aud78

Thanks everybody! I've called Garmin today and technician said that "although most of the time 8 Gb will be working, sometimes it will experience lockups and some of these lockups can only be recovered by Garmin". He also recommended no higher than Class 2. I was not able to find users complaining about the 8 GB card triggered lockups in any forum. Has anybody experienced that/seen users complaining? Looks like it may be mistaken with the "Memory Full" msg/lockup which was fixed in 2.4. Thanks, Aud

Thanks! Anybody had success with 8 GB? Aud

All, I would like to ask a few questions regarding microSD card for Garmin Oregon. I am planning to use it to store topos from http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ which are very detailed but take huge amounts of storage. 1. What is the largest capacity you’ve actually seen working fine in Oregon? 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB? 2. Can anybody confirm successfully using Class 6? Class 4? Class 2? 3. Does throughput makes an observable difference in map rendering performance? Would it be waste of money to buy faster microSD because bottleneck is not data throughput? Thanks! Aud

Notnormal, I haven’t seen the other version of 260W but based on what I’ve read in forums apparently I have the newer one. Kallt, I just uploaded your custom vehicle to my Nuvi and it is really awesome! Thanks. Rygel, I tested everything on 265WT and it worked fine. The only potential issue I noticed is that in “Lock” mode the backlight is very dim but still on. That may further decrease battery life. On another hand, screen seems to be brighter than on 260W. Extra info for “Upload your tracks to Nuvi”: I’ve noticed that if the name of any of the trail segments includes space, MapMan will through “Unexpected Exception”. And if mapset name includes space, MapSet ToolKit will say “Operation Aborted”. In both cases not too straightforward to figure out what’s wrong. Question: has anyone managed to import trails into Nuvi in such a way that they are routable on the unit when it’s in pedestrian mode? Aud

The "noise" question intrigued me and I did my little research Aud

Goal It is very hard to learn anything objective about how leading outdoors GPS units compare by amount of complaints and problem reports. Here is my quick attempt to get relative numbers of user complaints about Garmin Oregon, DeLorme PN-40 and Magellan Triton units. Method I used Google search to estimate how many times each of the three units was mentioned on web and what portion the pages mentioning the unit included keywords "problem", "issue" or "bug". First I put "DeLorme PN-40", "Garmin Oregon" and "Magellan Triton" in the "all these words" box in Google Advance Search screen. Then I repeated the same three searches but with "problem", "issue" and "bug" added in the "one or more of these words" box. Then I calculated ratio between the first and second result set to estimate what percentage of pages mentioning specific unit may be related to the complaint. Results Magellan Triton: 728,000 total, 117,000 complaints, complaint ratio: 16% Garmin Oregon: 5,130,000 total, 561,000 complaints, complaint ratio: 11% Delorme PN-40: 39,100 total, 8,670 complaints, complaint ratio: 22% Conclusion Of the three units compared, users are complaining least about Garmin Oregon. Triton accounts for 45% more complaints than Oregon. PN-40 triggers complaints twice as often as Oregon and 37% more often than Triton. Limitations and further research There could be some noise in the results because of phrases like "encountered no problems" or "had no issues". As vast majority of results are from web forums, there might be discrepancy due to the fact that once a user reports a problem, others tend to reply "yes, I also have this issue" on the same topic page rather than starting new one; in this case many reports of the same issue are counted as single issue. GPS units with liberal return policies might have lower number of complaints on web because people may just return them instead of complaining. Also, this research ignores the fact that user complaints might differ a lot per area of application. For example, unit perfect for geocaching might have lots of complaints about maps. Repeating research with "Magellan Triton geocaching", "Magellan Triton maps", etc. instead of generic "Magellan Triton" would be more useful for people with narrower GPS applications. Volunteers to both verify my results as well as expand them by adding more units and specific application areas are more than welcome. Aud

