Direct Route Vs. Topo Vs. Streets And Destinations

[stevethecache]

I am looking at getting a better map set for my eXplorist 210. The included US in the direct route package is a definite bonus and a wanted one. As the eXplorist 210 only has 22mb of memory it is essential that a whole city would be able to fit on the unit at a time. Which of the three (Direct Route vs. Topo vs. Streets and Destinations) would best suit my Canadian needs. I would like turn-by-turn directions also. Is this included in Streets and Destinations?? Too Many Choices!

[+Gorak]

Only Direct Route will give you turn-by-turn directions and it is the only one with US maps. However, it will use considerably more memory for a given region than the others and is missing quite a bit of road detail outside the cities. Topo, aside from being the only of the three to show topographic info, has more road detail outside the cities than DR and uses less memory. S&D uses the least amount of memory of the three and has pretty detailed road information. Of the 3, Topo is the one I use the most unless I am in a strange city and need routing.

[ertyu]

It basically boils down to where the map data comes from, either Navteq (Directroute) or DMTI (S&D or Topo). Navteq covers North America but concentrates more on the US. DMTI data is Canada specific and there are topo and non topo versions. As was mentioned DMTI is more detailed, especially rural and especially topo but also things like creeks and parks, whereas Navteq might have slightly newer/better urban road detail.

[+northernpenguin]

I generally run DirectRoute NA 2.0 on my eXplorist for routing to the geocaches. 22MB should be more than enough to fit Toronto and a good chunk of the surrounding area in. Depends where you're going though. As stated, Topo has better street & creek coverage than DR, but is missing the auto-routing. Topo Canada is definately your friend when you are looking for a trailhead.

 

DirectRoute misses an awful lot of water features that I've found only by walking right up to them, then switching to Topo and kicking myself for not doing that back at the car.

 

I am not impressed with the contour interval though - Topo Canada 1.0 is not very good for locating hills in Ontario at all. It misses the Niagara Escarpment in places. I've heard that 1.5 is better, as it uses a 5M interval instead of 10M interval - but I have yet to see the product to evaluate that particular portion.

 

Still, if I had to pick one, and only one product I'd probably use the Topo maps and route myself there.

[+Fish Below The Ice]

Are you generally satisfied with the qualifty of the maps that you get with Topo Canada? I've read on other forums that the Magellan maps for Canada are generally not that good, but I didn't know how many grains of salt to take the comment with. The comments seemed to range from "Adequate but not as good as the Garmin maps" to "Save your money", so I'm interested in hearing other opinions.

 

Also, can anyone confirm that Topo Canada v1.5 does in fact work with the Explorist 210? The Magellan web page for the product claims that the only Explorist models that it supports are 400, 500, and 600. But the 210 has USB upload/download capability, so I'm inclined to think that the 210 is supported and contrary comments on the webpage are just another example of the cranio-rectal self-insertion syndrome that we've come to expect from Magellan's marketing and support groups. Comments?

[+northernpenguin]

Are you generally satisfied with the qualifty of the maps that you get with Topo Canada? I've read on other forums that the Magellan maps for Canada are generally not that good, but I didn't know how many grains of salt to take the comment with. The comments seemed to range from "Adequate but not as good as the Garmin maps" to "Save your money", so I'm interested in hearing other opinions.

 

Also, can anyone confirm that Topo Canada v1.5 does in fact work with the Explorist 210? The Magellan web page for the product claims that the only Explorist models that it supports are 400, 500, and 600. But the 210 has USB upload/download capability, so I'm inclined to think that the 210 is supported and contrary comments on the webpage are just another example of the cranio-rectal self-insertion syndrome that we've come to expect from Magellan's marketing and support groups. Comments?

 

To answer your question, I'm going to say yes and no. The Topo product is much better than Garmin was on the street and road allowance information. It lags SEVERELY behind when plotting hills and valleys (contour lines). For what I use it for, it's a big help - it does a good job of showing me where the water features are that I may have to hike around. It also contains the road information so if you're buying ONE map product, that's one to consider. It has a little bit of trail information, but not enough to be truly useful, and I've observed the map lagging behind when I'm cruising at freeway speeds en route to the cache location.

 

As for eXplorist 210 question, someone else is going to have to answer that one - but my 'gut' instinct is that it will work. For the longest time Magellan failed to list my eXplorist 600 as compatible with DirectRoute 2.0 or Topo Canada 1.0. It wasn't until that XL hit that they got the site updated. Magellan really needs to go to marketing school, but that's another topic/rant in itself.