The Delorme Earthmate PN-20?

[BoomerDuo]

We are considering this unit along with the Garmin 60CSx and the Garmin Colorado 400t.

 

As total newbees in geocaching we don't even know how far we will take this or how many features we'll use, yet but are open to the possibilities that we will want to upgrade, so we are going to start with more than the basic GPS.

 

We want it primarily for geocaching, but we travel a lot by car and walk and hike a lot ... both in urban and semi wilderness areas. We like to day hike and camp, but don't usually hike in to camp. Neither of us are high tech people ... and think that we will be more interested in ease of use, and just being able to find caches without too many hassles. Usually we are not wowed by all the tech features and probably will just want to enjoy the hunt and occssionaly create our own cache. We do know that we want good maps, easy to read screens in the sunlight (we are in So.Calif.). decent battery life and want to be able to get a signal easily.

 

We noticed that the Delorme Earthmate PN 20 has really great topos and street maps and seems to get good reviews about relieability and customer support, which is also important to us. We like that we can good good urban maps, because we thing we will use both that and the topos a lot. So the Delorme is intriguing us the most ... but Garmin seems to sort of be the geocachers' favorite.

 

Can some of you give us some feedback on these 3 units ... the plusses and the minuses ... and which you prefer and why?

Edited March 30, 2008 by BoomerDuo

[jimfish]

No fault of yours but this comparsion hits the board atleast twice a month. Search the post and it will cover all the high points. Bottom line, both will serve you well. If you want the best topo software going, Delorme is for you.. If signal strength/lock is priority maybe Garmin 60 series. But that really only shows if you are hiking through heavy cover and deep valleys. Average locations there is no difference. If an electronic compass is a need then Garmin. If cost matters, Delorme will end up cheaper. Garmin software cost extra.

 

Customer service, Garmin is really good.

 

Delorme outstanding...

Edited March 30, 2008 by jimfish

[+ricstone]

We are considering this unit along with the Garmin 60CSx and the Garmin Colorado 400t.

 

As total newbees in geocaching we don't even know how far we will take this or how many features we'll use, yet but are open to the possibilities that we will want to upgrade, so we are going to start with more than the basic GPS.

 

We want it primarily for geocaching, but we travel a lot by car and walk and hike a lot ... both in urban and semi wilderness areas. We like to day hike and camp, but don't usually hike in to camp. Neither of us are high tech people ... and think that we will be more interested in ease of use, and just being able to find caches without too many hassles. Usually we are not wowed by all the tech features and probably will just want to enjoy the hunt and occssionaly create our own cache. We do know that we want good maps, easy to read screens in the sunlight (we are in So.Calif.). decent battery life and want to be able to get a signal easily.

 

We noticed that the Delorme Earthmate PN 20 has really great topos and street maps and seems to get good reviews about relieability and customer support, which is also important to us. We like that we can good good urban maps, because we thing we will use both that and the topos a lot. So the Delorme is intriguing us the most ... but Garmin seems to sort of be the geocachers' favorite.

 

Can some of you give us some feedback on these 3 units ... the plusses and the minuses ... and which you prefer and why?

you can go to this site for lots of info on the pn-20

DeLORME forums i like my pn-20 wery well. good luck

ric

[+Team CowboyPapa]

 

... but Garmin seems to sort of be the geocachers' favorite.

 

 

Consider that the PN-20 is DeLorme's first handheld GPSr and has been in the marketplace less than 15 months. Is that about how many years that Garmin has been in the handheld GPSr marketplace?

 

I, too, am in Southern California and have no issues with screen visibility during daylight geocaching.

 

Some put great stock in some of the features that the Garmin units have which the PN-20 does not have. However, as a PN-20 user, I do not attribute any failure to find some geocaches to its lacking of those features.

