Vista or Legend?

[+TartanT]

I've now saved up enough to buy a GPS but which one? Will the Legend have enough memory to download enough detail to cover Scotland or will I need the bigger memory Vista? Any help would be much appreciated

[+New England n00b]

From what I've heard others say, the Legend should hold more than enough. I believe I can fit the entire state of New Hampshire & parts of Mass. in the Legend (I don't have MapSource yet).

 

I've also heard people having entire regions in their Vista.

 

If you ask in the GPS Units & Software forum I'm sure you'll get replies from those actually using maps...

 

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

It wasn't me.

[+briansnat]

I don't think you could get all of Scotland into a Legend. I know I got all of NJ and part of NY into mine using Mapsource Topo, but that's about 10,000 sq miles. I looked up Scotland and its considerable larger, at 49,000 sq miles (about 79,000 sq km).

 

The question is do you really need to have the entire country in your GPS? It's easy enough to download new maps if you are travelling a distance from your home.

 

But if you have the money, go with the Vista. It barometric altimeter and electric compass are nice features and the 24 meg probably offers enough storage to download all of Scotland.

 

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on his hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" - Max Beerbohm

[+stu_and_sarah]

Scotland (including Orkney & Shetland) are:

 

Roads and Recreation: 5.6MB

Metroguide: 10.8MB

 

Although, note that the large Metroguide tile sizes mean that you get as far south as Lancaster on the Edinburgh tile.

 

Metroguide adds house numbers and route planning information, which R&R doesn't have.

 

As the other comments... if you have the cash, get a Vista, otherwise a Legend should be fine. (Note that 8MB into a Legend takes around half an hour - I'm not sure if the Vista runs faster, but that could be a long wait!)

 

Cheers,

 

Stu

 

The raw data for Metroguide:

 

GLASGOW: 2.87 MB

INVERNESS: 749 KB

DUNDEE: 2.44 MB

LOCHINVER: 135 KB

PETERHEAD: 70 KB

WICK: 251 KB

LEVENWICK: 30 KB

LERWICK: 230 KB

EDINBURGH: 3.20 MB

[+Alan2]

Metroguide is for street maps and points of information as mentioned above. I don't know if Garmin provides topographic maps for Scotland, but if they do or will in the future, you should consider that this requires memory too reducing the amount available for Metro.

 

Good luck.

 

Alan

[+ZingerHead]

As the satisfied owner of a Vista I heartily recommend it, but only for the additional memory. From an operational standpoint the Legend and Vista are essentially identical. I consider the altimeter a novelty more than anything else, and the electronic compass is a pain as you have to recalibrate it each time you change the batteries. A regular "analog" compass will work just as well as the electronic one. The analog compass will work considerably better if the Vista's batteries go dead . On top of that, the compass is a tremendous battery hog - you'll find yourself leaving it turned off more often than not.

24mb of memory is great, but exactly how far afield do you go on each of your outings in Scotland? I have complete topo and MetroGuide coverage of my home state and the border areas of neigboring states and still have memory to spare. This is far more map information than I have time to cover in a day of caching. I can download the entire 24 mb in something like 2 hours, so if I'm traveling out of town I can upload the appropriate maps the night before. So unless you tend toward multi-day trips the Legend's 8mb is probably sufficient. I doubt I've ever cached a wider area than would fit in 8mb of memory in a single day.

[+TartanT]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I think I'll go for the Vista as I'll be using it for hill walking as well as caching and most of my hill walking will be done over the 2 week vacation time. Being a hill walker, hiker, camper guy I usualy dont have access to a computer while on vacation so I will need as much info stored on the GPS as possible.

[monoc_rider]

Interesting thread - I'm in almost exactly the same position as TartanT !

 

I want to get a GPS for Geocaching, but also for using when out cycling on long day rides (typically 100+ miles).

 

The Legend and Metroguide Europe look like the ideal combination for both my needs and budget, but I've been struggling to find out how much space the maps for Norfolk and Suffolk take up.

 

Looking on the Garmin site, the area I'm most interested in is a rectangle made up of 6 tiles. The top three covering an area starting just East of King's Lynn, and the bottom three including Ipswich and Thetford but not as far West as Cambridge.

 

If a kind soul could let me know how much memory the area takes up, I would be enormously grateful !

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Regards,

John

[+Sue and Bernie]

Hi John,

 

I can provide you with a neighbourly answer, we live in Norfolk too and cycle around using a Garmin Vista to navigate all the little country roads in our area.

