Need help FAST... Metroguide or City Select for ...

[Us 5 Camp]

My father has just invested in a GPSMAP196 for flying and RV'ing (rural & snowbird travel).

 

The unit will accept City Select as well as Metroguide.

 

Which would you recommend. I've looked at the map viewers and they look very similar, though different in detail for certain areas I've explored. (metroguide had more lakes, etc)

 

City select appeared to have some of the smallest roads named where metroguide appeared to just have a road like my Topo does.

 

In practice from those with a little more than "mapsource viewer" time behind them, what are your opions?

 

PS... I'd like to order one or the other with a data card ASAP so I can have it here this weekend when they visit. He's not the most computer savy, so I'll be helping him get things setup while he's here.

 

"Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage..."

[+Renegade Knight]

Per an email from Garmin (while I wage my war with them) they said City Select 4.01 is more up to date than Metroguide at this point in time. They went on to say that City Select is backed by a company with a better repuation than Metroguide. Metroguide and City Select do similar things but are produced by different companies. So far as I know City Select is only offered in conjunction with specific GPS units. Double check that it will work in your application. In case you missed the reccomendation in the above ramble. Get City Select 4.01 if it will work with the GPS.

 

Good luck.

 

Wherever you go there you are.

[+RangerRick]

Hello US 5 Camp. I have both products and I'll explain what I have found out about them. Both products are almost identical. For the Metroguide you don't need an unlock code and for the City Select you do. The info detail varies depending on by the area it is being used.

For Connecticut, Metroguide was better for geocaching in rural areas. It had more streams, dirt roads, train tracks, etc. It also does not need an unlock code. The only drawback I found was that when I had my GPS on my dashboard doing autorouting, it was just too slow doing recalculations. I had two GPS V units operating at the same time while I was looking for a cache and found that Metroguide took about 10-15 seconds longer to recalculate while I was walking toward the cache. So, I deleted the the Metroguide maps and use the City Select maps. I sold a GPS V to a geocacher in North Carolina and he found the City Select maps were useless where he lived. It did not have enough of the backroads on it. So to make a long story short, I would check out the maps of the area you live and see what kind of detail you have on each software package.

If you don't have access to the map of your area, let me know what your location is by email and I will check the maps for you on my computer and let you know. Hope this helps, Rang

[+Renegade Knight]

Ranger Rick.

 

Which version of City Select did you use? 4.01 or the older one? The older version did suck in rural coverage.

 

Wherever you go there you are.

[+Alan2]

quote:

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Originally posted by Us 5 Camp:

My father has just invested in a GPSMAP196 ...

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..and I'm sure he'll do better than than my investment in Lucent..."

 

Alan

[+RangerRick]

Originally posted by Renegade Knight:

Ranger Rick.

 

Which version of City Select did you use? 4.01 or the older one? The older version did suck in rural coverage.

 

To answer Renegade's question, 4.01

[Us 5 Camp]

Thanks for the replies...

 

We ordered the Auto Kit for the GPSMAP196 from TVNAV.

 

It was a good value and given all the searching I've done and the comments here I decided to try the City Select. The 196 was made to use the City Select data, City Select was written with routing in mind vs. an after thought for metroguide, for the areas we're interested in the data seemed to be presented better. I do, however, feel metroguide has some data that City Select doesn't.

 

As an added bonus, I learned that my 76s will accept City Select as the software will allow up to two GPS serial numbers per unlock. So I'll get to use the maps on my 76s as well. Of course I'll need to turn off the routing data to keep my downloads smaller.

 

Thanks all....

 

"Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage..."