Garmin SD Cards

You can use any SD cards. There have been rumors that 4GB ones don't work, but others have had great success. My suggestion is to go with a 2GB SD card.

I am not sure what SD cards from Garmin that you are talking about, but they may have preload maps on them.

I think they are are ScanDisk. 2Gb SD's work in my nuvi.

Sounds like preloaded means the extra software ones.

Such as the Mapsource SD Cards, Travel Guide, Language Guide or the SaversClub thing. These SD Cards have preloaded software on the SD Card which makes it a little more expensive (its like buying software for your computer).

If you mean the SD cards which you can buy from Garmin, those are generally more expensive just because you're buying them from Garmin. I bought a 4GB Transend SD Card and it seems to work fine with my Nuvi 350. But I haven't even reached 2 GB on it yet so I can't say it works for sure.

Any card will work well if you are not buying SD cards with maps preloaded. I have found the cheap (i.e. slow) SD cards to work well for Audible books.

Yeah I just bought one with 2GB from staples for about 25 dollars and the nuvi does read it I just wanted to back up stuff I have on the Nuvi thanks a lot everyone!!

2GB of any type also works in a c550 and c330 too...

Paul

The garmin units all seem to work fine with SD cards, which is all that are 2GB and smaller. 8GB and larger are all SDHC cards and some units can handle SDHC, but make sure before you buy. 4GB are either SD or SDHC so make sure you are getting what you think you are getting.

The difference is how the card addresses memory. It allows for higher capacty (HC) on the card with fast access.

I believe the latest Zumo firmware works with SDHC cards, but I don't know anybody that has tried one.

and the c530

I have a 2 GB in my Nuvi 680 seems to work good so far but I only have about a dozen pictures on it...........Dave

My Nuvi 680 reads a 4 GB SD card just fine. Got it at Buy.com for $30.

First off great site! I had no idea how good the PS technology had become and the POI what a great feature. Anyway I have a motorbike and recently bought the Zumo550. I had a VERY hard time finding out what cards I could use. I bought the following:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E168202111...
Its an a data 8gb sdhc card, the hc stands for high capacity and requires a special reader. When I first installed the card my GPS would freeze when loading maps and would not boot. I updated the zumo from the garmin web site and "bam" it now works great. I have loaded up 4 gigs of mp3s and it still works great and it does not cause the unit to operate slowly. I have not tried filling above 4 gigs the behavior may change due to the limitations of FAT32 files systems etc...

Slight threadjack: scouser, have you checked out the Zumo Forum?

http://zumoforums.com/zumo/index.php
.

does the speed of the SD card affect how fast the map loads? Because i have the ique m3 and the maps take some time to load up.

Thanks for the link thats awesome!
I played around a little more with the sdhc card. Loaded it up with 7.2 gigs of mp3, shut it down and it would not start back up! Took the card out still nothing. So last ditch effort was to take out the battery before I had to accept my GPS broke withing 1 week of owning it and it came back around. My pc saw the card my zumo did not. Formatted the card and put 4 gigs back on it works fine. What I have noticed is, the maps DO NOT load slowly, it will take quite sometime for the GPS to read the card when it has a lot of info on it. I suspect that you can fill it however you will have to wait 4-5 minutes for the GPS to read it.

I think you can find 2Gb cards on EBay for $20-25 or something.

Just tried my co-worker's 4GB SD card and it worked fine.

I checked with Garmin on that. You can use any SD card as long as it is not a high speed card. I bought a SanDisk 1GB card and download POIs to it

I have spoken to someone at Garmin and if you give them the model of your unit, they will tell you which size you can use.

I have the Nuvi 360 and was able to use a 4gb card with no problem.
I wasted most of it with MP3s and JPEGS though.

The rep told me to use major brands, like SANDISK which I did buy at CostCo.
Very inexpensive.
2gb goes for about $34.99 (New York)

Yeah I bought a 2gig Sandisk I use it to back up POI's just in case my computer ever goes thanks to everyone for your help on this

I contacted Garmin because the literature did not address the issue well. I received a reply that, with my model, you can use up to 2 GB SD cards. I bought one from CompUSA and it works well. I am not aware of the size limit for other models.

The c530 can use a 4GB card.

you can always check the lowest prices for cards at www.dealram.com

I posed that question to Garmin tech. Reply was any card will work, but do not use high speed cards

I bought a 4GB SD card at buy.com for $30 with free shipping and another one at Woot.com for $25 plus $5 shipping and they work fine in my nuvi 670. If you watch online at some of the sites that I have listed below you can find 1-2 GB cards for very low prices (well under $20) and in some cases free after rebate. They are not always there but when they are they're a great deal.

http://www.dealigg.com
http://www.cheapstingybargains.com
http://dealspl.us/
http://dealigg.com/

For thoes of you that are thinking, humm 8GB is twice the space forget it. 4GB is the max that is supported. The SDHC cards won't work and the larger the card the slower your maps will load from a cold start.

I agree... Buy.com is a really great site. I have purchased a bunch of toys from them. They even tell you if a competitor has a better .

I have 3 2GB cards and one 1GB SD card that I use with my digital camera and Nuvi 360(use one of the 2GB cards for my Nuvi). I've got the Kingston 2 GB and Transcend 2 GB and 1 GB. All work just fine and all bought from Fry's Electronic store or online at www.frys.com. Just started loading mp3's and pics to the card. Dont know how POI's I need for the 2GB, so I load mp3's and pics to it. I just bought a "US SPEC DF-TOY Aux input" unit for the Nuvi to play mp3 through my factory radio. Let me tell you it works great! Ten times better than the Belkin fm transmitter I bought a few weeks ago. Got the external mic for the bluetooth. Thats works good too. As far as the pics I have loaded on the card. I have about 25 pics of the family and our travels. With all that and the POI's I have on the card I still have 1 and half GB of free space. What to do with all that free space!?