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Pn-60 and Street Routing


ryan3295

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Okay I have a bad case on the garmin woes...and the pn-60 seems to be offering what I am looking for. But I can find very little as to how good it is with street routing, will it be comparable to my current hand held garmins (oregon, gpsmap 62). Has anybody used both devises able to comment?

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I also have a PN-60 and 40. The -60 is much better than the -40 for the road. I get it to lock fast and recalculate a lot faster than the -40. It does work very good. I would not use it for a long trip because I use my Nuvi 500 and that works great. If you are in a pinch it does route good and it has a lot of POI loaded.

Thanks

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The routing on the PN-60 seems to me about about the same as the PN-40; just faster. Faster is a Good Thing, of course, since one the major complaints about the PN-20 and even the PN-40 was how interminably long it could take to calculate. It's still the same form factor, so that small screen remains a drawback for this application. It's been a while since I've seen a Garmin handheld do routing, but I'm still thinking they're generally a significant notch above the DeLormes. I continue to use the PN-60 for road routing to caches, finding it fine for short routes, but I defer to the Nuvi 255 for driving without caching.

 

That said, I don't think you should be deterred. I'd consider the PN-60 a reasonably competent road router, but you shouldn't have overly high expectations...it's OK, nothing special in that regard.

 

I'll hope that someone in a position to offer a more direct comparison will show up, too.

 

P.S. I just had my PN-60 calculate a route to a friend's house 32 miles away (fairly rural area). It took 11 seconds to calculate the route. A 126 mile route took 18 seconds.

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OK. as one who practices what he preaches....here is what I do.

 

Historical note: The first car that I bought new had neither factory A/C nor factory GPS/NAV.

The second car had factory A/C as did all subsequent.

In addition, the most recent car that I bought had GPS/NAV and all subsequent will also have it.

 

Moral of the story: Does one ever go back?

 

Consequences: I have no reason to use my DeLorme handheld GPSr for in-car, road routing and navigation.

 

My advice to the OP:

1. If you want a device for outdoor activities, out-of-vehicle activities, or in-vehicle 4WD back country usage, I suggest the DeLorme PN-40 or -60.

2. If you want an in-vehicle unit for highway, road navigation, get the Nuvi with the largest screen.

3. If 1. and 2. are both yes, get both.

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I found this quote on gpstracklog.com

 

"maingray says:

February 24, 2009 at 7:51 pm

While the PN-40 can be used for highway routing, it’s really not comparable to having a dedicated auto GPS unit. You’ll only get a 2-D view, like the screen to the right. The worse drawback is that there are no spoken directions, just beeps and chirps. The maps are not as complete or current as those found on most auto units either.”

Not sure you tested this very much, PN-40 is on the verge of abysmal for road routing.

I feel it is pertinent to compare this to even the other Garmin “on the trail” handhelds loaded up with City Navigator, not just the dedicated car units.

The routable included maps are terrible..and there isn’t any premium option for road based navigation. Topo-based roads (as opposed to dedicated maps such as Navteq) which are often in the wrong location on the map (try overlaying different map sets..) and not tabulated for one-way etc. Bridges across interstates are often interpreted as ramps. State Road designation (“Take a left on SR1323″.. no, I want to take a left on Main Street!) often supersedes the road name. Auto-routing (i.e route re-calculation after taking a wrong turn is slow and buggy). POI are topo-based as well, so sparse and often irrelevant. Why Delorme can’t release a copy of their autonavigation maps for their handhelds is beyond me.

Great review otherwise, PN-40 is getting there. It just depends, as you state, how much you value imagery over other features. The geocaching paperless can only get better…. you might want to mention that someone has baked up a script to send GPX files to the unit rather than just one-by-one via the “send to” plugn on the gc.com page. You can find it on the Delorme community support forum (a great place for support Qs)."

 

I want to avoid using dual gps units, I have always used one for street navigation and trail use. I guess if the recommended approach to the pn-60 for street navigation is to buy a dedicated car navigator, am I to assume that street routing is that bad on the pn-60?

