@sudolea Thanks for that, that clears that up !

@sudolea The SD card plays fine in other devices but I take what you say about lower bitrates. I've since loaded some lower bitrate mp3 stuff directly onto the Zumo and that seems to play OK. Can't get the volume control to work though, I have to use the bluetooth speaker volume control.

Has anybody here put a micro SD card into the back of their Zumo and played music from it ? I tried today but the playback quality was crap ! Anybody had better results ? The manual just kind of skips over the whole thing, I get the impression that Garmin would prefer you to use the Smartphone Link somehow.

I couldn't find many references to this so I started a new topic on it. My question is, has anybody figured out exactly what to do with Garmin Smart Link ?
OK, I've been expelled from the Luddite Association for getting my hands on a used Apple iPhone and installing the Garmin Smart Link app. I've worked out how to transfer routes wirelessly from MRA on my phone to my Garmin Zumo 396, and that's actually pretty nifty ! But does anyone know what to do with the rest of the Smart Link app ? Garmin doesn't know, I asked them . For example, the app shows in History a list of places that I might have visited at one point. The same with the Favourites section. But how do you clear them out ? Garmin couldn't tell me, they'd never been asked that question..... And How about the Last Mile function ? What on earth is that all about ?
Garmin is excellent in a lot of ways but it really does go off half cocked sometimes !

@Guzzist I've been transferring my routes created on MRA using GPX 1.0, the "OLD" Garmin, despite being told to use the "NEW" Garmin. Doing that I don't get straight lines !
But I also like to know where my stops are likely to be and where I can restart my route if I take an unscheduled break or diversion. This is where Waypoints are handy on a long route.

@Hans-van-de-Ven-MRA-Master I use Route, just because I've never tried using Tracks. I think I know how to generate a Track and convert it to a Route. I just can't help thinking that gives the Zumo too many opportunities to take me up some dark alley.....or worse a Toll Road !
But what the hell, let's boldly go and I'll give it a try !

@Lars-Jensen Thanks for the advice, but I'm afraid I don't use a smartphone. Yes, I know, verging on a Luddite ! I know some people can't live without them but I just don't trust the buggers !
I'm not a fan of Swiss Army Knives either. If you need a tool get a good one, not a compromise.

@PAD-0 It's not been for the want of trying with BaseCamp, I assure you. I too am mystified why some people can get to grips with it easily but it won't even download for me ?
I agree the Zumo 396 is an excellent device if you ask it to take you from point A to point B. Maybe not so good if you want to travel along a particular stretch of road ? And, of course all the "bells and whistles" can be switched off if you want.
But I'm five generations Navy so accurate navigation has been bred into me and I'm not fond of being sent down a road I didn't ask for. Unless of course I deliberately asked for a mystery tour ?
This is of course all very minor criticism when you remember navigating across a continent with paper maps .

I bought a Garmin Zumo 396 a few weeks ago to replace my Garmin Nuvi which had served me ,temperamentally, for the last 7 years.
At first I was seriously disappointed. Creating routes on MRA and transferring them to the Zumo resulted in mostly straight lines !
I even had a much closer look at Garmin Basecamp to overcome this. That was a complete waste of several days. I find it hard to believe that a company that can provide such serviceable hardware is so badly let down by abysmal software.
So back to MRA. I then found that if I transferred my routes using "GARMIN OLD GPX 1.0" I could get excellent routes with all waypoints etc clearly displayed.
MRA was back in my good books !
Back to Zumo 396. The apparatus itself is very good, a fairly clear screen, a solid mounting and easily removed. There are numerous features many of which I find frankly pure distraction. The fuel level being one of them. Every so often it stthat it arts asking you if you want the Zumo to start looking to fuel stations, often when you're concentrating on riding through a busy town centre !
The other feature that I find curious is the fact that it will occasionally ask if you want to skip the next waypoint ? Why ? I'd spent time putting the damn thing on the route ?
And once or twice, it sent me onto a Toll Road despite having carefully set both MRA and Zumo itself to avoid toll roads.
So, though at first I was close to sending it back, I'm gradually getting used to it....... although I still don't trust it !

Thanks for the replies people. That's given me some things to try.
I'll let you know what happens.....

Ronnie Weaver.