Advice for Unit for the wife

[+WolfSpring]

I have used the search option and I have researched garmins site extensively reading all the little details, I now think I am ready to perform open heart surgery but getting no closer to a unit for my wife. I am about to deploy to Kuwait in December and she wants a unit that mounts well in the car, can tell her verbally when to turn and will re route automatically when she makes a wrong turn, easy enough, also she wants that same unit to be able to be dismounted and used for geocaching so if family comes to visit she can get them hooked. I have looked at the Nuvi's and read some of the comments here and on gpspassion.com. Do Nuvi's work well with geocaching? Should I get her a simple Nuvi 200W and an older Garmin? Or get me a newere model, get her the Nuvi 200W and give her my Legend Cx? Nothing against Magelin at all, I am learning the Garmin very fast, and the army offers many free gimmies for garmin and nothing for Magelin. I'd love to hear your all's advice on what you feel the best unit or combination would work best for our desires. And no I'm in no rush to get a newer unit for myself. The buget on this isn't set but I'd love to go below 300, which a Legend C and a Nuvi 200W go for about that much together used. Thank you in advance for any advice.

[+Lasagna]

First, thank you so much for your service to our country!

 

The problem I see with the Nuvi is the form factor and the fact that most (if not all) are not waterproof (bad news the first time it starts to rain while on the trail or you drop the unit in the stream). I have heard of some taking this on the trail to find a geocache, but almost always as a backup device.

 

With the requirements of spoken directions, I think I'd be inclined to recommend you go with two units. One specifically for the car with turn-by-turn (a nuvi perhaps or one of the many other manufacturers who have inexpensive units that have the spoken directions and all of which do automatic route recalculation). The other unit could then be a mid-range handheld (people seem to like their Legend HCx units) on which you could then load topo maps if desired.

 

Side benefit ... you could potentially take the nuvi with you as a backup (or so you had something in hand while your guests used the primary unit just to make sure they were "on track").

 

If you can get away from the need for voice, I've found my GPSMAP 60Csx to be quite functional. I have the car mount for it, City Navigator for turn by turn and auto-reroute, and Topo maps for on the trail. It just "beeps" and "blips" when turns are coming up and shows them on the screen ... I've found that to work fine for me although I can see the attraction of having the spoken directions in a busy traffic situation.

 

Good luck in your search.

 

-jk

 

I have used the search option and I have researched garmins site extensively reading all the little details, I now think I am ready to perform open heart surgery but getting no closer to a unit for my wife. I am about to deploy to Kuwait in December and she wants a unit that mounts well in the car, can tell her verbally when to turn and will re route automatically when she makes a wrong turn, easy enough, also she wants that same unit to be able to be dismounted and used for geocaching so if family comes to visit she can get them hooked. I have looked at the Nuvi's and read some of the comments here and on gpspassion.com. Do Nuvi's work well with geocaching? Should I get her a simple Nuvi 200W and an older Garmin? Or get me a newere model, get her the Nuvi 200W and give her my Legend Cx? Nothing against Magelin at all, I am learning the Garmin very fast, and the army offers many free gimmies for garmin and nothing for Magelin. I'd love to hear your all's advice on what you feel the best unit or combination would work best for our desires. And no I'm in no rush to get a newer unit for myself. The buget on this isn't set but I'd love to go below 300, which a Legend C and a Nuvi 200W go for about that much together used. Thank you in advance for any advice.

[donc30]

You could get a Nuvi 200 and a Venture HC and still stay under $300. For your trail GPSr try to get one with the "H" designation to get your monie's worth.

I spent time overseas too (52-53) and I hope that you don't get as lonesome as I did.

[+TCCBA]

I went to mygpsoffer.com and ordered a Discover card and they sent me a Garmin Nuvi 200 for free. I'll probably cancel the card soon so I don't get in credit trouble, but it might be a way to help the price.

--Tom

[+IvorBigun]

I went to mygpsoffer.com and ordered a Discover card and they sent me a Garmin Nuvi 200 for free. I'll probably cancel the card soon so I don't get in credit trouble, but it might be a way to help the price.

