Navigator III & 2820 the same?

[mmmoore]

Does anyone know if the BMW Navigator III and the Garmin 2820 are the same unit? I am curious if the 2820 XM receiver will work on the Navigator III.

Thanks,

[Boffin]

Lots of info on the NavIII in this thread.

 

Andy

[Rocket_Cowboy]

They are definitely NOT the same. The NavIII has none of the music features. No XM, no MP3.

[mmmoore]

Thanks for all the info (yes I followed and read the thread)! I already have a 276 but the 2820 lets me cut a lot of extra gear out with the GXM30 antenna and cut back on necessary interfaces with Bluetooth with phone.

Only two big questions left. How big is the disk drive and how do all of the new interfaces work? I think I'll go with the 2820 instead of the Nav. III bucause I already have an XM account and can just add another radio (family plan).

Thanks again for all of the info and links!

[Rocket_Cowboy]

I can only comment relative to the 2730, as I don't have a 2820 (I bought the NavIII thinking it was identical, and was disappointed later when I learned it was not).

 

The 2730 has about 800Mb of disk storage space after the maps for MP3 storage. Not alot ... not as much as an iPod for sure, but I seldom use the MP3 function since I am using the GXM-30 XM antenna. I've been very happy with the XM functionality on the Garmin. It replaced a long line of failed Delphi radios from the bike, and their power converters. I went with the 2730 at the beginning of last year specifically to clean up all the "stuff" mounted on my bike.

 

I would expect the music functions on the 2820 to be very similar to the 2730, with the addition of the bluetooth interfaces.

[eruff]

I have the Nav II mounted on my R1200RT. It's great, but I would like to have the weather overlay feature of the newer Garmin offerings. I met a guy who has this and he says it is wonderful to reroute around storm cells on long trips. Is the Garmin StreetPilot 2730 the way to go? And can I unplug the Nav II on my RT and plug in the 2730? I assume I will not be able to use the BMW NAV II mounting bracket. That would be too easy. I hope my post is not seen as hijacking this thread.

[Rocket_Cowboy]

Assuming that the Nav II mount is the same as the Nav III mount (they should be, but I don't have one here to verify for sure), then yes ... the 2730 will drop right in. However, the 2730 does not know how to handle the left hand side buttons from the BMW cradle, so they will not function.

 

The other problem that I have with the 2730 in the BMW cradle ... the stereo output from the 2730 is on the left side of the unit, and is thus blocked by the left hand side buttons.

 

Lastly, the 2730 doesn't do the same overlay weather info that some of the marine units do. You can get XM traffic and weather alerts, but they are text based ... not the Nexrad graphic overlay. I've had better luck with the traffic alerts than the weather alerts, but sometimes the "current conditions" info for your destination or waypoint provides enough info for (re)routing.

[vorwac00]

Yeah, I asked Garmin tech support about this, and they indicated that the 2820 would fit just fine in the BMW cradle, but the buttons on the left side would not be functional.