Temporary not having any hiking GPS unit I decided to check out what my now discontinued Nuvi 260W was capable off. To my big surprise hiking experience was comparable if not better than my two previous outdoors units. With virtually no effort and zero cost I had very detailed Topos and with a reasonable effort my large track library was rendering as bright orange lines. Geotagging couple dozen photos was a breeze and I had some unexpected nice features like beeping when approaching an easy to miss trail intersection. I thought I will share my not-too-detailed “howto” here. Feel free to inquiry about any step if you need help. Please note that on other Nuvis menu names may differ from my 260W. Configure hiking friendly settings (Easy) 1. Enable recorded track display (Tools->Settings->Map->Trip Log->Show) 2. Change map to 2D (Tools->Settings->Map->Map View->Track Up) 3. Change default vehicle icon to feet icon (Tools->Settings->Map->Vehicle->Change…) Upload topos to Nuvi (Easy) 1. Install Mapsource 2. Download/install Topos for your state(s) 3. Using Mapsource, send to the unit segments you want 4. On the device, disable the build in City Navigator map and enable the one you uploaded (Tools->Settings->Map->Map Info) Upload your tracks to Nuvi (Moderate) Note: as Nuvi does not render uploaded GPX tracks, the only way I was able to get tracks rendered was by creating a transparent map. 1. Install MapMan, cGPSMapper Free and MapSet Toolkit 2. Configure MapMan and MapSet Toolkit to point to installed cGPSMapper 3. Launch MapMan and start new map 4. Import your GPX files 5. Convert tracks to lines (Tools->Convert->Tracks to Line; select all your tracks; under “Convert to” choose how you want your tracks to appear on the map (after couple experiments I found that “Road: Arterial Route” renders as orange line which contrasts well with green, white or black background and is easy to distinguish from Topo contour lines); click “Ok”) 6. Export map (Export->Map and optionally compile/upload; give it a name and some unique ID; check “transparent map”; click “Ok”; answer “Yes” once prompted to create an image file; choose “No” when prompted to upload to GPS). 7. Launch MapSet ToolKit 8. Click “Select IMG”, chose the folder you save your MapMan files, click “Ok”, select [iD].img file and click “Add” 9. Choose mapset directory, type mapset name you wish, enter any number in “family ID” and “Product Code” fields. 10. Check “Install in Mapsource” and click "Start” 11. Start MapSource (restart if it is running) and send your new map to the GPS unit Geotag your pictures (Easy) 1. Make sure your camera’s clock is correct before shooting 2. Make sure GPS is on and has acquired satellite connection when you are shooting 3. Launch gpicsync, point it to the picture folder 4. Connect the unit, click “GPS file”, and point it to “[Garmin Drive]:\Garmin\GPX\Current.gpx” 5. Set the UTF Offset to the difference between your local time and GMT (in EST case it’s “-5”) 6. Click “Synchronize!” Beeping when approaching track intersection (Moderate) 1. Launch Google Earth and load your tracks there 2. Create a folder in My Places 3. Add placemarks on the intersections of the trail you are planning to hike and save them in the new folder 4. Save the folder as KML and convert it to GPX (e.g. using gpsbabel) 5. Load the GPX into your Nuvi using Garmin’s POI loader and set the desired proximity alert Limitations: 1. 260W’s screen is absolutely unreadable on a bright day (although in a store it seems to be much brighter than Oregon). You will need to bump up the backlight to 100% AND find a shade 2. Battery capacity makes all-day hike impossible. In “lock screen” mode the most I got was 5 hrs (although with frequent map browsing with backlight at 100%) 3. No way to use the unit in portrait layout. Still, amount of pixels available for map of what's in front of you is 2-4 times larger than on PN-40 Too much is written already on geocaching with Nuvi, so I'll skip on that. Orange lines are trails from my library. I will be happy to answer any questions. Aud

Well, you have me there. I have some of the same quibbles with the PN40, and yet the marketing folks would defend them. "Serious maps" - I find nothing funny about them, do you? <skip> In any case, I don't think any of those things would be actionable by FTC or other agencies. There are other options and remedies, up to and including a liberal return policy. I only suggested that WAAS stuff may qualify for FTC investigation, nothing else. It is well defined in specs and testable/provable. Everything else is my subjective opinion. Regarding maps: there is a large lake missing at [ 41°13'57.72"N ; 74° 7'37.07"W], huge nonexistent twist on the most famous trail in USA at [N41° 15.7862' W74° 8.9059'], misplaced roads in Upstate New York - just a few examples I noticed during my couple hikes during the two week period I owned the unit. Once I posted my findings, there were lots of replies about similar inaccuracies and general consensus that DeLorme's topo is very inaccurate compared to other providers. So, I find it unfair for them to make a selling point of "Serious maps". Aud In which case the same case can be made for the Garmin Oregon. Same chipset same WAAS problems, more erratic tracking before the fixes started coming in shortly after DeLorme announced they were almost ready to release a beta FW fix. I'm not seeing any noise about this. Why is that? Couldn't agree more - any manufacturer who sold WAAS incapable GPS unit with "WAAS" label on the box must recall and replace all units immediately. And I also wonder, if that's really fault of the chip and not the firmware, why don't we hear the noise about Garmin Oregon? Very strange. Aud

