Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me start by saying that I'm not new to the Garmin Zumo scene. I started with the old 450, moved onto to the 550 and now because I'm a glutton for punishment I have 2 - 665's. One for each bike. (I ride BMW's. K1200GT and an R12GSA. Put 30-40k or so a year on bikes between the 2. So the Garmin's get used but not abused.) Every one of these models has eventually failed miserably. Some sooner than later. One out of the box. All within the first year. The 550 lasted the longest. However after 3 different digitizer screens on the 550 that I replaced after warranty it was time to upgrade it to the 665's. As I type this I am well into just one of many phone calls to Garmin support that each and every time takes at least 30-60 minutes. Maybe more. Both 665's are dying with separate issues. The only good thing I will say about Garmin tech is at least when you finally do get through to support they are good about taking care of warranty and RMA. But once again. Rip everything apart, box it up, pay for shipping, wait weeks, get it back, wire it back up...and hopefully it works for a little while any way. What a PITA! One unit has yet another bad digitizer and audio out jack doesn't work. The other will not recognize either XM puck. The cradle contacts even though clean do not hold their position and constantly crackle the sound and throw the unit out of whack. The cradle design has been an ongoing issue for the life of the Zumo product range. 4 out of 5 cradles that I have had have failed. The old 550 was readable in bright sun. These 665's are about useless on sunny days and forget about direct sun. And when the cradle dies, one needs to rip apart the bike to re-wire everything. Again. Poor design and royally aggravating. If any one else made a unit with these features I would buy it. But no other company to my knowledge offers the same features. A shame really cause a little competition might lower the price and produce a better quality unit. I will say that when they work, they are the coolest thing going. Real time weather / radar has been useful. I like XM when crossing the interior west. The mp3 player has decent sound with wired headphones. And the nav seems pretty good. Also, for any one considering the BMW branded unit...besides the fact that's a lot more $$$... be advised that it's a 660 with no XM and the cradle design covers up the only audio out / in. BMW forces you to use Bluetooth. There is no hard wired option. Bottom line is these are complete garbage and way too expensive. If you're willing to take the risk they might work for a while. But I'm batting 0 for 4. 3/26/13 Update. Just put one of my "warranty" units through a 6000 mile trip. Everything from 18 to 95 degrees rain and dust. My basic conclusion for these devices are that they are really expensive MP3 / XM players 99% of the time. In that trip on 3 occasions it just locked up completely. 2 other times only certain functions would work. Had to remove the battery and reboot to get it working again. No big deal but really? This thing is 800 freaking dollars?! Also there needs to be a way to disable weather alerts that are hundreds of miles away. Very annoying when it's constantly going "bing bing" and popping up alerts for something no where near your riding route. The Nav worked when needed. And the database seemed fairly up to date. One interesting feature I did find...and maybe some of you already have seen this but my riding tends to be NON interstate...a couple of times during navigation looking for fuel or hotels etc...on a stretch of well traveled interstate it would pop up an actual picture of the exit / ramp itself. Thought that was a pretty cool feature. But as I said. May be something that has been there all along. Most of the time I avoid interstate highways like the plague. But what's still most disappointing is that it's barely readable in ANY kind of sun light. If the sun angle is any where behind you...not direct but any where behind...forget it. Even on cloudy days. I have this thing mounted in as direct a view as possible and to be able to read it I have to take my eyes off the road for way too long because it's just too weak / dark of a screen. Again a very poor design. It's a hard wired unit so power consumption shouldn't be a concern but it seems that Garmin is clueless about this issue. The screen glare and lack of brightness adjustment is abysmal. Hey Garmin...did any one with REAL world riding skills ever test this unit?