions to guide you along your chosen path.
Garmin Zumo XT – Basecamp: Basecamp is showing its age. It looks and behaves like something from the 1980s. Basecamp has a reputation for being difficult to use and having a lot of strange quirks. I want to tell you more, but every time I connected the Garmin Zumo XT to the PC running Basecamp, Basecamp would crash.
I tried a couple of different machines. The software was removed and re-installed. Nothing I tried would make Basecamp and the Garmin Zumo XT communicate.
Thankfully, one of the members of the Garmin XT forum had the fix I needed, but honestly, it wasn’t worth the effort. Basecamp belongs in the 1980s.
Garmin Express, the desktop-based update program, worked perfectly every time. As the Garmin Zumo XT updates via WiFi, Garmin Express is mainly for purchasing and installing any add-on features you might want. The XT has everything I need pre-installed, so I doubt I’ll ever use it.
TomTom Rider 550 – MyDrive: TomTom has taken the plunge and gone online. When you first start the TomTom Rider 550, you sign up for a MyDrive account and associate this with your TomTom. Any routes you plan on MyDrive.TomTom.com are then automatically synchronised with your Rider 550.
The same is true for updates to maps, operating software and speed camera databases; they are all delivered through WiFi directly to the TomTom Rider 550. It is simple and efficient.
MyRouteApp, perhaps one of the best route planning sites available, has a direct download feature that allows you to send routes to MyDrive from within the MyRouteApp website.
Loading a GPX Route
There are lots of sources for motorcycle routes, primarily available in GPX format. If you are looking for some destination inspiration, then take a look at our free motorcycle routes page. Click here, or you can find the pages through the menu bar.
However, getting the GPX file onto your chosen GPS can be a frustrating activity. Phone-based GPS’ are typically very good at this. Visit the route website and click download. With the GPX file on your phone, typically, the phone-based GPS software will automatically start up and ask if you want to ride that route.
With the Garmin and the TomTom, there are a couple of extra steps.
Garmin Zumo XT: Thanks to the Garmin Drive phone application, loading a GPX file onto the XT is a simple activity. With the free Garmin Drive app installed, browse to your favourite route website and download a route. Next, tap on the GPX file, and the Garmin Drive App offers to send the GPX to the Zumo XT. It takes a few seconds, after which the Zumo confirms the arrival of the GPX route.
For the Garmin XT to fully understand the route, I have to convert the GPX into a track if I want turn-by-turn instructions. It is a simple process that the Garmin Zumo XT completes quickly.
With the GPX loaded, select Apps, then Tracks and pick the route to convert. Now press the Spanner icon (Wrench to our American cousins) and chose Convert to Trip, followed by Start to Finish. The XT will process the GPX into a Trip, and you are good to go.
TomTom Rider 550: Download the GPX file to your phone or PC and then open the MyDrive.TomTom.com website and sign in. At the bottom of the MyRoutes menu, there is an option to import a GPX file.
Once imported, click the Sync This Route option, and the file is available on your TomTom Rider 550 – assuming you are both connected to the internet.
One extra thought. I’ve found that the route navigation is better if, after importing the route, you edit it before synchronising with your Rider 550. You don’t have to change the route; only edit and save. Something that the MyDrive site does during that process increases the compatibility of the waypoints with the TomTomRider 550.
Mounting the GPS
Both the Zumo XT and the Rider 550 use the same four-screw mounting bracket. Both come with a Ram handlebar mount included in the box. Both can be wired directly to the battery or powered through a switched-live.
Neither has ever come loose, and there are examples on Youtube of both being used on their standard mounts, off-road. So what is the difference?
The TomTom Rider 550 mount will rotate 90-degrees so you can mount the GPS in landscape or portrait mode. Of the two, the Rider 550 has the more secure fit, as the GPS unit slides onto the mount for an inch before it locks into place.
For the Garmin Zumo XT, the GPS attachment is much shallower and would be the first of the two mounting systems to give up if forced.
All of that said, both are solid, and both have never given me any issues.
Headset Pairing
Neither my Sena 50S nor my Sena 10C Evo has had any problems connecting to either GPS unit. I did find a better way of connecting to the Garmin Zumo XT than the “recommended” way.
According to the Garmin Zumo XT manual, you pair your phone and your headset with the Garmin. This way, you then receive messages and phone calls through your Garmin, along with turn by turn instructions.
However, using the “second device pairing” option that the Sena intercoms have, I found to be a cleaner way of connecting everything.
My Sena 50S is paired with my phone and the Zumo XT, with the phone as the primary device. My phone is also paired with the Garmin Zumo XT to provide real-time traffic updates. As a bonus, when I play music from my phone to the Sena 50S, I can control the music through the Zumo XT screen.