Well, you have me there. I have some of the same quibbles with the PN40, and yet the marketing folks would defend them. "Serious maps" - I find nothing funny about them, do you? <skip> In any case, I don't think any of those things would be actionable by FTC or other agencies. There are other options and remedies, up to and including a liberal return policy. I only suggested that WAAS stuff may qualify for FTC investigation, nothing else. It is well defined in specs and testable/provable. Everything else is my subjective opinion. Regarding maps: there is a large lake missing at [ 41°13'57.72"N ; 74° 7'37.07"W], huge nonexistent twist on the most famous trail in USA at [N41° 15.7862' W74° 8.9059'], misplaced roads in Upstate New York - just a few examples I noticed during my couple hikes during the two week period I owned the unit. Once I posted my findings, there were lots of replies about similar inaccuracies and general consensus that DeLorme's topo is very inaccurate compared to other providers. So, I find it unfair for them to make a selling point of "Serious maps". Aud

Not here to battle with words? Nonsense - you already are. Look, I'm very aware - and I'm one of the loudest complainers about - some of the flaws in the PN-40. I've been taken to task for strong language on that subject. But when you talk about "unsubstantiated claims" and suggesting FTC or other government agency action, well, dem's fighting words. Not to sound too much like a lawyer here, but you'd have to show DeLorme made specific untrue claims for the product, that a significant number of purchasers were harmed buy this, and that the company did not offer any kind of remedy for them. What I see is a relatively new product with bugs and QC problems that affect some but not all users. DeLorme is working on those, and there's always the 30-day money back offer if you find the product unsuitable to your needs. That's quite a bit different - isn't it? I believe there is only one item that may be worth FTC attention. PN-40 is marketed as WAAS enabled. There seems to be widespread consensus that majority of sold PN-40s are not capable of reasonably maintaining WAAS lock. As WAAS is intended to improve accuracy 3x, effectively unit is 3 times less accurate than marketed. This is measurable and provable. Core function of the GPS is accurately identifying global position. It would find it problematic if manufacturer can easily get away with being 3 times outside of the core specification. Even if current beta firmware or next release would fix it, DeLorme still is guilty for keeping users without advertised feature for a while. This may very well also apply to Garmin, Magellan and others which does not make DeLorme any more or less guilty. Apparently these days less than fair marketing of outdoors GPS units is becoming an industry standard. DeLorme goes an extra mile here. “Serious maps” – I am yet to find less accurate Topos. “High resolution screen” – 220x176. “Blazing fast” - any low-end Nuvi draws detailed map faster on 480x272 than PN-40 on its tiny screen. “Easily exchange tracks” – no, you can’t connect two units to the PC and drag GPX files from one to another (or send them wirelessly while in the woods). It takes proprietary software and significant clicking. And, if you want to see more than one imported track on the screen, you’ll be creating a custom map. If this is easy, what is hard then? And the whole North Pole campaign… 55 days with its appetite for batteries? “Temperatures down to -60F” when spec says PN-40’s low limit is -20C (-4F)? Give me a break… Aud

There is more than enough info on web to realize that you have to see the Oregon screen in sunlight yourself before buying the unit. Many people claim they’ve returned it just because of the dim screen and others say it’s not a problem and you can see it clearly once you bump up the backlight. After unsuccessfully trying to convince managers of three Best Buy stores to walk out of the building with me with their demo Oregon unit on a sunny day I said fine – I’ll buy it and return it if screen is too dim. Unfortunately I had to return it 20 seconds after signing credit card slip as I noticed a sticker saying “15% restocking fee if opened”. Staffer said Oregon 400t was an exception to their standard 30-day no-cost return policy. I wasn’t able to find the unit on display in any other store and online retailers all charge 10% to 20% restocking fee, except REI which lists it for $100 more than others and still does not refund shipping both ways. And buying it from REI knowing that I would return it even if I liked it to get the better price elsewhere would be not very fair. Any advice how to see Oregon’s screen on a sunny day outdoors for 5 minutes without paying $50 would be greatly appreciated. And if some owner would be so kind to show it to me over lunch in Manhattan, lunch is on me . Please note that the topic of this post is not if screen is bright or not. It’s about how to evaluate brightness risk-free. Thanks, Aud

