garmin Zumo 550 in France

Has anyone who has a Garmin Zumo 550 used it in France?
I had a garmin 2780 a couple of years ago which I sent back because the maps in France were incredibly inaccurate, the pronouncition of streets was unintelligible, and the street name searching didn't work (said it would do partial-name searchs but didn't and was very picky about dashes etc in street names). Looking to see if those issues exist in the 550.

I've read a lot about them and they're getting good reviews, but not seen any mention of them being used on the continent.

thanks

[embee]

Yes, I've used mine in several countries and it's fine.

Mine is about a year old, can't remember off the top of my head what the map level is.

The English (Emily) text to speech (TTS) pronounciation of foreign names is a bit odd, it's literal rather than colloquial if you like (Soissons becomes "Soyzons" rather than "Swasson"). You can get round this by selecting the voice for the country, but you'll then also get the instructions in the local language. I just put up with the strange pronounciation.

As for street search, I haven't found any issues at all. Generally very dependable (though not infallible of course).

The main things to be up to speed with is keeping it updated (on-line from Garmin, make sure you have downloaded Webupdater which makes it a lot easier). If/when you get a Zumo, first register it, then update the firmware and also Mapsource, used for planning routes on PC. DON'T THROW AWAY THE LITTLE YELLOW PIECE OF PAPER WITH YOUR REGISTRATION CODE ON IT!!!!

Keep the contact pins on the cradles lubed with the merest hint of WD40 applied with a small paintbrush or similar (this has been found to be about the best stuff to use after many folks trial and error). This stops audio crackles and occasional error messages.

Know how to reset if it locks-up. These happen occasionally, though I've never had it happen in 12months.

Great resource on the users forum here
All sorts of tricks and features hidden away. Get the knurled security screw (sticky post on the general info forum) made by some Dutch folk, a few euro well spent!

Common tip for mp3 playing. Remember it will play ONLY mp3 files, nothing else. Put them on a card (SD or SDHC), make a folder called MP3, then store them in sub-folders typically one albums worth each (15 tracks or so) and then it won't slow down the loading when booting up.

That's great info - thanks Embee.

rgds

[embee]

I've just received an e-mail from Garmin saying the Europe 2008 maps update is now available.

These have to be purchased for units bought/registered before a certain date, but as far as I'm aware if you buy a Zumo now you are entitled to a free update regardless of what is installed on the machine, so you'd get the latest European maps.