[Ron Leonard]

From what I have been reading, it sounds like the 2820 mp3 player uses the left-over memory to store mp3 tracks, and that this is only about 800mb. Is that correct?

If so, are there any GPS units that have mp3 players that can accept memory cards to store music tracks?

 

[Jon]

The 2820 memory cannot be expanded.

The Zumo uses SD cards for audio storage and the iWay 500c has 10GB HD space available.

 

[Bartman]

The 2820 memory cannot be expanded.

The Zumo uses SD cards for audio storage and the iWay 500c has 10GB HD space available.

Well, that's not quite accurate. While Jon is correct that the 2820/2730/2720 memory cannot be physically expanded, the unit IS filled with a BUNCH of extra voices for audio prompting that you don't need.

I downloaded all of the voice files to my computer (as a backup) and then deleted ALL but the two following files from the /garmin/Voice directory:

English_American_Jill.vpm
english_american_jill.sum

This is the TTS (Text To Speech) voice prompt that I prefer. You can choose a different one if you like. This opened up another 170MB of storage so I now have about 1 GB available. That's still a lot of music.

Bartman

 

[Ron Leonard]

This opened up another 170MB of storage so I now have about 1 GB available. That's still a lot of music.

Bartman

The other issue I have is I believe they only accept mp3 files, and not the more efficient wma format. That means half as many songs in the same amount of space. 1GB of mp3 files is OK, but it's not a lot of music.

Thanks for the tip on opening up some more space.

I assume loading the unit with mp3 files removes space for log files?

 

[Jon]

... I assume loading the unit with mp3 files removes space for log files?

No, you only get one log file on the StreetPilots and since its' capacity is fixed and limited, the available storage space is not affected.

 

[meridien]

The other issue I have is I believe they only accept mp3 files, and not the more efficient wma format.

More efficient according to whom? You can encode mp3 files at bitrates of your choice, not possible with wma. If you choose a higher bitrate for better fidelity, the files are bigger, if you choose a lower bitrate the files are smaller with poorer fidelity. GIven that you're listening on a motorcycle, you may not even notice the poorer fidelity.

Please don't say the windows wma format is more efficient - it isn't.

 

[Ron Leonard]

The other issue I have is I believe they only accept mp3 files, and not the more efficient wma format.

More efficient according to whom? You can encode mp3 files at bitrates of your choice, not possible with wma. If you choose a higher bitrate for better fidelity, the files are bigger, if you choose a lower bitrate the files are smaller with poorer fidelity. Given that you're listening on a motorcycle, you may not even notice the poorer fidelity.

Please don't say the windows wma format is more efficient - it isn't.

For the same fidelity of the same song, I believe that a song takes less space as a wma, over an mp3. From what I have read that is not in dispute.

That said, your comment is correct, songs can be encoded as mp3s at a lower bitrate without much penalty on the bike, and as I would be converting songs to mp3 solely for use on the bike, that is a good solution.

It does mean re-encoding my entire library of music however....... Oh well.