You mean like these guys? Sorry, I could not resist making fun of their north pole campaign . Aud

Exactly, it's a science project without a merit badge at best. It's like putting your car on a dynamometer to detemine gas mileage to four decimal places. Just fill 'er up when the gauge gets to 3/4 empty. It's more like measuring how many miles you make with one gallon so you can calculate how many you'll make with 20 gallon tank. See embra's post - measurement was already done and result is very clear. PN-40 draws 200 mA while 60CSx draws 88 mA. With identical batteries you will get 227% more time on 60CSx than on PN-40, assuming backlight is not used on either. Assuming we all here want to help people make informed buying decisions, this is quality information unlike "I love it" or "I just hate it". This is just a plain fact - PN-40 consumes 2x+ more energy than 60CSx. For somebody it does not matter at all because they geocache for couple hours per trip. For others it matters a lot because they do 5 day backpack trips (for go to north pole ). Aud

If an owner of PN-40 could kindly measure actual current drawn by device in various conditions using ammeter, we could compare apples to apples. 60CSx draws 88 mA with no backlight and WAAS disabled. What’s the PN-40 number? Garmin numbers are here. Aud

I wrote a detailed negative review couple weeks ago - take a look. Be sure to also check out positive reviews to balance it out Aud

Hi, I had the same decision to make 3 weeks ago. I purchased PN-40 and described my experiences in this thread. PN-40 is back in store, I will be getting 400t in couple days. Just that PN-40 didn't work for me does not mean it will not work for you. It's a good unit if you have right expectations. Regards, Aud

Thanks Robert. Dead silence of Bushnell users speaks for itself. Aud

If nobody criticized things without having a better alternative… what would be an incentive to create that better alternative in the first place? You would be geocaching by stars now

Dear users of Bushnell GPS units, I would like to ask your help understanding the quality and performance of Onix 400 and other Bushnell models. I was not able to find a detailed review anywhere. A handful of posted user comments are not too specific, usually on extreme sides of positive or negative. The Onix looks excellent on specs but how does it really perform? Would you mind answering questions below. My intention is to wait for 2-3 days and then post summarized user observations under each category for future reference of those who are about to make buying decision. Please feel free to add other questions/categories if there is something else where Bushnell stands out or has an issue. 1. Is your Bushnell consistently acquiring and maintaining WAAS lock? 2. What is the accuracy range in flat open areas and how does unit perform in mountains or under heavy foliage? 3. Does unit ever loose satellite lock without apparent reason? Does it always reestablish lock without rebooting after being indoors or losing the lock due to other reasons? 4. Is the screen sunlight readable? Are information fields and current position indicator laid out in a way to make most of the 240x320 available for map of area in front of you? 5. Is the subscription imagery hi resolution commercial or lower resolution USGS? 6. Is imagery subscription service reliable and usable? Any hassles getting it into the unit? 7. How accurate and detailed are the Topo maps? 8. How easy is track and waypoint exchange? Can you upload/download the tracks using popular third party applications? 9. Does the unit support paperless geocaching? 10. How is the battery life? Can you really reach promised 20 hours with good rechargeables? 11. How is the customer service? Could I expect Bushnell employee's response in this forum as Delorme does ? 12. Are the XM live weather maps usable and useful? Thanks a lot! Aud

