Need GPS recommendations to work with Mac

[mightymagicbeans]

I am just getting started and we are trying to find a good handheld GPS that we can use along family road trips to find caches. We have a mac and a windows machine that we will use interchangeably (the mac more) to download caches. The price is not a huge factor - we would rather have a good device than one we have to keep replacing devices.

[+Renroc]

I am just getting started and we are trying to find a good handheld GPS that we can use along family road trips to find caches. We have a mac and a windows machine that we will use interchangeably (the mac more) to download caches. The price is not a huge factor - we would rather have a good device than one we have to keep replacing devices.

 

I am in Australia and have just purchased a Nuvi 500 and it works well with my ibook laptop. Have only had it a week though and am still learning how to use it. Have downloaded cache locations easily. Not yet worked out how to use it to upload my finds though.

 

Renroc in Oz

[+RRLover]

I am just getting started and we are trying to find a good handheld GPS that we can use along family road trips to find caches. We have a mac and a windows machine that we will use interchangeably (the mac more) to download caches. The price is not a huge factor - we would rather have a good device than one we have to keep replacing devices.

To the best of my knowledge, only DeLorme, and Garmin are working to garner the Mac market w/ handhelds.

Neither one is there yet, seem to be taking steps, Garmin got a mondo head start, but they're not that far apart

in development. It's hard to judge 'cause they have different approaches.

 

Norm

[+Daderdog]

Both my caching buddy and I have delormes (me PN-20, him PN-40) and macs. The 40 is clearly a superior machine for convenience and memory, but you pay extra. YMMV. That said, once you download the patch from Delorme, downloading cache sites to your hand held is painless. My biggest complaint is that, because we are a smaller slice of the market, developers are slow to update software for OSX. If that is a big deal, and you are happily using a PC, you may want to do your computer work on your PC and not deal with the frustration of being the stepchild...

[+TeamAldridge]

My vote goes to the Garmin Oregon 300. I had the DeLORME PN-20, and when I called about an issue and mentioned that I was a Mac user they immediately told me it wasn't supported. I had an issue with it taking somewhere between 10-15 minutes to show up in finder so I could upload and download field notes. Also I didn't find it to be very good with routing from one cache to another if there was some distance between. Lastly, it took quite a while to populate the geocaching page on the PN-20. I'm not trying to bash it, but I don't think being a Mac user you would be happy with it. I found myself in Windows almost all the time for some reason or another. With the Oregon I can get a pocket query, and drop it into the GPX directory and take off. I do have to add that you might as well include City Navigator if you're buying the Oregon, it makes it a great all-in-one GPSr for caching. Again, I'm in no way trying to bash the PN-20, but I don't think DeLORME is even close to there yet for the Mac users. The only thing I've had to do in Windows for the Oregon was to convert some maps that I had, but that's a one time thing. That's just my two cents.

 

On a side note, I don't know why everyone seems to mention DeLORME when it comes to Mac support. Am I missing something, the only thing that I saw in regards to Mac was their plugin. I have a half-dozen native Garmin apps installed on my computer now.

Edited April 21, 2009 by aldfam

[+T F T C]

I use my Magellan eXplorist 500 with my Mac just fine. GPSBabel and Geo Journal.