I used the same method with the TomTom Rider 550, although there is no way to control music from the TomTom screen.
The TomTom has a reputation for not being the most compatible with Bluetooth intercoms. Not all the features of all intercoms are supported. After some pressure on the user forum, TomTom did produce a “compatibility chart” of sorts to show what features they supported with which intercoms.
Navigation
One section that the Garmin Zumo XT wins over the TomTom Rider 550 is the displayed navigation instructions. The XT’s larger screen helps, but it is the layout and the quality of the information that sets the Garmin Zumo XT apart from other GPS units.
The voice instructions are clear and not overburdened with excess information.
The larger screen also allows the Garmin to include configurable elements of information. If you are inadvertently speeding, for example, it will turn the speed indicator red. As you approach a lower speed limit, you can opt to receive a notification bleep in your headset and have a message briefly appear on the screen.
The instructions on the TomTom Rider 550 are good and will get you where you are going. There is a range of voices to choose from, and depending on which voice you select, you can have street names read to you. However, and it is a significant “however”, the TomTom Rider 550, we tested extensively, would invent random places to visit.
These phantom waypoints occurred several times, and some could be explained away as just a variance in the mapping. Perhaps there is a small but subtle difference between the route planned and the TomTom’s version of the most efficient route. Others, though, were a flat out mystery as to what was going on.
These became known as TomTom Magical Mystery Tours and included such diversions as a left turn into a roadside parking area, the type which is often set back from the country roads. The TomTom would instruct me to turn left, follow the parking road and then turn back onto the road I’d just been guided off.
A more common occurrence would be for the TomTom Rider 550 to instruct me to turn away from the programmed route, and 200 meters later, instruct me to “turn around when possible”. Checking the route to see if a misplaced waypoint had caused the deviation was never the explanation. They remain a mystery.
Speed Cameras (Updated!)
Having berated the TomTom for its oddball navigation instructions, it is undoubtedly the class leader when it comes to Speed Camera – sorry, Safety Camera – warnings.
The database is included as a no-cost option, and updates arrive regularly. The audible “Attention Safety Camera” announcement is loud and clear, and I greatly prefer it to the Garmin’s more discreet “ping” which could be missed.
Having beaten the Garmin Zumo XT for standard safety camera alerts, the TomTom Rider 550 goes even further with Average Speed Zones. As the database contains the start and endpoints for average speed zones, when in one, the TomTom background glows red, shows you the distance to the end of the average speed section and shows you your current average speed. It is a superb feature.
[And following a software update in June 2021- The Garmin Zumo XT now has the same feature. Static speed camera warnings are shown on the map along with the speed limit and there is an audible warning chime to attract your attention.
Average speed zone – start and end cameras are also shown along with a red warning stripe along the top of the display with the average speed indicated]
Following French Law, the TomTom Rider 550 will not display safety or speed camera alerts when in France.
Out of the box, the Garmin comes with Garmin Cyclops, a database of safety cameras that is updated regularly and works well with the XT to provide Safety Camera alerts. However, a popular upgrade to Cyclops is to replace it with the outstanding Safety Camera Database from SCDB.info.
The well-documented process appears complex at first, but is essentially copying files and clicking a few options to create custom “Points of Interest”. Sadly the one thing the SCDB option doesn’t allow you to do is to change the alert for your upcoming “Point of Interest”. If anyone knows how to do this, we would be interested to know.
And, as they are Points of Interest and not speed camera alerts, these do work in France.
Which One Is Best?
Neither the Garmin Zumo XT nor the TomTom Rider 550 wins or loses over the other to such a degree that it is an obvious choice.
Customer support from the manufacturer appears to be extremely poor for both devices, especially in Europe, although reports suggest it is better in the US. It can be so bad that TomTom sent me a feedback form that didn’t even list the product I’d purchased.
Without this level of feedback, I wonder how the GPS’ will evolve in line with the features riders want? Perhaps that is the point. The XT and the Rider 550 won’t evolve they will simply be replaced with a new model, and if you want new features, you have to upgrade.
Ultimately I chose the Garmin, but I will miss the excellent safety camera alerts from the TomTom. If a robust mounting system and an online route planner are essential to you, the TomTom must be a strong contender for your hard-earned cash.
Both will get you where you are going, even if the TomTom Rider 550, for me, took me to a few places I didn’t want to go.
Clarity
We bought both GPS units from SportsBikeShop and paid the same price that you will. We did try contacting the press office for both products. Neither bothered to reply.
The title images is based on an original work by Andrew Neel