Wow, there was quite some activity here! I really appreciate everyone's replies. And I must say that getting such a detailed reply from the company employee on a third party forum within hours and on weekend - is truly amazing. I could not agree more with GIDEONkjv that this makes DeLorme to stand out from the crowd in today's worsening customer service culture. Here are a few updates, clarifications and new problem reports. Bugs 14. Track recording stopped once Active Track was full. I hiked about 12 miles yesterday with intention to cover whole hike with geotagged photos for Google Earth/Panoramio. I forgot to save an Active Track day before yesterday and when I started it was 80% or so full. I was checking the GPS every 5-10 minutes and observed the green active track being recorded as always. After about 6 miles and couple dozen of photos I noticed that there was no more green line next to the current position. Once zoomed out, I saw that 0.5 miles or so behind me were not recorded. Once I switched to the track page, I found "record" set to "on" but track memory showed "0%". There was a new track in the track list with yesterday's date. I saved the active track, turned device off and on and then recording resumed at the current position. This way I lost about 0.5 miles of track record and locations of couple photos. 15. Track got corrupted with no way to be copied into Topo or viewed on device. Once I got home, I was able to copy the Active Track to the Topo. But I got "Error retrieving data (Can't open track)" once I tried to copy the automatically saved one (see above). Topo 7 displays its length and point count but does not let to copy it. This way I lost about 6 miles more of track record and location of a dozen of photos. 16. Partial imagery display. I downloaded 4 quads of color aerial, created a single map file (I believe it was 15 mb) and uploaded to the unit. I only saw 20% or so of the first quad and no other quads at all, no matter what I did. I recreated the map file and reuploaded to the PN-40 but got identical result. Then I saved each quad as an individual map and once uploaded to the unit, everything worked as expected. Updates/clarifications 2. Accuracy. Yesterday after looking for cache for good 5 minutes, I suddenly realized that I am observing 100% proof of too optimistic accuracy estimate. Here's what happened: slowly walking towards the spot I saw remaining distance gradually decreasing and accuracy estimate occasionally switching between 6,8 and 10 feet. Once I was <2 feet away, suddenly PN-40 suggested another direction and the remaining distance instantly changed to 17, 24, 34 and more feet, keeping the same accuracy estimate. The same happened many times. The location this happened was within yards from the 100 feet tall boulder and with plenty of smaller boulders. 3. Loosing lock. To Chip: all cases of loosing lock happened with 2.5. May I propose not so elegant but easy and effective solution: introduce a setting "restart unit automatically if GPS lock is not reestablished in ... minutes" (configurable amount of minutes). That would be good enough for my needs. 5. Screen. Moving "current position" marker way down would be very helpful for my use. 8. Topo. Yesterday I hiked a segment of Appalachian trail and here is another example of grossly inaccurate map. Trail is off by hundreds of feet and shows nonexistent twists (e.g. N41° 15.7862' W74° 8.9059'). I have no idea how mapping business works and if providers share or buy each other's data, but in this particular case NJ NY Trail Commission has a very accurate digital map - in case you are interested in improving Topo's accuracy. 9. Imagery. To Searching_ut: the disappointment for me actually was not only the quality of the imagery but also the DeLorme's business model. Before purchasing PN-50 I had impression (due to the lack of research of course) that DeLorme owns commercial satellite imagery which it is licensing for use on Topo 7 and GPS units. But what I found was that they are actually selling public domain USGS imagery which is free for everyone for any use. So essentially they are charging $30/year for the permission to use the feature (raster/imagery in GPS) for which you already paid buying the unit. 11. Netlink. TotemLake user also reported email delivery problem last week and my next attempt was a lot more successful - I got email within minutes and I reached download speed of about 200k. 12. Speed. To Chip: 5 seconds was when zooming out to the area covering hundreds of miles of imported trails and at least 100 of waypoints, no imagery. Identical map draws in about 0.3 seconds on my old Magellan Crossover 13. Battery power. To TotemLake: I easily get 3D lock inside my house and train with no power save and only see couple red bars with power save on. This was constantly reproducible. Conclusion part II As I write this post my unit is already back in store. In addition to loosing lock I just could not accept the fact it lost my track data. I wish DeLorme and its users all the best and I am pretty sure I will be soon looking at the PN-60 with a larger screen, file system-like access to tracks and waypoints, good battery life and significantly improved GPS reliability. To CowboyPapa: I wish I knew the answer. On paper Bushnell Onix 400 looks really great - has large screen, satellite imagery, real time XM radar maps showing approaching rain/snow, true power saving mode and all kinds of other stuff you may only dream about. But when I google for reviews, I can find just a handful which are either on extreme positive or extreme negative side and neither detailed nor specific (like mine ). Reputable stores like B&H mark it as a "special item" which cannot be returned even after one day. Something is wrong and I am not going that way. If anyone could point me to quality info about Onix, would really appreciate it. I’ll start a new topic. I realize that ideal gadget for my needs would be a waterproof tough Windows Mobile unit with good battery life and built in high quality GPS receiver. After some research I found Trimble GeoXT, but chuckled once saw the price. 7k+ I am thinking about giving Oregon a try. Probably I will go to the Best Buy on a bright sunny day and ask a sales rep to walk with me outside so I can take a look at the screen without the hassle of buying and returning it. MtnHermit, here are a few pictures of Oregon in sunlight I found on web. Does not look too promising compared to your Colorado. 1, 2, 3 Aud