--Tom

When I got the colarado 300 I intended to sell my GPSmap76 CSx

But I kept it for my wife Mrs Bigun can use this fairly well yet she thinks the 300 is harder to master

 

Also the Maps I had for the 76csx work on the 300 as I think you can put them on 2 units they work any way

 

If I bought her another unit it would also involve buying new maps to put on it

 

So bear in mind if you are getting 2 units, one each. That it would be more economical to have 2 units that one set of maps work on then each time you get a new map ur update it works on both.

 

I may also be possible to buy a used unit from a web auction site that has maps with it as the maps are tied to the unit and usualy installed too. the 60 and 76 are real bargains used at the moment

[+busternfruss]

I have used the search option and I have researched garmins site extensively reading all the little details, I now think I am ready to perform open heart surgery but getting no closer to a unit for my wife. I am about to deploy to Kuwait in December and she wants a unit that mounts well in the car, can tell her verbally when to turn and will re route automatically when she makes a wrong turn, easy enough, also she wants that same unit to be able to be dismounted and used for geocaching so if family comes to visit she can get them hooked. I have looked at the Nuvi's and read some of the comments here and on gpspassion.com. Do Nuvi's work well with geocaching? Should I get her a simple Nuvi 200W and an older Garmin? Or get me a newere model, get her the Nuvi 200W and give her my Legend Cx? Nothing against Magelin at all, I am learning the Garmin very fast, and the army offers many free gimmies for garmin and nothing for Magelin. I'd love to hear your all's advice on what you feel the best unit or combination would work best for our desires. And no I'm in no rush to get a newer unit for myself. The buget on this isn't set but I'd love to go below 300, which a Legend C and a Nuvi 200W go for about that much together used. Thank you in advance for any advice.

 

Hi, and first of all, thanks for your service to our country! Know that the thoughts and prayers of many Americans are with you.

 

I'm a wife (& grandmother), and am not a techie. I have a Garmin Nuvi 350 for my car, and I love it! It is very easy to use, speaks the street name as well as the distance to turns, sometimes tells me which lane to get in, and recalculates if I make a wrong turn or just want to take a different route. It comes with stick-on windshield and dash mounts and other goodies, but I got the beanbag mount for Nuvis, because I didn't want to stick anything to my car. This mount works very well. I've had "Jonesy" for a year and have no complaints at all. Great GPS imo, and available at Amazon, I think, for about $199. I don't know anything about the Nuvi 200; the one I have is the only GPS I've ever used.

 

I've been using it for geocaching since April (61 finds!), and it works very well for that, too--accurate, and doesn't lose signals. I put it into pedestrian mode once I'm at the GC's general location. My only concern in using it for geocaching is that it isn't water resistant, and I'm afraid I'll get dirt or something into its openings, which aren't covered. I've heard that some geocachers put their car unit in a zip baggie when geocaching, but I haven't tried that.

 

So, I've just ordered a Garmin eTrex Venture HC, from Amazon, for $120 (no tax for my address & free shipping). It has the high-sensitivity receiver and a color screen, but no card slot for better maps or bells & whistles, but I still have the Nuvi for car navigation. (The eTrex's with "H" in the name are supposed to have the better receivers.) This unit gets good reviews for geocaching and I know someone who has one and likes it better than the more expensive 60csx. I ordered this only because I don't want to damage Jonesy (Nuvi) by laying him down on pinestraw, etc., or if he were to get rained on. The Nuvi works great for geocaching, just isn't made for outdoors, and I don't think I could do without it now for the car. My eTrex hasn't arrived yet.

 

The Nuvi came with the maps needed. I think you have to buy extra maps (for car navigation) for all the "trail" units, and the maps are kind of expensive, if you want to use a trail model as a car unit. So that would run the price of the one unit up, if you tried to use a trail model for both purposes.

 

These two together are a little more than you've budgeted. Maybe you could get a special military discount of some kind? I don't know if there is one unit that would work well for both or not, since the purposes are so different. I know I probably haven't helped that much, but wanted to share my experience with the Nuvi, and the reasons that I chose the unit I decided to get for geocaching use. Hopefully you will get lots of responses from people that have more knowledge than I do. Best wishes to you and your wife--

Edited June 30, 2008 by busternfruss