Garmin Basemap pictures....for Canada

[goggled-duck]

Hello,

 

most everything I've heard and read about the preloaded Garmin basemaps is that they are not very good...especially in Canada.

 

Ideally, the best thing would be to get my hands on a Garmin GPS with a basemap, but I live in the boonies...so it is not possible. I will have to use mail order.

 

So in order to get a clearer idea, I came up with the following pictures and hope someone won't mind giving me a hand.

 

For those of you with Garmins that have the basemap, when you plug in the following coordinates:

 

n46 deg 42.493 mins

w73 deg 05.642 mins

 

which of the following Garmin maps does it most look like:

 

World map at 5 mile and 1/2 mile scale:

 

Metroguide Canada at 5 mile and 1/2 mile scale:

 

Canada Topo at 5 mile and 1/2mile scale:

 

these two maps do not show the lakes, even when zoomed in to the 1/2 mile scale... all one sees is green... so I only included the pictures of the 5 mile scale:

 

Thanks again,

GD

[+TOMTEC]

which of the following Garmin maps does it most look like:

None of the above.

 

This is from the basemap on my GPSmap60C:

If I had a data cable handy, I would upload some screen captures for you to see. Basically, there are no lakes, no place names, no green coloured area for the park, (it doesn't even show that there is a park) and no railway tracks. It DOES show the Riviere St-Maurice, the 155 and 159, but not the 55. The road and river detail is quite jagged (i.e. not many reference points used) so you can expect to drive beside the road in many stretches. Off the road the map is solid yellow, so don't expect much help there.

 

As was noted in your last thread, the basemap is not designed for serious use. This is why Garmin sells various mapping products, so you can load the detail you require in the areas you need. If traveling through an area along the main road, the basemap may be enough, but if you want to see any detail, or locate points of interest (gas station or food or hotels) you gotta load a real map.

 

TOMTEC

[+Red90]

The basemap, is basically the same as Worldmap.

[goggled-duck]

Thanks for the help guys,

 

it gives me a good idea of what to expect.

 

One thing surprises me though, I had been told that all Garmins that have a preloaded basemap, use the same one (except for the colored screens).

 

Red90, would you mind telling me which Garmin you have? Although the Worldmap isn't all that detailed, it is much better than the one Tomtec describes for the GPSmap60C.

 

Cheers, and thanks again,

 

GD

[+Red90]

See my signature.

 

There are a couple of basemaps. There is the "light" and regular versions, depending on model. They are all basically useless.

 

If you want, you can find the World basemap on the internet free and install it as a "detailed" map. Handy (a litlle) for places that you have nothing else.

 

60Cx (Americas autoroute basemap)

 

iQue3600 (Worldwide Autoroute Basemap)

Edited May 1, 2007 by Red90

[+murfster]

How do you get screen captures from your GPS? I've never done that and can see it could be handy.

 

Thanks

 

Murfster

[+Red90]

For the Garmin GPS you use "Ximage", a free program that can be downloaded from Garmin's website. For the PDA, there are a variety of screen capture utilities.

[goggled-duck]

Thanks Red.

[+mr_candyman]

The basemap's pretty useless. If you're just geocaching it's fine, but I'd recommend getting the metroguide or city navigator if you want to use it for road use or topographic if you want topographic mapping.

 

Metroguide Canada is not like the USA Metroguide because it does have autorouting. The only differences between Metroguide Canada and City Navigator Canada are that CN has postal code lookup and some updated maps (so newer street maps in some cases).