I spent two weeks actively using my new PN-40 and I would like to share my observations. There are lots of reviews stressing on positive sides of PN-40, so I will skip on that. I hope listing the issues will help people to make more informed buying decision. I spent significant amount of time reading forums and vast majority of issues I listed here are well discussed but with no solutions. Nevertheless, if you know the workaround or solution, I would really appreciate your reply. First about myself: I use GPS technology for a variety of activities for a while. That includes contributing hundreds of geotagged photos to Google Earth via Panoramio, building recorded track database of less known trails, taking off-trail hikes planned using Google Earth imagery, geocaching and many other. I am in software industry for many years and I am used to all kinds of user interfaces and have no issues with learning yet another one. Receiver 1. WAAS. PN-40 in practice is not a WAAS-enabled GPS. With firmware 2.0 the best I could get was one blue bar for a few seconds. With 2.5 I was able to get a lock once after spending 30 minutes in the middle of the stadium. I was not able to do that again anywhere including the top of the hill with 20 miles clear view in all directions. 2. Accuracy. With firmware 2.0 estimated accuracy never got better than 20 feet. I verified actual accuracy by recording multiple waypoints on clearly visible places like the center of paved trail crossing or specific place in a parking lot and measuring its distance to the place as seen on Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth and Yahoo Maps. Delta of imagery across providers was never more than 1-2 feet; delta with my waypoint was 20-15 feet, depending on location. Once upgraded to 2.5, I saw much better accuracy estimates on the device - 10, 8, 6 feet - but once I repeated the test I did not observe any real accuracy improvement. Apparently firmware upgrade only improved accuracy estimate but not the true accuracy. 3. Loosing lock. This is the single most important reason why I am about to return the device back to the store. Without any appearent reason PN-40 looses satellite lock and is not able to lock again unless I turn it off and on. That happened only three times in two weeks of active testing. I was standing in an open area and just watched the dance of red bars until I finally was prompted to disable the GPS. I chose not to but waiting more did not help. Turning the device of and back on resulted in a strong 3D lock within couple seconds. I expect my GPS unit to reliably record the track while sitting in my backpack. If it loses lock due to some reason, I expect it to lock in again once signal becomes available. Without this geotagging becomes a nightmare. I cannot be checking the unit every 5 minutes to see if it needs reboot to restore the connection. 4. Manhattan. In dense skyscraper areas PN-40 was not capable maintaining lock. Neither my Garmin Nuvi 260 nor my Magellan Crossover does well in Manhattan - they occasionally lose connection or show me 100 yards away from the real position - but they are still usable there. PN-40 just offers to turn off GPS to save the power... Interface 5. Screen. It's 220x176=39kpix. Oregon has 250% more pixels. My old Crossover has more than double. Also, unlike Oregon or Crossover, information fields are not transparent AND your position is in the middle of the remaining screen, not at the bottom. So if you have two rows of info fields on, only about 30 pixel tall area of the screen is available to see where you are going. I have 180 pixels or so to see what's ahead of me on Crossover. What difference does it make if you have aerial imagery, USGS 24s or just a black 30 pixels? Not big to me. 6. Buttons. There is no keypad lock. In many instances when I took the device out of my pocket I found it in other screen when before butting it there. Fortunately, I didn't delete tracks by accident and didn't power it off - although "power" and "enter" to confirm power off are next to each other - you would think they would be the most distant buttons. And also you would think that short click on "power" would have some other function and you would need to hold it for a while to power it off. It's vice versa; you need to hold it to adjust screen brightness and only short click is enough to be prompted for power off. 7. Computer connection. After hiking with your friend you stop in his house to take a look at the recorded track on Google Earth? No way except if he buys Delorme Topo! None of the non-Delorme GPS applications, free or expensive, will exchange tracks or read waypoints. The only thing you can do outside of Delorme's apps is upload waypoints and geocaches into the unit via "send to gps" browser plugin and obtain GPS position from the unit via Delorme Serial Emulator. There is no API you could get from Delorme to implement data exchange yourself. There is a serial protocol ("DelBin") documentation