Looking for a Car GPSr

[+Greymalkin]

I'm going on a long road trip next month and, since I plan to pick up 'a few' caches along the way, I'd like to upgrade my car's GPS. Right now I have a TomTom GO, but it's starting to get a little buggy and is a giant PITA to load caches into. My requirements are few, and I don't think especially extreme.

 

1. Must work with a Mac. Absolutely required. I have GeoJournal and MacCaching and am willing to get other Mac progams, but GSAK is limited to the IBM platform and thus completely useless to me. (And I'm not ever going to kludge up some pseudo-IBM thing on my Mac, so please don't even start.)

 

2. Must be easy to load caches -- at least GC code, name, and location. Description, hints, etc. are nice, but I've got a tablet for that. Putting PQs in directly would be ideal, but dropping them into something like GeoJournal and then exporting them in bulk is fine, too.

 

3. Must have a large screen. 4"+ would be great. 3" is the absolute minimum.

 

4. Must have some sort of proximity alert function.

 

5. This thing is never leaving the car. I have a 60csx for that, this is just to get me to the general area. It doesn't have to be waterproof, ruggedized, etc. It can be heavy as sin. It can chew through power like there's no tomorrow. Doesn't matter.

 

6. Not ridiculously expensive. Under $200 dollars is good and under $100 would be fantastic. I'll consider more, but it would have to be really, really speshul.

 

Any suggestions? What's working for my fellow Mac cachers?

[+CacheFreakTim]

I'm a fan of the Nuvi 500/550. It is just like any other Nuvi but also has a Geocaching mode. It will show you the caches on the display as you drive. It also has paperless capability and full Geocaching mode just incase you need a backup. As far as loading caches just mount the GPS and drop the PQ's in the GPX folder and you will be all set.

[+briansnat]

I'd say go with the Nuvi 500 line. The 500 line are the only automotive units that I'm aware of that are made specifically with geocaching in mind.

[+Greymalkin]

The Nuvi 500 looks perfect. A little pricier than I'd hoped, but it does Wherigo, too, which qualifies as speshul.

 

Thanks, folks!

[+CacheFreakTim]

The Nuvi 500 looks perfect. A little pricier than I'd hoped, but it does Wherigo, too, which qualifies as speshul.

 

Thanks, folks!

 

Usually its around $250 but I picked mine up on Amazon some time ago for around $200. Also the 500 and 550 are exactly the same except for the maps. The 500 comes with road maps for the continental 48 states + topo maps. The 550 comes with road maps for all of north america.

 

And also a side not the latest Nuvi 500/550 firmware (4.20) has a bunch of problems so if you get one do not upgrade to it.

[+Greymalkin]

Does the 500 have that 1000 cache limit that the 60csx has? I can live with it if it does, but one nice thing about the TomTom was having every cache for 20 miles loaded and ready to go instead of swapping caches in and out depending where I was going on a given day.

[+luvvinbird]

I'm on my way to the Canadian Rockies in early August and my priority checklist consists of my Nuvi for the car and my 60CSx for the caches and, oh yeah, my wife. I almost forgot about her.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

Does the 500 have that 1000 cache limit that the 60csx has? I can live with it if it does, but one nice thing about the TomTom was having every cache for 20 miles loaded and ready to go instead of swapping caches in and out depending where I was going on a given day.

 

Yes.....1000 caches.

[Suscrofa]

Get a handheld GPS for Geocaching and keep your TomTom as it does the job for the car. Non integrated dedicated car GPS are finished, no future for them. To use them for geocaching is PITA. GPS are now supplied with the car or integrated with smartphones.

 

Smartphones can do it all and more, just they are not as rugged and lack autonomy compared to a handheld GPS but they are the future, leaving handheld in a niche market.

 

I use a 60CX for hiking, hunting, geocaching, even sometimes for the car. But for true car navigation, the smartphone has replaced the Garmin Nuvi for 6 months now.

Edited June 30, 2011 by Suscrofa

[+CacheFreakTim]

the smartphone has replaced the Garmin Nuvi for 6 months now.

 

When there is a dual purpose app for my phone that will allow me to navigate without cell signal, give me voice guided directions, and show me Geocaches as I drive I'm all in. Until then Im sticking with my Nuvi.

[+ecanderson]

...Right now I have a TomTom GO, but it's starting to get a little buggy and is a giant PITA to load caches into. My requirements are few, and I don't think especially extreme.

 

... 1. Must work with a Mac. Absolutely required. I have GeoJournal and MacCaching and am willing to get other Mac progams, but GSAK is limited to the IBM platform and thus completely useless to me. (And I'm not ever going to kludge up some pseudo-IBM thing on my Mac, so please don't even start.)

Rather than GSAK, have you considered using the engine underneath GSAK? You probably won't use any of the other GSAK-unique functions just to move caches to a TomTom anyway. Have a look at GPSBabel (http://www.gpsbabel.org). It runs on OSX, among other things.

 

*.gpx in to GPSBabel, *.ov2 out of GPSBabel, copy *.ov2 to map folder on TomTom. Done. (For more recent TomTom models, use MyTomTom to move the *.ov2 file to the unit instead of a file copy.)