Metroguide over City Select -- am I the only one?

[+jollybgood]

I've been reading a slew of complaints about City Select, upgrading etc. Am I the ONLY person who doesn't use City Select? I paid for the upgrade a few months ago, played with it for a while and went RIGHT back to using Metroguide exclusively.

 

The memory overhead tied up in POI data in City Select is worthless to me. I don't care if the off ramp five miles a head has a rest area or restroom. I don't care if there's a KINKO's down the street.

 

I care about street detail, secondary roads and unpaved roads so I can get as close to a cache as I can.

 

I did a LOT of comparison of various areas in MAPSOURCE switching back and forth from City Select and MetroGuides. While both have certain advantages the other doesn't have, I finally decided the overall, METROGUIDE is more useful.

 

If I had it to do over again I wouldn't have bought the City Select upgrade. I never use it as it is.

 

I was just curious if anyone else felt the same. If GARMIN every gives us the option of deselecting POI (or minimizing it) I would probably use City Select. As it is, the diffierence in street detail just isn't enough to convince me to use it.

 

Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

[GRANDMASTER CACHE]

I'm with you, Jolly.

 

Although I've never used Metroguide, I'd gladly give up knowing where the next McDonald's is if it meant being able to load another grid or two. I wasn't aware that the POI chewed up so much memory.

 

Grandmaster Cache

[pdumas]

I paid for the upgrade also, played with it for a while and went right back to using Metroguide exclusively. City Select in small town's didn't show me anything but metroguide does the job.

[Alphawolf]

It all comes down to the size of the city. Large metropolitan areas....City Select. Smaller cities and rural areas.....Metroguide. In fact, in rurual areas, City Select is useless.

 

"Never take a sunset for granted. Stop what you are doing and enjoy it. You never know when it may be your last"

[+Alan2]

I live in NYC and Metro uses about 3.5 Meg without autorouting, about 5.5 with (I have a Vista). Just curious what City Select would use here. Anyone know?

[+Renegade Knight]

Interesting. I know the new city select uses more memory (I've loaded unlocked maps in a vain attempt to get some rural coverage) than the old city select.

 

Garmin itself said that CS 4.01 is more accurate overall than Metroguide. However accuracy probably depends on where you are at.

 

Does the metroguide allow routing?

 

All in all I'd take a little less accuracy and buy Metroguide for more map and less POI's.

 

Wherever you go there you are.

[+Centaur]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly B Good:

 

The memory overhead tied up in POI data in City Select is worthless to me....

If GARMIN every gives us the option of deselecting POI (or minimizing it) I would probably use City Select. Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

 

I dont have Metroguide, as City Select is what cam with my V, but I have been posting on here for a few months to try to get enough people to email garmin asking for the feature of disabling the POI data download. Here in chicago im 500K to big to fit all the maps I would like into the V's 19meg. I too hardly use all the huge POI data in the city. Being able to not download it Im sure would save a ton of room for more maps.

So, I urge folks to go to Garmin's web site and email them with the feature request to disable the POI data download.

 

As far as Cityselect 4.01 accuracy, its been VERY good everyplace I have taken it so far. From Chicago to Northern California and back. Not haveing played with Metroguide, I dont think it supports the V's autorouting function, does it?

 

[+Alan2]

Metroguide autoroutes in both GPS V and StreetPilot III. You can also autoroute in your computer and transfer the routes (they're in waypoints) to other GPS's like the Vista.

 

Of course with the Vista, since it doesn't autoroute, you check the "no auto" box so you save on memory when transferring maps.

 

Metro has enough POI's for me - I don't really need any more like you get in CS. But even with less PI's I find Metro eats up memory. So since I have R+R and Topo, I select maps depending on area. Topo and Metro for where I'm caching, and R+R in in-betwen areas. I'm stil playing with what mix works the best but it's hard to trade off one against the other.

 

Alan

[+EtrexRose]

Magellan MapSend has an option where you can choose to include POI's or not and maybe even select the POI's you want to include. If garmin Map Source had an option where you could choose what specific POI categorys you want or all of or all on, that could increase the Moral of all of us GARMIN owners.

[+CCrew]

Where I live I'd have to say City Navigator. Even though it's a small town, Metroguide doesn't even have the development I live in and it's been here 10 years. Heck, it's based on TeleAtlas mapsets, and they can't even get me in the correct city. They say I live in "stonewall" and there's no town around here by that name.

 

That said, I have City Navigator because it came with my StreetPilot III. I use Roads and Rec with my Vista, and bought it because after using the MetroGuide map viewer on Garmin's site I realized that it sucked for around here..

 

Roger

 

Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side

[+Alan2]

Metro does not have streams and brooks for the most part while R+R does.

 

Alan

[+jollybgood]

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That's true. But there are other factors to consider as far as my needs.

 

For example, my office is in the Northwest Suburbs (north of Chicago). when I first picked up all the Mapsource mapsets I did a comparision.

 

My office building has a small lake behind it, and behind that a rail road track. On the other side of the street is a stream. There's also a fairly busy road running in front of it. This is a good mix of features so I used this area to do a comparison.

 

I compared City Select (both versions), Metroguide, Topo and R&R several months ago.

 

Metroguide shows the lake, the RR track and our parking lot (including the paved road which loops the building. IT also shows the parking lot around my apartment complex and the access roads to a local cemetery. (which impresses the hell out of me).

 

Topo shows the stream but not the lake or the RR track. (weird) It also doesn't show the parking lot. While I do like the stream detail and countours lines I find I don't really miss or need them since most of my cache hunting is rural.

 

R&R shows the lake (with a very accurate shoreline detail) but no stream, parking lot or RR track.

 

City Select doesn't show ANYTHING -- not even the street in front of our building. (But it does indicate the covience store an 1/8 of a mile up the road.

 

I do realize that the results would vary wildly a hundred times over on any given are, but Metro seems to be working for the time being.

 

It seems each mapset has it's own priorities and thoughts on what is important detail. (which is why I suppose MAPSOURCE has various themes. I guess there's only so much detail you can cram into a map with current memory limitations

 

I sold R&R and TOPO.(Have had a few offers on my City Select though I'm not sure if it would be of any use to anyone since i already have two GPSV's assigned to the Unlock Code).

 

Metroguide isn't perfect but for my purposes it has the best mix of details. Unfortunately which Garmin licensing its mapsets from a new source I doubt there will every be an upgrade to Metroguide with new street detail.

 

Jolly R. Blackburn

http://kenzerco.com

[+Renegade Knight]

Good Post JBG.

 

Let me add one comment. The City Select 4.01 Upgrade CD is free. I just ordered it. Where they will get me is that I have to use my original unlock code to unlock the new version. At that time is when they collect the fee.

 

Maybe someone smarter than me can see a way around the fee but it really looks like buying someone elses City Select 4.01 CD won't get you anywhere.

 

Wherever you go there you are.