[superduty1]

If you are expecting your GPS to route you on the roads, then my advice is to stay away from the PN20. I ahve the PN20 and 60csx (recently bought the csx). My opinion is that the PN20 is useless when compared to the csx for autorouting. The PN20 takes minutes to create routes whereas the csx does routes in seconds. The PN20 would lock up regularly on me when doing routes (yes I have the latest FW). I no longer use the PN20 for any autorouting.

 

I dont GC so i can comment on that aspect. The PN20 seems to be very accurate, it is quick to acquire a signal. The PN20 acquires within 45 seconds everytime, normally much faster. The CSX will typically get a signal quicker, but we are talking seconds.

 

Both units are able lock and keep a signal very effectively. Both can hold a signal in the house, or on the seat of my truck.

 

Remember if you want to do any autorouting wtih the csx you gotta buy maps. also if you want topo maps for the csx you gotta buy maps. all the maps come with the PN20.

 

The PN20 is a nice unit, but I feel it is worthless for autorouting. Some folks here will disagree, but most of the simple routes I have thown at it have been a real challenge for the unit. I dont know about you, but if I need to autoroute from point A to point B I usually dont have 10 minutes to wait for the GPSR to do the calculation....and forget about going off route and a recalculation.

Edited March 30, 2008 by superduty1

[+bpcooper14]

I am also a PN20 user and used to use an explorist 500 that I used initially as my first gps. So far the delorme has been great for all of my uses. I have used it for auto routing. As long as I do the route with the software initially on the pc and then transfer to the delorme, it works great. I have done some routing with the unit itself and the routing engine seems to be getting better with the firmware updates. I have been able to route basic auto routes in an acceptable amount of time.

As far as geocaching, the pn20 continues to get better and while it is not completely paperless yet, the comment field includes up to 800 characters which is good and has covered most of the caches I have run in to at this point. There are some with longer descriptions that cut off part of the comment field because of long-winded descriptions. LOL.

Accuracy hasn't been an issue and screen size hasn't been an issue either. All in all i'm happy with my purchase and it is getting better with the new firmware updates that continue to come out.

[+embra]

Superduty's experience with autorouting on the PN-20 is worse than mine, but I would have to concede that one of the reasons I am so happy with my PN-20 is that I have a Garmin Quest for handling my heavy duty autorouting needs. I find the PN-20 routes fine for shorter routes such as getting me from one cache to the next. If your anticipated use includes a lot of on-the-fly autorouting, it may be an issue for you.

 

On all other counts the PN-20 is great. Some people find the PN-20 and the Topo7 software to have a bit of a steep learning curve, but IMO the basics are pretty easy to pick up. The complexity comes from the rich feature capabilities, but you may never need or want to learn how to embed a recorded track in a map draw layer as a routable trail. If you ever *do* want to learn, it's in there and there's a lot of help on the Delorme user forum for any hurdles you face.

 

I don't know too much about the other models you are considering. Both the 60csx and the Colorado have many fans here; the former is a mature product but the Colorado seems to still be working out its startup kinks. Bear in mind that you need to spend the money to get two kinds of map software packages (topo and street) to get the same coverage as the Delorme, and even then there's no comparison in the quality.

 

Bottom line IMO: if map quality is most important, get Delorme. If a lot of autorouting is anticipated, you might be happier with a Garmin, and the 60csx is a pretty solid multiuse handheld.

[BoomerDuo]

Thank you everyone who replied. The specific information was very helpfull to us. I think that we will go with our first choice then ... the Delorme PN-20.

 

I was already aware that with the Garmins, we would have to purchase maps, and that the Delorme comes preloaded ... and is featuring a big rebate this month, too ... netting the price out at about $300 .... so it's a big savings. But that is a point that I almost missed ... so thanks for pointing that out.

 

We do want the most accurate maps for reference but I actually prefer to do my own routing .... at least around So. Calif., where we know the traffic patterns, etc. which no system seems to recognize yet. So autorouting is not important. But I can see that this could be a big issue if someone was expecting to rely on the unit's autorouting ... a very important consideration.

