Garmin Topo Software

[+crashmore]

I am considering coughing up the cash for the Garmin Topo software package. I was hoping anyone else who may have already bought it would share their expierence with the product. I want to make sure it's worth the money before shelling out the cash

 

-------------------------------------

Hope is the destination that we seek.

Love is the road that leads to hope.

Courage is the motor that drives us.

We travel out of darkness into faith.

 

-=The Book Of Counted Sorrows=-

[nemethmik]

Go for MetroGuide USA 4 on eBay, it's much better (I mean uptodate and detailed) than TOPO

for the same money.

[Couch_Potato]

Is the Metroguide or Roads & Rec. better?

 

It seems like Metroguide is all the info of R&R plus all of the POI information. If so it is kind of odd tha they're the same price.

 

I'm not lost!

I just don't know where I am.

[+Joe Smith]

if you are doing little road navigation, the topo will work great. It still has alot of the roads even if they don't show the names. It has every road in my little town. Joe

[+LarsThorwald]

I've got both R&R and Topo, as well as National Geographic Topo. I get the most use out of R&R. The Garmin Topo program is okay... but if I'm really in a topo-appropriate area, I spend the extra time to print a map out on NG Topo. There's really not that much detail going on in the Garmin product.

 

Charlie

"One should never begin a journey by heading in the wrong direction."

[Timothius]

it really depends on what zoom level you work with. If you don't need the big picture then it should work but if you need detail at a larger scale then it sometimes gets a bit hard to really tell what your lookijng at. I generally print a map out from map source to use in tandem with the GPS. I do believe that I could function with the GPS topo maps alone but they are certainly not the same level that I was used to in the army, or those purchased from USGS.

 

I never did care much for 1:world level maps.I am a 1:25,000 type of guy

 

lateron

 

Timothius

 

An Irish Toast:

"May you be in heaven a half hour before

the Devil knows you're dead"

[appletree]

I have and use both the USA Topo and the Metroguide programs for my Vista. I use the Metroguide almost every time I leave the house, especially for address look-ups which the topo software will not do. I use the topo more for hiking and when flying, and it works well. The contour intervals are 10 meters, regardless of the local relief. If you set the elevation units to meters, it is easier to read the elevations, as the feet readings will not be even multiples for the contour lines. I have both the topo and metroguide maps for areas of interest loaded into the vista, but I must turn off the metroguide map using the map set up menu option in order to see the topo map for the same area. This is easy to do, once you get the hang of it.

 

Hope this is helpful.

[+culpc]

I like my MapSource Topo, however, while at a meeting this weekend, I saw the Delorme Topo and may have to spend the money! The Delorme has much better graphics and some extra features.

 

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates

[+Gimpy]

I've got Mapsource Topo, DeLorme Topo 3.0 & 4.0 & Maptech Terrain Navigator. The Maptech is better than DeLorme, & the DeLorme is better than Mapsource (better meaning more detail). But the Mapsource is the only mapping stuff that you can load into a Garmin unit. So it all depends on what you plan to do with it.I keep the Mapsource Topo loaded into one of my units for caching & if I want detailed paper maps, I'll print them out with Maptech or DeLorme. I use Metroguide in one of my other units,mainly for road navigation, but for heading into the woods after a cache, Mapsource Topo works well & would be my choice, if you're not concerned with road navigation purposes.

 

"Gimpy"