garmin question - SD card to load music?

Looking at picking up a 660lm when a good sale pops up. It says it has an onboard mp3 player. Does than mean that I can plug in a sd card or do you have to load the music onto the unit????

Hi Ray,

The 660 does have a micro-sd card slot to load your music onto.

Gary

The SD card is underneath the battery. It is one of those tiny ass bastages you can just barely hold in your fingers. It doesn't come with one so you have to buy it along with a way to plug it into your PC. The 660 also has an internal folder to put MP3's also and can be done without the card using Explorer drag and drop. You may not be able to load as many songs since now you are using storage space on the unit versus the Card.

Another note: If you are converting CD's to MP3 format make sure you use a high setting for transfer data otherwise the sound quality will not be there. Found this out the hard way.

Dave

I already have tunes on SD cards thanks to some folks here but they are the standard size. I'll have to figure out how to transfer the files to the micro size. I found a sale on the 660lm this morning for 349.00 so it's on the way. I'll use the 450 for SWFOG and figure out the new one for going to the black hills.

I have one of those adapters that fits multiple sizes of SD cards. Less than ten $ I believe. Wal-mart has them or staples. Now how come you didn't let us in on the find Eh!

Dave

I found this helpful. If you have a Mac, even better. I don't, but a lot of the info still applies.

Good info above.....thanks!

08FJR4ME said:

I have one of those adapters that fits multiple sizes of SD cards. Less than ten $ I believe. Wal-mart has them or staples. Now how come you didn't let us in on the find Eh!
Dave

Click to expand...

buydig.com 349.00 and free freight for the 660lm

FJRay said:

Looking at picking up a 660lm when a good sale pops up. It says it has an onboard mp3 player. Does than mean that I can plug in a sd card or do you have to load the music onto the unit????

Click to expand...

I think what folks are saying is you can load music on the SD micro card and play them on the gps. But there are conditions to be met, at least on my older nuvi. Check your manual.

- music format matters. It must be in mp3 (and maybe mp4) format. The nuvi will not play anything associated with Windows.

- the music isn't just put on the card. I had to create a folder named 'music' and put the files there so the nuvi could find them.

- I'm limited to about 800 songs on the card. Any more and the nuvi just locks up.

- Staples, WalMart, Office Depot, etc all have SD-to-micro adapters. Just buy a micro that comes with one. Transferring files is transferring files, you know how, yes?

Again YMMV but .....

rbentnail said:

FJRay said:

Looking at picking up a 660lm when a good sale pops up. It says it has an onboard mp3 player. Does than mean that I can plug in a sd card or do you have to load the music onto the unit????

Click to expand...

I think what folks are saying is you can load music on the SD micro card and play them on the gps. But there are conditions to be met, at least on my older nuvi. Check your manual.

- music format matters. It must be in mp3 (and maybe mp4) format. The nuvi will not play anything associated with Windows.

- the music isn't just put on the card. I had to create a folder named 'music' and put the files there so the nuvi could find them.

- I'm limited to about 800 songs on the card. Any more and the nuvi just locks up.

- Staples, WalMart, Office Depot, etc all have SD-to-micro adapters. Just buy a micro that comes with one. Transferring files is transferring files, you know how, yes?

Again YMMV but .....

Click to expand...

the next file I transfer will be the first.

FJRay said:

the next file I transfer will be the first.

Click to expand...

Oh. Dayum, you're less of a technogeek than I am! That my friend is just sad...

Ha, get some help from a super power nerd !

As nice as it is that the gps will play music, I find those things just so limited in their abilities... Jack of all trades master of none... Androids are way less restricted in their nature and design. My music library is littered with all sorts of different formats (aac, flac, midi, mp3, m4a, etc) it doesn't think twice about them. I just dump them on my phone and away it goes.

ITunes wants to take over everything and run your life for you... Wasnt a huge fan of that..

Rant over

Warpdrv said:

Ha, get some help from a super power nerd !
As nice as it is that the gps will play music, I find those things just so limited in their abilities... Jack of all trades master of none... Androids are way less restricted in their nature and design. My music library is littered with all sorts of different formats (aac, flac, midi, mp3, m4a, etc) it doesn't think twice about them. I just dump them on my phone and away it goes.

ITunes wants to take over everything and run your life for you... Wasnt a huge fan of that..

Rant over

Click to expand...

I generally don't use my gps for music unless I'm plugged into it in crowded urban areas. Then it plays, stops playing for turn instructions, then plays again. Nice feature but usually not used. My phone battery runs down way too fast when playing music so I don't bother with that either. I use a plain ol' fashioned mp3 player from like 2005. 20 gb memory (4gb player + 16 gb SD micro), the battery lasts at least 10 hrs on a charge and it doesn't care about the file format. The one I got is also an FM receiver so when I feel particularly energetic (read bored) I just pair the gps FM transmitter with the mp3 FM receiver for turn instructions so I don't have the earbud cable flopping about.

I use clipconverter.cc to get free tunes from youtube.

Not sure on your phone, but I'm a huge advocate of extended batteries - Galaxy S4 took a dump, picked up a LG G3, and added a double size battery with case for $40. I can get 3 days light to medium use and 2 full days heavy usage.... Plus a cradle and charging chord on the bike, its never seen a low battery every...

Amazon - search phone name and extended battery.... I got Hyperion and they are awesome....

At any rate, the phone on a ram mount gives me redundant gps if needed in addition to my garmin and both are in reach and works great for me.

Just throwing out alternatives options to the OP...

The options are fine but I'm looking forward to the end of my contract so I can use my smart phone for a target and return to my old Casio flip phone. I want to be able to plug a sd card into the gps and then it all runs through the on board system on my 03 wing . It's worked just fine with the zumo 450 and will hopefully do the same with the 660 . It seems the only obstacle is moving the tunes from the standard sd card to the micro. I'll have a couple weeks to figure that out after SWFOG before we head for the black hills. If all else fails I'll find a 6 year old to walk me through it.