Does Garmin give up from outdoor GPS

[DavisonDave]

I just tried to download high-res road and topo maps for the entire state of Montana in a popular offline mapping app. The map data was Mapquest Open and first off it wouldn't let me do it, says the file would be too large. Secondly if I were to bypass the download restrictions it says the mapping data would be 596,545 MB's (I's assume raster data being the cause of the large file). My phone doesn't have enough storage but perhaps if I purchased a few SD cards (large ones) I could swap them out depending on the area of the state I'm in. Much easier than simply grabbing my Garmin and a few AA's.

 

Edited to add: next stop OSM maps. Sure the whole state of Montana is only 50MB but all I get that is worth anything are roads and trails. I love OSM but not really a solution for detailed land features.

 

Have you looked at http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/state/mt ? I haven't used them for Montana but have used maps from them for other states and been happy with them. Also take a look at http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_mttopo.html

Edited January 4, 2015 by DavisonDave

[yogazoo]

I just tried to download high-res road and topo maps for the entire state of Montana in a popular offline mapping app. The map data was Mapquest Open and first off it wouldn't let me do it, says the file would be too large. Secondly if I were to bypass the download restrictions it says the mapping data would be 596,545 MB's (I's assume raster data being the cause of the large file). My phone doesn't have enough storage but perhaps if I purchased a few SD cards (large ones) I could swap them out depending on the area of the state I'm in. Much easier than simply grabbing my Garmin and a few AA's.

 

Edited to add: next stop OSM maps. Sure the whole state of Montana is only 50MB but all I get that is worth anything are roads and trails. I love OSM but not really a solution for detailed land features.

 

Have you looked at http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/state/mt ? I haven't used them for Montana but have used maps from them for other states and been happy with them. Also take a look at http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_mttopo.html

 

I have tried and do use these excellent Garmin GPS maps. Don't get me wrong, my argument is FOR GPS maps on a dedicated unit and the detail they provide. What I'm saying is that detail for detail downloadable maps for offline use on your smart-phone can't stack up over a larger area for a variety of reasons including memory limitations on many phones as well as app limitations. Given a very small area it may be easier to save maps to your phone in case you lose cell coverage but the ease and convenience of having statewide and even regionwide 24K topo maps with elevation shading on your Garmin handheld is difficult to beat. Not to mention high-res aerial imagery.

Edited January 4, 2015 by yogazoo

[+Viajero Perdido]

You want Montana maps, here are vector maps for a couple of popular Android map apps, 189MB for Montana.

http://www.openandro...g/downloads/usa

That'll be vector maps, far more space-efficient than downloading tiles at all resolutions. That outrageous 596,545 MB number mentioned above must've been for tiles.

 

But what are we arguing about anyway? GPS units use vector maps. So do phone apps, some of them. Pre-load either before setting out. I travel far and wide, and easily load my GPS/phone with vector maps before hitting the airport. Easy to find for both platforms. (Then I buy a local SIM and use online maps when able, best of all worlds).

 

And as I tried to mention earlier, there are many variants on the OSM maps, many with excellent terrain info including topo contours and shading.

[+ecanderson]

... and aerials ...

Ah, now there's a game changer. I thought we were talking about maps.

 

We were talking maps. Why can't aerials be "maps"?

Because they contain no content apart from the imagery? Technically, you then need to overlay identifying data for features (a map) on top of that. I think we had a disconnect about the meaning of 'aerial'. It's like having 'Birdseye' without any additional map. That's an aerial... and several orders of magnitude more data compared to anything else -- even a really decent 24K topo.

[tylosaurus]

Just last week, Garmin announced the Epix, which is an outdoor centric GPS Watch. It has a color touch screen, and one version comes with preloaded topos. It also has paperless caching.

[+ecanderson]

Paperless caching -- one wonders what the UI will be for entering field notes on such a tiny device?

[+Chrysalides]

Paperless caching -- one wonders what the UI will be for entering field notes on such a tiny device?

It will auto-populate field notes with "That's one more find for me! Thanks so much for hiding this geocache."