Question About Driving Directions Software For Gps Units

[budbiss]

I am looking at purchasing my first GPS unit. I was wondering however, if I want to use it to give me turn by turn directions, do all units require you to purchase seperate software for that? Is there a free piece of software that will work? BTW, I am looking at picking up the eXplorist 400.

[Glenn W]

Sorry, but if you want to play, you have to pay. Licensing of the cartography used for the turn-by-turn auto navigation software is expensive. Nobody is going to offer a free product anytime soon. Your current options are to buy a basic mapping unit and add the software, or pay more up front and get a unit with the software already installed. Only a few receivers that are good for geocaching come with preloaded software (the Garmin Quest2 comes to mind).

[cwichura]

There are two main considerations: 1) does the unit itself support route calculation, and 2) you need the map data for the region(s) you will be driving.

 

The routing function is becoming more common even in handheld GPSr units, rather than only in GPSr units purpose-built for car navigation. I am not familiar with the Magellan line of GPSr units, but it should be fairly straight-forward to check this on the spec sheet for the unit(s) you are considering.

 

As to map data: most GPSr units have a built-in "basemap" which is very low detail. For driving, they have major highways and roadways only. The basemap will not have street-level detail. The GPSr vendors make a lot of their money by selling you map data, so to get street-level detail, you will likely have to purchase additional map data packages which you can then load into the GPSr. (In the case of the purpose-built car navigation products, they often include the map data, but the price of the GPSr unit is correspondingly higher.) So you'll need to research what stree-level map data is available for Magellan units and how much it costs.

 

The other option is to go with laptop routing software. You connect the GPSr to your laptop to provide it with your current fix, and the laptop does the turn announcements, etc., for you. Advantages are 1) a much bigger/better screen, 2) voice prompted navigation [some purpose-built GPSr units have this now too], much better tools for creating/tweaking your route before you go on your trip, and 4) the software packages can usually be had for less money than map data that you can load directly into your GPSr unit. The big con, of course, is you have to lug around a big ol' laptop with you when you want to do road navigation. (Including things like a car power adapter for the laptop...) For the USA & Canada, the two most popular packages are DeLorme's Street Atlas USA (new version due next month, which adds full coverage for Canada finally) and Microsoft Streets & Trips (already contains full USA and Canada coverage). Which one is better amounts to more of a religious war than any real significant differences. A more expensive option is ALK's CoPilot Laptop (also has USA+Canada), but it has some features that DeLorme and MS do not have (though probably not of great important unless you are driving an RV).

[+embra]

This thread has a discussion of autorouting comparing Garmin and Magellan implementations. It's a little tangential to your question, but if you're considering a GPS purchase that will be able to autoroute, it will likely have information you might find useful to consider. Edited July 15, 2006 by embra

[+IV_Warrior]

If it ever arrives, the Delorme Earthmate PN-20 will be a hand-held GPS that will be able to load maps from Delorme's Street Atlas or Topo programs. It'll also be able to load ariel data packets that have ariel photos, satelite images and USGS 7.5-minute quad maps. It'll have a color screen and is to have SiGe's SE4100L GPS receiver. That reciever is small, supposed to be fast and use less power, for longer battery life.

 

The last I heard, it'll include SD card option, and 128 MB internal memory. It'll run on standard AA's or a lithium ion rechargeable battery.

 

The only thing I've seen as far as an arrival date is "late 2006". They're a little behind on it, as I've seen reviews that said it was to be released July 05. I guess they decided to make some changes and updates to improve speed and processing power.