published, but that's raw data definition, you would need to implement API from scratch. Maps 8. Topo. Check [ 41°13'57.72"N ; 74° 7'37.07"W] on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, USGS - you pick. Now check TOPO USA 7.0. I also could not believe my eyes. Delorme thinks this lake does not exist. Unless you downloaded areal imagery or USGS quads, you would either hike straight into the lake or miss the most beautiful part of the popular canoeing trip. 9. Imagery. It is NOT like having Google Earth in your pocket. Urban "high resolution" is not even comparable to Google, Microsoft or Yahoo imagery. And non-urban places where most people hike are limited to the 1-meter resolution. Looking at Google imagery I can judge pretty well if area is walkable or there are dense bushes; or if there is an opening at the top of the hill with a potential vista. While in the woods with PN-40, areal imagery was irrelevant due to very low resolution. Just a low contrast gray texture. 10. Custom maps. Unless you pay $200 more for XMAP, there is no way to upload better imagery, scanned map or anything else custom into the unit. There is no demo version and according to forums, procedure is very problematic. Delorme failed to build enough trust in me so that I would risk paying $200 just to find out that it does not do what it promises. 11. Netlink. It looks like it is intentionally made to ensure users get as few maps as possible. Once you choose what you want to download, instead of seeing download progress bar you get a message telling that Delorme will inform you by email when you can start downloading your selection (!). I did not get any email for 24 hours but without any warnings suddenly download become available in Topo USA. The download was slow. Also there is a maximum download size. Performance 12. Speed. I am really deeply puzzled about this. It takes at least 0.3 seconds to redraw the map with just a few lines on it. It easily takes 1-2 seconds to redraw map with several topo lines and imagery. Once you zoom out, redraw can take 5 seconds and more. If this is "blazing fast", what is slow then? Is it possible that none of the people who wrote PN-40 reviews had Oregon or Triton in their hands? And the slowness is even more striking when you realize that PN-40 only has to draw a fraction of the map displayed on other units because of its tiny resolution. 13. Battery life. All my tests are with backlight always off. With the Energizer NIMH 2x2000 mah I never passed 4 hrs mark, usually about 3.5 hrs. Better results with Energizer "Industrial" - up to 5 hrs. I did not buy DeLorme's Li-Ion RCR-VC3, maybe with that one it is possible to reach 8 hrs. It is unpractical to use "Power Saving" mode while having GPS in the backpack, because it weakens reception a lot and does not disable other unnecessary power consuming features, like continuously reading SD card to redraw aerial imagery. Use case Here is a true use case to illustrate how my life with PN-40 was the last couple weeks. The park I hike most has about 200 miles of interconnected trails. Delorme has about 10% covered in Topo. I have about 50% covered via hikes recorded myself, downloaded from various track sharing sites and carefully drawing lines as seen via aerial imagery. I imported my whole library in Topo 7, copied it to the Draw layer, exported to a map and copied it to the unit. I hiked both in covered and uncovered trails and once I came back I wanted to add the new recording to my library and take a look at the hike via Google Earth. What used to be a trivial task with Crossover, took me the following steps with PN-40: 1. Connect to the unit; 2. Choose "data exchange" on the unit; 3. Start Topo 7; 4. Click on exchange icon; 5. Chose the newly recorded track; 6. Import; 7. Go to "Draw"; 8. Click "File" -> export to GPX (steps to convert to KML skipped); 9. Copy the track to draw layer (before that making sure that line color/style is what it needs to be); 10. Navigate to the park; 11. Click "handheld export"; 12. Click "Select/Edit"; 13. Choose right grid size; 14. Click on each block to make sure whole park is selected; 15. Type the map name; 16. Click options and make sure only "draw" is being exported; 17. Click "Save"; 18. Click "exchange"; 19. On the unit, change the computer connection type to "Map transfer"; 20. Copy the map. 21. Ok, where was that DelBin spec? Conclusion If you will like or hate PN-40 depends entirely on your expectations and usage. None of consumer grade units is perfect; Oregon has sunlight unreadable screen and Triton, I better don't even start... For me PN-40 on specs/reviews seemed to be an excellent choice but after actually using it I was overwhelmed by its shortcomings. Still, I probably would keep it if there was a new firmware which would 100% eliminate (3) - Loosing Lock issue and if it had a usable API so I can write a little app to extract tracks/waypoints and convert them to GPX/KML with a single click. Aud