Buying mapping GPS, need recommendations

[Guest nathanso]

I live in the hilly rural area 20mi NE of San Francisco and am shopping for my first GPS to go geocaching. As a former orienteerer and avid PC user, I'm intrigued by the idea of loading topo maps into my GPS and seeing my position superimposed on them on-screen.

 

With an overall budget of around $300, what do people here recommend?

[Guest gstrong1]

All I own is Garmin so I can't coment on the Magellans. But if you're thinking Garmin, for about $310.00 or so you can pick up the GPS MAP76. A fantastic unit with a lot of great features. You'll get plenty of responses here, so take in all that information & then check in on the Garmin web site to find out the features in their different units.

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

[Guest ragvan]

You will also want to decide if you want a scrolling map or not. I own a GPS 12Map which runs the same software as a GPS III+. Both these units are advertised as having a scrolling map. It's pretty cool to be able to watch the map scroll around as you drive or walk and also move around to different areas on the map using the rocker pad. I've never seen the extrex models that have mapping abilities, but from what I hear their maps do not scroll. I'm not quite sure what they mean by this. They have more memory for maps (8meg & 24 meg vs the 12Map at 1.44 meg). I've heard a new Garmin GPS V is coming out which is like the III+ but with around 24 megs of memory. Maybe someone who owns one of these mapping etrex units can elaborate more on scrolling vs non-scrolling maps. I picked up the GPS 12Map for $279 off the internet. I also noticed that brand new Garmin extrex models are being sold on e-bay for a pretty good price. I saw a new Garmin Etrex Legend go for 195 bucks. Not bad.

[Guest Prime Suspect]

quote:

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Originally posted by ragvan:

You will also want to decide if you want a scrolling map or not. I own a GPS 12Map which runs the same software as a GPS III+. Both these units are advertised as having a scrolling map. It's pretty cool to be able to watch the map scroll around as you drive or walk and also move around to different areas on the map using the rocker pad. I've never seen the extrex models that have mapping abilities, but from what I hear their maps do not scroll.

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The maps on the Vista do scroll, ie; your position stays fixed near the bottom of the screen, and the map scrolls to show your position as you move around (assuming you don't have the "north always up" option turned on. The map may on occasion blank out and redraw itself. However this is generally a function of the auto-zoom feature when following a route. The map automatically zooms in or out to keep your current position and the route's next waypoint on screen at the same time. So the screen will blank and redraw when it changes its zoom factor.

 

There was OS release a while back that contained a bug which caused the screen to redraw far more often than necessary. But a new OS release came out a few days later fixing that.

[Guest jbwcpa]

quote:

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Originally posted by ragvan:

I've heard a new Garmin GPS V is coming out which is like the III+ but with around 24 megs of memory.

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The new garmin V will retail for around $450 and comes with its own unique mapping software. The software allows you to unlock only 1 US region. You can unlock the whole CD for $135. The V also does autorouting. Its a great alternative to the Street Pilot III and should also do a good, yet expensive, job with geocaching. And its WAAS enabled. It comes out in October.

 

[This message has been edited by jbwcpa (edited 09 August 2001).]

[Guest ragvan]

do that as well.

[Guest prv8eye]

quote:

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Originally posted by nathanso:

am shopping for my first GPS to go geocaching

With an overall budget of around $300, what do people here recommend?

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Read all the comments and reviews on these forums and then check out the new Magellan Gold and Platinum units coming out next month. http://www.magellangps.com/frames/frame2.htm

[Guest peter]

quote:

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Originally posted by ragvan:

Maybe then the scrolling feature they are talking about is the ability to use the rocker key to scroll around the map on the GPS's display even though you are standing still. ... Then again I've never even seen the extrex mapping models.. so maybe they do that as well.

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They do indeed. I think you heard something about the basic eTrex and eTrex Summit - the earliest two models which do not support actual maps. These two units also lacked the click-stick which allows the user to scroll around the map on the later eTrex models, including all the ones that support real maps.

BTW 'nathanso', I'm located in San Ramon, not too far away. Let me know if you want to see an eMap in operation. I don't have the Topo maps, but I do have the Roads & Recreation maps loaded.

[Guest nathanso]

I've read many many posts here, compared features, and am leaning towards the Garmin eTrex Legend.

 

So I went to garmin.com to check out their topo maps. They have an online demo here (http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/). I was a little disappointed by the lack of detail in the topo maps. I think the scale is too large, i.e. there are too few topo lines per elevation change. Is this what I've read about here re 7.5 and 15 minute maps?

 

Can anyone comment?

[Guest peter]

quote:

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Originally posted by nathanso:

I was a little disappointed by the lack of detail in the topo maps. I think the scale is too large, i.e. there are too few topo lines per elevation change. Is this what I've read about here re 7.5 and 15 minute maps?

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Yes, the Garmin Topo maps are based on the USGS 1:100000 scale maps, rather than the 1:24000 scale that is most commonly used while hiking. While quite accurate, they tend to be rather dated on manmade features and of course do not have as much detail as the 7.5' (1:24000) maps. Of course, there are also some limits on how useful the extra detail would be given the small screen size of a handheld GPSR.

BTW, the topo maps are metric and therefore the contour line intervals seem a little odd when displayed in feet.