 

It would be nice if the Delorme was completely paperless ... but it sounds like it works in most situations and there's always paper, if needed ... it's not very heavy.

 

Someone pointed out in another thread that the yellow color of another unit.. a Vista HCx, I think .... was helpful in case you dropped your unit in the brush ... so the yellow on the PN-20 sounds like that's a small plus too.

 

The PN-20 is a lot newer than the old standard 60CSx ... so that concerns me a bit. But everyone seems to think that it's reliable and functions well as far as receiving signals, acuracy and viewing the screen.

 

Thanks, again everyone. We are excited to get started!

[+embra]

A few points FWIW:

 

Thank you everyone who replied. The specific information was very helpfull to us. I think that we will go with our first choice then ... the Delorme PN-20.

 

I was already aware that with the Garmins, we would have to purchase maps, and that the Delorme comes preloaded

With the 30 day return guarantee, I think anyone interested in the PN-20 owes it to themselves to give it a try. Some do find that its weaker points rub their fur the wrong way, but it's subjective enough that until you try you don't know which side of the fence you'll come down on.

 

Just to be sure you know: the map software comes with the PN-20, but it's not exactly pre-loaded..."some assembly required." There are pre-cut map files you can copy directly to SD card, and/or you can cut your own custom-sized map files. But you'll need to do one or the other.

 

We do want the most accurate maps for reference but I actually prefer to do my own routing .... at least around So. Calif., where we know the traffic patterns, etc. which no system seems to recognize yet.

To the extent that there has been problems with the autorouting engine on the PN-20, Los Angeles has seemed most problematic. Customizing your own routes in Topo7 is a snap, and they are easily and reliably transferable to the PN-20.

 

It would be nice if the Delorme was completely paperless

It's close to it, but not quite there. The 800 character waypoint comment gets all the description for *most* caches, but not all. Delorme is committed to improving the geocaching capabilities, so I expect to see continued improvement in this arena.

 

The PN-20 is a lot newer than the old standard 60CSx ... so that concerns me a bit.

There were issues around this when the PN-20 came out a year ago. It had a number of problems that are typical of new models, and since this was Delorme's first handheld it wasn't clear how they would respond to the challenge. IMO they did admirably, and I now consider the PN-20 "reasonably mature." That is, it's stable and reliable on the essentials, and Delorme has been able to add features that enhance performance over the early firmware releases. There are still some things I'd like to see added (e.g., multiple waypoint files on SD memory), but as Delorme has been releasing major firmware revisions every 3 or 4 months there's lots of reason for hope.

 

Anyway, congratulations on your decision, and be sure to raise any questions you have on the Delorme User forum...lots of cheerful help is available there.

[blackpine]

I too am in Southern California, and had nothing but problems with auto-routing on the PN-20. I did have the beta firmware 1.4 which others say solved all the auto-routing issues, but it did not for me. It could not handle routing a simple freeway drive of about 30 miles, with 4 or 5 turns total. It hung on calculating the route, and several others I tried. Perhaps the final 1.4 version is better, but I sent mine back and picked up the 60csx which works great. That said, you can't beat those wonderful Delorme topos and for hiking, caching etc, is a good choice.

[superduty1]

I too am in Southern California, and had nothing but problems with auto-routing on the PN-20. I did have the beta firmware 1.4 which others say solved all the auto-routing issues, but it did not for me. It could not handle routing a simple freeway drive of about 30 miles, with 4 or 5 turns total. It hung on calculating the route, and several others I tried. Perhaps the final 1.4 version is better, but I sent mine back and picked up the 60csx which works great. That said, you can't beat those wonderful Delorme topos and for hiking, caching etc, is a good choice.

 

The final 1.4 FW did not fix my autorouting issues with the PN20. I too am in So Cal. Some folks have suggested creating the routes on the computer and then transfering to the PN20. FWIW, the delorme computer program routes in seconds. So if you are OK preparing your routes ahead of time and then transferring to PN20, then that will be a good solution.