Edited by ryan3295
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I found this quote on gpstracklog.com

 

"maingray says:

February 24, 2009 at 7:51 pm

While the PN-40 can be used for highway routing, it’s really not comparable to having a dedicated auto GPS unit. You’ll only get a 2-D view, like the screen to the right. The worse drawback is that there are no spoken directions, just beeps and chirps. The maps are not as complete or current as those found on most auto units either.”

Not sure you tested this very much, PN-40 is on the verge of abysmal for road routing.

I feel it is pertinent to compare this to even the other Garmin “on the trail” handhelds loaded up with City Navigator, not just the dedicated car units.

The routable included maps are terrible..and there isn’t any premium option for road based navigation. Topo-based roads (as opposed to dedicated maps such as Navteq) which are often in the wrong location on the map (try overlaying different map sets..) and not tabulated for one-way etc. Bridges across interstates are often interpreted as ramps. State Road designation (“Take a left on SR1323″.. no, I want to take a left on Main Street!) often supersedes the road name. Auto-routing (i.e route re-calculation after taking a wrong turn is slow and buggy). POI are topo-based as well, so sparse and often irrelevant. Why Delorme can’t release a copy of their autonavigation maps for their handhelds is beyond me.

Great review otherwise, PN-40 is getting there. It just depends, as you state, how much you value imagery over other features. The geocaching paperless can only get better…. you might want to mention that someone has baked up a script to send GPX files to the unit rather than just one-by-one via the “send to” plugn on the gc.com page. You can find it on the Delorme community support forum (a great place for support Qs)."

 

I want to avoid using dual gps units, I have always used one for street navigation and trail use. I guess if the recommended approach to the pn-60 for street navigation is to buy a dedicated car navigator, am I to assume that street routing is that bad on the pn-60?

It is not that bad, it is good, but a street is better for driving. I have no problem using it for driving. I like my Nuvi 500 better, but it still works. You have a small screen, but you can see it and the way it routes is fine.

Thanks

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I want to avoid using dual gps units, I have always used one for street navigation and trail use. I guess if the recommended approach to the pn-60 for street navigation is to buy a dedicated car navigator, am I to assume that street routing is that bad on the pn-60?

Well, to me it's not a matter that routing is that much worse on a PN device, it's that it's that much better on a dedicated auto device--spoken directions and larger screens being key.

 

In creating a route on my PN-60 at my desk, I see that the directions page lists both highway numbers and street names (e.g., "SR 116 (W Middle St)" I don't have my PN-40 here, so I can't say if it's the same.

 

Roads vary in accuracy depending on locale...they're pretty good in my area (Pennsylvania/Maryland). The Navtech maps aren't perfect, either, but I think they are generally better...and certainly have more POIs. (If memory serves, I think the Navtech maps had 6 million POIs for the US compared to about 4 million for DeLorme's maps...I might be wrong in the actual numbers, but I know there was a significant favor towards Garmin. Of course, the Navtech maps will cost you more.

 

Maingray, whose opinions I respect, has a much more critical appraisal of the PN's routing capability than I do; to call it "approaching abysmal" seems to me an overstatement. But most of his criticisms are valid--if, again, possibly overstated. I don't question the errors and shortcomings he found in his experience, but I've not seen the ramp and one-way problems in my experience. Still, I'm in agreement with him enough that if someone says they expect to be using their handheld at least half the time for driving, I suggest Garmin over DeLorme. If it's 60/40 or 70/30, I think the DeLorme autorouting is good enough to suffice.

 

If you're not deterred by my tepid endorsement (and I do think the PN-40 and PN-60 are great offroad devices), remember that you can try it to see for yourself. DeLorme will let you return it within 30 days if it doesn't satisfy, and you would only be out the shipping cost.

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I agree with everything that Embra says.

But wait...there's more.

Even the best made for road routing, in-vehicle types, aftermarket, such as a Nuvi, come up short when compared to an OEM, factory installed, in-dash GPS/NAV system.

 

Point in case: Will any of these stick-em-on-the-windshield types shut down the left speaker playing the music from the Sirius Satellite Radio when giving turn-by-turn voice guidance?

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