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Vehicle Nav System


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Im looking for a GPS/portable nav system for use in the car. It needs to be able to display upcoming caches, but be simple enough that the wife can use it by herself. Ive narrowed it down to four Garmin StreetPilots: the i3, i5, c320 and c330.

 

The c320 and c330 have a little bigger screen, but otherwise there are three major features Im not sure about:

 

* i3 and i5 use AA batteries while the c320 and c330 have built-in rechargables. +1 for the i3/i5

 

* the i3 and c320 use City Select on a media card. The i5 has City Navigator NT pre-programmed. The c330 has City Select pre-programmed. Dont know which is the better option here.

 

* the i3 uses a removable "TransFlash" memory card for map storage. The c320 uses a SD memory card. The i5 and c330 dont have a removable memory card. I SD is probably a better choice than the TransFlash, but I dont know if it matters.

 

Anyone have any experience with these units?

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One gentleman I know belongs to an RV club, and he's talked to lots of folks who use Garmin units, and most recommend staying away from the ones that use the mico drives, preferring to use the much more robust flash memory based units. The micro drives are actually mini hard drives, and are more susceptible to "crashing" when used in cars that encounter rough roads and bumps. Just something to consider. Personaly I don't have or use any of the units you mentioned, but if I do buy one, I'd go for a flash memory based unit, based on what I've heard. Something you might want to consider.

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If you want Mapsource which is a very powerfull tool to have, don't get the c330 or the i5. The c330 and may be the i5 have hard drives which are mechanical and you know what they say about hard drives, "its not a matter of if, but when.....".

Also, you won't get Mapsource, and before you know it, you'll regret that decision.

As an owner of the c320 for over a year, I couldn't be happier for it. I have mapsource, and can load USTopo, 24K or City Select Maps at will (and even my own custom maps).

c320 comes with a 128 mb SD, and to be honest, I've never really needed anything more. A 1 GB card will get the entire US.

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None of the above units are microdrive models.

 

Your summary of differences seems about right.

 

The choice between the models with the full country/continent loaded and the ones where you only upload what you want should be dictated by your travel patterns. If you travel widely and on short notice, having preloaded maps is a very handy thing.

 

There's lots of good info about these models in the gpspassion.com forums.

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