Newbie needs GPS with voice too

[tashina]

My husband and I want to start geocaching this year in Austin.

 

What we have now: laptops and an HP IPAQ hx4705.

 

What we need:

 

1) a GPS for geocaching

2) a GPS for auto with voice navigation

 

My husband is in France for a month with a rental car with voice GPS and says he must have one when he gets home. The 60cx which so many recommend does not have voice. He gets lost really easily and I don't think the beeps will be enough for him.

 

What are your suggestions? We are budget minded and don't want to spend more than we need to, but we want a good solution that will last us a couple of years.

 

Should we get a compromise of a voice GPS that isn't as good as the 60Cx (will it be good enough?) or do we need to get two? Is there anything that we can do with the PDA to make it good enough for the car for less than getting a car GPS?

 

Thanks so much for helping the newbie.

[+Trucker Lee]

manufacturer sites

http://www.garmin.com/

http://www.magellangps.com/

 

comparison sites

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/electron...comparison.html

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/automoti...comparison.html

[+Red90]

The Garmin Quest is the lowest priced, waterproof unit that has voice guidance.

 

For more money, you could get a handheld for the field. Then get a bluetooth or USB GPS to plug into the laptop or PDA and then get voice guidance from either of those.

 

A good and popular low cost route is the GPS18 which comes with City Select North America for $130 and you can unlock the maps to a second unit. This means using the laptop in the car though, which requires some decent mounting.

 

The bluetooth and Sirf Garmin Mobile 10 for $200 will send data to the laptop or PPC and includes North American maps and voice guidance software. This route is more flexible as the PPC is easier to mount in the car and is more mobile.

Edited January 27, 2007 by Red90

[+Goodguys]

For car navigation with voice we use Garmin's bluetooth GPS 10 and their Que software with our iPAQ 4705. It works wonderfully. I've wired a 5 volt connection to give both units constant power - the iPAQ falls asleep when running off its internal battery.

 

For geocaching, we use Garmin 60 x-series, and recommend them highly. The iPAQ is too valuable, and not rugged enough for outdoor use.

[tashina]

Thanks everyone. Favoring ease of use over cost, maybe it would be best to get the 60cx and then get a separate voice GPS.

 

I'll take a good look at the options people gave me.

 

One question, red90 mentioned that with the gps18 you can unlock the maps to a second GPS. IF I bought the 60cx and then I bought a second touchscreen & voice auto Garmin GPS, could I use the detailed maps that come with the auto GPS on the cx60 (without paying twice)?

[+Red90]

If you buy a Garmin GPS that comes with the maps on DVD, then you can use them on a second device. However, if the maps are pre-installed like most of the auto-navigation specific units, then they can not be used on a second device.

 

If it were me, I would get the new GPS Mobile 10. It is a bluetooth GPS with Sirf receiver. The guidance software will run on the PDA that you already have and you will get maps that can be used on the 60Cx as well. In addition, if you run Cachemate on the PDA you will have all of the cache information handy. And "I think" that Cachemate can export waypoints to the mapping software on the PDA

[eaparks]

Thanks everyone. Favoring ease of use over cost, maybe it would be best to get the 60cx and then get a separate voice GPS.

 

I'll take a good look at the options people gave me.

 

One question, red90 mentioned that with the gps18 you can unlock the maps to a second GPS. IF I bought the 60cx and then I bought a second touchscreen & voice auto Garmin GPS, could I use the detailed maps that come with the auto GPS on the cx60 (without paying twice)?

 

Yes, Garmin offers the auto routing City Navigator software for street and highway use. The latest vesion is version 8, but 2 different variations are available one is an NT version and the other is not the NT. The NT version is more compressed. What this means in laymans terms is that the maps in the NT version cover a bigger area, such as 1 NT map may cover an entire state and in the non-NT version several maps may be required to cover the entire state. This comes into being of importance only when someone is loading a lot (a large part of the U.S. at one time into their GPSr). Ex. all of U.S. can be loaded on a 1 Gb memory card using the NT version; it can not be loaded on a 1Gb using the non-NT version. You will also want the Topo Map software and these maps take up more space than the City Navigator maps do in either version. The maximum number of maps that you can upload to the 60Cx is 2025 regardless of how large a memory card you have. This is what prompted the NT to be manufactured, people were reaching the limit of 2025 maps but still had a lot of memory space left on their memory cards so Garmin increased the compression of the NT maps allowing more maps to be put on the memory card. The reason I've gone into such an explanation about the NT and non-NT versions is because it sounds like you may end up with 2 GPS units and not all Garmin units will operate using the NT version, so be sure both units you end up with can accept the NT version (the 60Cx will), don't know about some of these other units you may be considering. If both units you are considering will not use the NT version, then you have to go with the regular City Navigator v8. Both of the City Navigators require an unlock code for it to work on the GPSr, but each version will unlock 2 and only 2, GPS units, after that you have to buy another unlock code for about 60-65% of what the software costs new. I'd definitely recommend whichever version you end up getting to get the software on the CD and not the preloaded maps on a memory card. There may be times when you want to use the same GPSr for both highway and geocaching use and will need to upload your own maps to the GPSr.