Best Dual-Purpose GPS?

[+ecanderson]

Honestly you are still better off with two separate units, even for the price. I think it's stupid, and they should easily be able to make an effective multi-purpose unit, but they have not.

Ahh.. maybe not. The form factor issue will always be a bugger, even if they blended the rest of the feature problems well enough to take the edge off of them. I mean, you could take a unit like the 500, fix the battery problem (switch to AA so the larger screen and backlight, while battery killers, could have their source of juice quickly and cheaply replaced)... but you'd still have a device in your hands that fits poorly.

 

You could take a handheld and put a 4.3" or 5.0" screen on it and give it text-to-speech for direction instructions, but it would fit in your hand equally poorly.

 

There's a solid reason that handhelds and automotive nav units come in different form factors. It's the old "form follows function" rule.

[+Chrysalides]

Problem is its time consuming, the other nuvis have poor battery life and are not very rugged or water resistant. On top of that the other Nuvies don't have bearing and distance to waypoint/geocache. How is the battery life on the Nuvi 500?

I agree that if you have to bring a Nuvi caching, then definitely go for the 500 (or 550). However, the Yinnie's leave theirs in the car. While there is the convenience of loading caches directly from GPX into the unit and being able to see caches further than 2000 ft away on the map, you sacrifice screen size (3.5" vs 4.3"), and pay more for the 500 compared to others with equivalent features (except for paperless geocaching). If the unit does not leave the car much, then a 4.3" (or 5.0") Nuvi with caches loaded as custom POI seems like a good tradeoff.

Edited March 2, 2011 by Chrysalides

[+Maingray]

Battery life of the 500 pretty bad, I cache with someone who started with the 500. She pretty soon ditched it for an Oregon, mainly due to the battery life. Its pretty weak on the caching front.

[+The Yinnies]

Problem is its time consuming, the other nuvis have poor battery life and are not very rugged or water resistant. On top of that the other Nuvies don't have bearing and distance to waypoint/geocache. How is the battery life on the Nuvi 500?

I agree that if you have to bring a Nuvi caching, then definitely go for the 500 (or 550). However, the Yinnie's leave theirs in the car. While there is the convenience of loading caches directly from GPX into the unit and being able to see caches further than 2000 ft away on the map, you sacrifice screen size (3.5" vs 4.3"), and pay more for the 500 compared to others with equivalent features (except for paperless geocaching). If the unit does not leave the car much, then a 4.3" (or 5.0") Nuvi with caches loaded as custom POI seems like a good tradeoff.

The 500 started to be the one unit, as we were not caching much. When that changed it was hard to get rid of it. It works great for us. I like to see a cache coming up. I would like a larger screen. I think a regular Nuvi with GPX files would work the same way. You would not have the info. But at the same time I do have that on my phone and my 62S and PN-40.