Garmin Mapsource Topo or National Geographic Explorer 3D

[gerry297]

Just bought a Garmin Legend, can anyone give me an expert comparison between the two products or is the N.G State Series the way to go. Any help would be appreciated.

[+Timpat]

Just bought a Garmin Legend, can anyone give me an expert comparison between the two products or is the N.G State Series the way to go. Any help would be appreciated.

If you are intending to load maps into your Legend, you can only load MapSource mapping products.

[+BigLarry]

I use both Garmin MapSource Topo and NG TOPO!

 

I find the MapSource Topo has the most features and the easiest to use. The data is vector based and can be transfered to the computer, making it very fast to use. It also has a lot more editing features for track point editing and other things. It's especially nice for quickly flipping between roads and Topo maps to find different points. You get all of the US for the same price as one state with NG.

 

National Geographic is prettier, as it uses pictures of the USGS maps at 5 different scales. I use it mostly for making pretty maps to carry around or post for others. The inexpensive (~$25) 3D add-on is very worthwhile, and allows you to make very pretty 3D plots of your tracks, and do a motion simulation of your path through the mountains. NG also allows you to make a plot of your altitude versus distance from just the track information, and calculate net altitude gain, whereas Garmin needs the altitude from the GPS.

 

I think NG is on the way out, as it's limited in capability, high prices, and many web based services like Motion Based are doing the same thing for near free with more features, like satellite images.