New Gps Unit From Garmin

[harizanov]

http://www.garmin.com/products/nuvi/

 

[+mlk3454]

I have the Holux GPSlim 236 GPSr to use with my pda in the car and it works pretty good. It sits in the glovebox most of the time and has no problems keeping a signal. When I compare it side by side with my 60C though, the 60C is more accurate by a few feet in the wide open but the Holux holds pretty steady under heavy tree cover when the 60C is jumping all over. It will be pretty cool if Garmin releases a handheld like the 60C but with the SiRF III chip and expandable memory.

[+Jhwk]

looks like we are moving closer to the "perfect" GPSr for us cachers, but this one seems focused on auto use.

[+Frodo13]

Reading the releases and reviews there seems to be a focus on auto perfromance. Thats ok with each cutting edge technology the tried and true equipment seems to be abit more affordable. I am sure it will be able to handle caching, although there is a noticeable absence of its mention.

 

It looks cool, but how does she handle?

[+mlk3454]

I am willing to bet that next year there will be handheld units with the usual standard rugged features that we have now for geocaching but also including this new technology. Again, I would love to see something similar to the 60c but with this SiRFstarIII chip, expandable memory, plus other fun gadgets.

[+Spyderweb]

One of the drawbacks for Geocache use, at least for me, is the built in battery. With only 4 - 8 hours, if someone wants go out for a day of geocaching, it will have to be a short day. But, with that said, if this was available a few months ago, I probably would have got this rather than my 60C.

 

Hopefully, in the future we'll have a new handheld with all these bells and whistles.

[lumpynose]

What are the advantages of SiRF? I.e., why should I care that it uses it?

[lumpynose]

What are the advantages of SiRF? I.e., why should I care that it uses it?

Nevermind.

 

ANS: SirfII is an alternate to NMEA, providing for a new communications protocol. At this time (Aug, 2004) there are not a lot of applications that use SirfII protocols. SirfII protocols provide for more complete control of the GPS receiver as well as higher speed communications between the GPS receiver and the mapping/display application.

 

From http://www.aximsite.com/articles/link.php?id=18

[+RumJungle]

Nevermind.

 

ANS: SirfII  is an alternate to NMEA, providing for a new communications protocol. At this time (Aug, 2004) there are not a lot of applications that use SirfII  protocols. SirfII  protocols provide for more complete control of the GPS receiver as well as higher speed communications between the GPS receiver and the mapping/display application.

 

From http://www.aximsite.com/articles/link.php?id=18

I would not be so sure about having a proprietary protocol as an alternative to NMEA- SiRF binary protocol is a proprietary protocol and only SiRF GPS units understand it. NMEA protocol is managed by NMEA and will allow different software and hardware from different manufacturers to communicate with one another.

 

Thus having many different proprietary protocols will make life difficult for users to figure out how to interface their software with their GPS hardware and if it is possible.

[kerecsen]

Spyderweb wasn't referring to the SiRF protocol, but the SiRF III chipset, that provides a lot faster time-to-lock and better tracking than the Garmin chipsets do (especially the old generation that's in the 60cs).

 

Garmin recently opted to thrashcan their own chips and use SiRF III instead...

 

Btw, the primary advantage of the SiRF protocol (which you can toggle at a whim) is that it provides more information than the standard NMEA sentences, it's easier to parse for a computer and uses less bandwidth. Not huge advantages, but then again the NMEA/SiRF communication module is a very simple piece of code anyway, so it only wastes a day of the poor programmers' time.

[+RumJungle]

I think that the SiRF star III does NMEA as well. So it could go one way or another.