 

The MG Europe software use 2 map tiles for the Nofolk/Suffolk region named "Cambridge" and "Norwich". Together, they take up only 2.9 MB. This will easily fit into a Legend's 8 MB capacity.

 

Sue & Bernie

[monoc_rider]

Thanks Sue & Bernie for such a quick reply.

 

Looks like I will soon be the proud owner of a Legend and able to track down my first cache !

 

Now where did I put that credit card...

[+Sue and Bernie]

...We would still recommend you fork out the additional folding stuff and go for the Vista with its 24 MB capacity. Garmin MG Europe uses laaarrrge map tiles (compared to the single country MG or RR titles). These fill the Legends 8 MB quite quickly. For example, the tile that includes Colchester extends down and gives you half of Kent too!

 

While this will not bother you too much when you use the GPS for cycling, when you spread out into using it in the car too, this will become a factor. You will end up upgrading...like wot I did! You've been warned!

 

Sue & Bernie

[+TresOkies]

Using Roads and Rec, I can get everything from Liverpool north as well as the London Metro in memory. Of course, Roads and Rec does not have the detail that MetroGuide provides, so your mileage will vary (kilometerage???).

 

Having 24MB in the Vista is great. The thing that is less than ideal is that the only way to get maps into the blasted thing is via serial cable. It takes about an hour and 15 minutes to get nearly 24MB of maps into it. Make sure you have fresh batteries in it and turn the satellite tracking function off while downloading. I'm spoiled by the removable cards in my other GPSRs, so the Vista is a pain in that regard. Then again, I don't worry about it getting wet.

 

-E

 

--

N35°32.981 W98°34.631

[+baselinebenny]

I was in a similar situation, I went with the vista for the extra MB of storage, VERY glad I did. The compass is a very useful feature, very glad I got that as well. If you can afford it, save yourself an upgrade in the future by getting a vista.

 

Ben.

[+Alan2]

It is true that it takes about an hour to load Vista 24M memory vs. about a third for the Legends 8Megs. However, since you're loading 3 times the area with the Vista, you don't have to load maps as often as you move around. Also, no one's stopping you from loading just a few maps totalling a few megs in a travel area so you don't necessarily need an hour.

 

The only time I change mine in my Vista is when I'm vacationing aways off. Otherwise I have my area covered.

 

Alan

[+Rubberhead]

I almost all respects, the Vista is the same or better than the Legend.

 

However, I've actually found that I like the elevation accuracy (and ease of use) with the Legend better than the Vista.

 

The Legend displays the calculated GPS elevation, the Vista displays the elevation from the barometeric altimeter. You can not display GPS elevation on the Vista in real-time. I have found that for hiking, the Vista's elevation readings are fine, but if you drive any distance, I think the Legend's elevation readings are more accurate.

 

________________________________________________

 

Garmin eTrex Vista, Legend, and GPSmap 162 with Bluecharts/Fishing Hotspots/POI/Road & Rec

 

Ducks - flying geocaches of meat

[Natterjack]

May I suggest that for hill walking a mapping GPS is by far the most usefull look at either the Garmin 76s or any of the Magellan Meridian range. The meridians having the added advantage of an expandable memory. Another tip is to get one of the Ordinance Surveys digital maps such as Fugawi these give an ability to plan and upload routes and waypoints etc.

[+Alan2]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rubberhead:

I almost all respects, the Vista is the same or better than the Legend.

 

However, I've actually found that I like the elevation accuracy (and ease of use) with the Legend better than the Vista.

 

The Legend displays the calculated GPS elevation, the Vista displays the elevation from the barometeric altimeter. You can not display GPS elevation on the Vista in real-time. I have found that for hiking, the Vista's elevation readings are fine, but if you drive any distance, I think the Legend's elevation readings are more accurate.

 

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One of Vista's later software revisions, (you can download the latest from Garmin.com) allow you to check the altitude from the satellites and then use that reading to recalibrate the barometric altimeter. This won't work in a plane where the cabin pressure limits to a few thousand feet and Vista's program will not make such drastic adjustments.

 

Good point about the accuracy in a car. Since you have a good view of the sky, the satellite readings are more consistent than barometric readings since the latter are effected by pressure changes as windows are opened or closed, fan blowing to heat or cool the car's interior, etc.

 

ALan