Garmin Zumo XT2 Review: In A Smartphone World, You Still Want Dedicated GPS

A few weeks ago, I took a motorcycle ride with a friend up Massachusetts’ Trans-Mass Trail. We had a pre-planned route, GPS tracks laid out ahead of time by riders far older and wiser than we, downloaded to our phones to guide us. Two riders meant redundancy, two phones meant a better chance of coverage — what could go wrong?

Just in case, however, I reached out to Garmin about testing the new Zumo XT2 GPS unit on the trail. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a backup that didn’t rely on cell signal to load maps, in the off chance neither of us had coverage. I’m glad I did — without it, I’d likely still be stuck in the woods of western Mass, eating berries and tires for sustenance.

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The Zumo line is Garmin’s top-tier offering for motorcycles — the only offering the company will recommend for roadgoing bikes, in fact, though off-roaders get a few more choices to play with. This XT2 is the top of the top, with a bigger 6 inch screen than the base 5.5 inch XT. It also gets some other options for routing and friend-tracking that the base model lacks, making it the most feature-dense option in the lineup.

But, in a more broad view, the Garmin Zumo XT2 is a GPS unit. It shows you where you are, on a map, and how to get to wherever you’re going — the same thing that any number of mobile apps can do. Why would you spend 600 of your hard-earned dollars on another device that you can lose, break, or forget to charge, when a free app can do the same thing?

Another device on your bars means another mount, another set of wires to run. Is it worth it?

Why Do You Need A Dedicated GPS In The Year Of Our Lord 2023?

The fatal flaw of cell phones, for navigation, lies right in the name: Cellular devices require cell signal to work. Stray too far from your nearest magic tree, and your thousand-dollar device suddenly becomes about as functional as a brick. The official Tetris app doesn’t even work without an internet connection, navigation is a definite no-go.