herofish

Well, I now have MapSource, Topo 2008 myself and an 8GB MicroSD so I am now on my way to trying to squeeze in as much as I can! Thanks again for all the help, everyone who chimed in should get a bonus from Garmin :-), but seriously thanks for letting me know it was at least close to possible to get most of the regions onto the card!

I suspect that as many have mentioned that there will continue to be growth in both areas. I now use my iphone as a turn by turn navigator, which because I am paranoid is in an otterbox defender case (LINK) while not waterproof, is seriously water resistant and impact protected. However it just doesn't have the accuracy and battery life I want when hiking, and I wouldn't want to count on it in an emergency.

Thanks everyone for all the replies -- especially ao318, that sounds great like I may be able to fit most everything on the card that I will need at this point. I will take another look at the other series when I head down to REI tomorrow.

So far based on all the various reviews, I have decided to stay away from the Oregon models as the daylight visibility of the screen seems to be a major issue. Living in Colorado, we have very intense sun and very few cloudy days. I want a strongly daylight readable screen as I can get, which is why I have focused on the GPSMAP 60CSX, and the PN-40 as the two possibilities. I am strongly in favor of the Garmin, however the main issue holding me back is the limits placed on the number of maps I can have installed on the device without switching out cards or renaming maps. On the other hand, the Garmin has a reputation for durability, accuracy and long batter life not to mention that it has a strong daylight readable screen which is a bit larger than the PN-40. I would like to go with the Garmin, however I haven't been able to determine if I can actually get trail and road routing with some sort of topo basemap for the Western States (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico + half of Texas, North Dakota and South Dakota) -- all onto one 4GB card with less than 2025 map segments. I would really like to hear if someone using tools like mkgmap, mapedit or others has been able to do something similar...

Hello, I am new to the forum and am looking for some assistance from 60CSX owners in understanding how many maps I can put on this device. Some background: I understand there is a 4GB max for the card, and the 2025 map segment limit. I looked at the PN-40 as an alternative since its main drawbacks (from reviews) seem to be battery life, small screen and lesser road navigation abilities. One item I don't think gets very good coverage on this forum is the PN-40 according to delorme support will not create a route over 500 miles long. This makes it ineffective for my road trips (at least most of them). I am looking for a device to do both BASIC on-road navigation as well as off-road driving navigation as I drive through a lot of BLM/national forest service roads in the Western US (from the Mississippi West). I spend about 80% of my navigation time in the Jeep, and about 20% on foot (off trail/road). Initially what attracted me to the Delorme was the ability to store large datasets so I could have most of the topo maps of the US (or at least west of the Miss) stored on the device locally without having to switch cards or maps. But its inability to route is a major problem for me since I want a single device to do both even though I am willing to lose some features that others like the Nuvi provide. So, I am back to the 60CSx to see if there is any way to get both the Navigate software and majority of the topo data (to cover the forest service roads and trails) onto a single SD card and access both the navigational data and topo information without having to switch cards or maps? I have heard and seen that there are user maps available which may provide enough topo information so that I don't have to use the Garmin 24K maps which won't fit on the card (due to the limits with 4G + 2025 segments) - the gpsfiledepot maps. Also, I am not sure if there is a way to reduce the # of segments for the topo maps which may help be able to store the data. Additionally, it seems that the topo maps from the gpsfiledepot dont' include navigational data, only the topo data, so I would like to hear if I can use both the navigate road map data simultaneously with the topo data...