sheriburk Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 Hello I am new to Geocaching and I was wondering if there is a way to kill two birds with one stone. Is there a good system that I can use for geocaching that can also be used in a car for driving directions/navigation? Quote Link to comment
+ecanderson Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 This topic comes up every few weeks. Might be worth scrolling down a page or three. In each case, you'll find a lot of people trying to explain that the answer is always "not really". Yes, you can go out and buy a Nuvi 500 and get paperless caching - and a unit that won't take well to being dropped, and the battery life is nothing like that of a good handheld. And yes, you could go out and buy an Oregon and lose a lot of screen size and lose spoken street names and pay extra for routable city maps. So sure. You can do it. But no, most of us really don't recommend it. Automotive units and handhelds are designed for rather different uses, and if you try to fit the round peg into one of the square holes, you're always going to be dealing with a compromise. Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 My comment each time this comes up is to think about a military fighter/bomber. It does both jobs but is not at the top for function in either area. That being said I go with the Garmin 450 (don't get the T a waste of money) and use it for driving to caches and it is pretty good. For regular driving I use my phone but the Garmin will handle that. Quote Link to comment
+burtsbodgers Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) As Said above, the right tool for the job! I however use my garmin Oregon for both I have maps installed and i select a cache in the Automotive mode which gives me directions to the cache, in the form of beeps and on screen display ( doesnt talk to you ). When i arrive at my destination, the closest on road point to the cache, i switch profiles to geocaching and walk in to find the cache. It works for me. Edited January 25, 2011 by burtsbodgers Quote Link to comment
+jeepdelfuego Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 My wife went from a Nuvi to an Oregon because of the geocaching features. Kind of weird, huh? She ended up giving the Nuvi to her brother. Quote Link to comment
+JohnnyVegas Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 As others have said there is no a perfect GPS that does both very well. I did have to use my Magellan explorist 710for street navigation trwo weeks ago because I forgot to load some caches into my Nuvi. The Explorist got be around fine but the screen is just to small. Now on a slow moving two wheeled human powered device (bike) the 710 should be fine. Quote Link to comment
+mpilchfamily Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 For a short time i used a Nuvi 1300. Great for car navigation, good price but ultimately sucked for caching. But it was doable. Ultimatly going multi device is the way to go. I went out and got a decent eTrex Legend H for about $110 and thats been perfect. I use my iPod Touch for paperless. So now i'm becoming quite the juggler. Quote Link to comment
+cx1 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I can understand the desire to have one unit for multiple tasks. If I were forced to only have one device it would be my iPhone 3GS. There are many different apps for in-car navigation. You can also use the device to see traffic conditions, road closing and other real-time information that is not available in most traditional in-car gps units. For caching there are few traditional hand-held gps units that can provide the amount of cache data that an iPhone can. On the iPhone you can see every single log for a cache. See all the photos associated with the cache. Look up information of other web-sites to get information about the cache area or help solve puzzle aspects of a cache. Plus you can log your finds directly from the same device without needing to go through the field note process. And you can now play Wherigo on the device. Oh and you can take photos with it for logging too. There may be an Android based device that does all of these things as well but I have no experience with those. However, despite all of the above I do not generally use my iPhone specifically for any of that. Battery life while streaming data and keeping the display constantly lit is poor. GPS reception does not seem as accurate as my hand-held gps devices. The device itself is not as robust as I would like. My Endura survived flying off the hood of my truck at about 25 mph. My pn-40 has survived similar accidents. I would not want to test my iPhone in a similar fashion. No cell service areas greatly reduce the available functions of the device. Plus I already have a car-specific device that works well for that task so I do not need to use the iPhone for that. Quote Link to comment
+aintnorock Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Ive got a Nuvi for the car and an Oregon 450 for caching. I think trying to navigate on the streets with a 450 is sort of like performing surgery with a mechanic's tool box. A good surgeon could probably make it work, but I think he or she would rather have their scalpel. Most of the handhelds don't have the detail for driving. Most of the driving ones don't have the capability of paperless caching. Get both. Quote Link to comment
+tjwags Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 Magellan came out with their crossover unit that was both a car/outdoor unit. It has been discontinued but you can still find it on Amazon. I cannot speak on how well it performs because I don't own one, but you can check out the reviews for it and see if that is what you're looking for. tjwags Quote Link to comment
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