How Much Memory Is Enough?

[Alphawolf]

With the 60 series coming out, I keep hearing the call for still more memory capabilities. I just mapped the entire California coast from and including, all of San Diego, up to and including the entire L.A. basin up through and including all of the Bay area, and all the way up to Oregon! It took less than 52 MB to do it. So....when will enough be enough? And most of this "call for more" is coming from geocachers! How much country do you cover in a weekend, or an entire year? I guess I am happy with what's really functional, vs. what's possible. Now......when we get 7.5 min. quads for areas beside the national parks, that will dictate all the memory we can get! But 'till then, I guess I'm one of the few who remember thinking 1.44 mb on the 3+ was pretty cool!

[+NightPilot]

The only real answer to this is "however much memory you have, it isn't enough". Software is a gas, and it expands to fill its container.

[+phantom4099]

Well I don't know whats enough, but I don't think 56mb is it. I personally would like to have all of my state covered with TOPO data (South Dakota-30mb), and the entire state with city select (about 12mb). Thats 42mb of memory used up in a fairly flat and unpopulated area, I can only imagen that would be worse in other parts of the country.

 

Wyatt W.

Edited November 30, 2003 by phantom4099

[+RockyRiver]

I think built in memory is a problem or should I call it a major limitation on all GPS's, with this behind the times idea. Let the customer be the judge on how much memory he wants in his GPS, this is simply done by adding SD card expansion. The reason SD card is the most logical way to go on expansion

and not compact flash or smartmedia is size and, the ability of SD card to snap in place and stay secure in its slot and not vibrate out of place, and they are easily avalible at all electronics stores. When Garmin redesigns some of its handheld units next year I am sure you will see this on all the new high end GPS's. Garmin has memory expansion on some of its Large permanent mount GPS's for marine use, but you must buy there over priced memory expansion cards. Magellan started this SD card expansion slot on its Meridian Series last year and everyone loves it including me. "Prediction by me" I think USB will take over the comport

communications between the GPS and Computer next year and memory expansion

slots will be on all high end handhelds by the major manufacturers, or they will suffer in sales to the ones who do go the wave of the future.

Edited November 30, 2003 by rockyriver

[Alphawolf]

I agree that consumers will drive the market...that's how it works. I think that idea of SD slots is a good one, at least from the user's point of view. I contend though, it is not an idea driven by increased funtionality. We (myself included) won't be happy until we can load the entire country (Geeez, why not the world?) with both TOPO and city maps, at once, and still have enough left over to add the Moon and Mars when they become available....Am I not right? 50 MB is enough to cover anyone on any given trip to almost anywhere. If you are like me, though, you feel the desire to load maps all the way from here to there(where ever "there" is) and everything in between. Disregarding the fact that I will never leave the freeway from "here to there", and will not be seeking "points of interest" between "here and there" and have no chance of getting lost between "here and there" but I still want it mapped! So...we are driving the market to infinite expansion capabilities based on something besides "needs", right? Especially now that laptops are so ubiquitious. This is all bordering on philosophical as opposed to logical need for infinite "power" huh? Good discussion...

[+GeckoGeek]

I think memory expansion is a good idea too, but I suspect Garmin is resisting because of water proofing issues.

 

"Prediction by me" I think USB will take over the comport

communications between the GPS and Computer

What do you mean by "take over"? The serial will be needed for backward compatibility with many devices that connect to GPS. Note that the GPS60 has both.

[+Renegade Knight]

Enough memory? When I plug in Topo and Cityselect for everywhere I'm likely to go with the GPS in it's usefull life. Whatever memory that takes is probably enough. Probably a gig or two. I don't want to futz with uploading and downloading maps to do my business. It takes time and adds one extra step to prepare for a trip.

[+TerraTrekkers]

10 percent more then you have.

[shabbasuraj]

there is NEVER enough memory...

 

I am waiting for the day where I see a GPS/harddrive device...a la iPod...thus 40 gigs may be enough...

 

perhaps not...

 

lates..

Edited December 1, 2003 by shabbasuraj

[+Alan2]

10 percent more then you have.

That's what Sylvia Porter the money advisor said when she was asked what people want to earn!

 

Regarding memory, the more the better. I live in NYC and the Metro area just eats it up with Garmin's Metroguide. Also, with more memory, you can have additional points of interest. The other issue as metioned is who wants to worry or take the time to reload different areas. I hate to tell you how many times I traveled someplace and forget to check to see if I had the maps loaded for that area only to be left with the base maps and no topo or detailed street roads. In fact at this moment I'm still trying to find my way home

 

Like I said the more the better.

[+GOT GPS?]

Would be interesting to have a gps with a 2 gigabyte Compact Flash Card in it for the whole of the USA and Canada, with City Select or Navigator software.

[Vlad]

and that's the optimal 2610 streetpilot configuration - very nice...

[+GOT GPS?]

I would like a GPS 60CS and a Thumb Drive like this:

Of course it should be designed to plug into the GPS too.

 

If the USB Thumbdrive can hold 2 gigabtyes, that would be nice. Now if Garmin could include a thumbdrive with the Auto-kit for the 60CS, that would be cool too.

 

How this would work, is that if you notice that you are getting near the edge of the map on the GPS, you would plug-in the thumbdrive and the GPS can load in what it needs, based on where you are GOTOing.

 

If you know how the Magellan Meridians work, this can aproximate that ability.

On the Meridian you would go to Card Utilities and select the map that you want to display on the map screen. So with the 60CS you should be able to plug in a thumbdrive and the GPS would recognize it, then if you have a few mapsets loaded onto the thumbdrive, the GPS will ask you which mapset you want loaded into the GPS from the thumbdrive. If you need an unlock code, then This thumbdrive will only work between your software and your own GPS60. will have to be an upgrade of their firmware that could do this. Everybody should ask this of GARMIN.

Garmin

or 1-800-800-1020

 

Thanks

Geoff

Edited December 1, 2003 by GOT GPS?

[+GOT GPS?]

I just called Garmin, and they did not know what a thumbdrive was.

 

thumbdrive

[+Renegade Knight]

I just called Garmin, and they did not know what a thumbdrive was.

 

thumbdrive

Looks like a memory key to me. That's what Dell calls them. The terms must not have settled down into something universal.

[+The Merman]

Because of the density here in the south of the UK, then the memory of the GPS V will just about do two counties, however in the USA the same memory will probably do half a state in the less populated areas.

So I guess the answer to the question asked is "Depends where you live"

[+Rubberhead]

My Legend always seemed to need a little more memory but I've never need to fully load my Vista so my answer is somewhere between 8.1 MB and 23.9 MB.

[Vlad]

interesting technology and a good idea geoff. the key here though would be to get manufacturers to standardize on the usb connection - pc's use the full-size connector but most hardware (cameras, gps's etc) uses the mini-usb connector.

 

but again i like the idea - don't see why it couldn't work with a little manufacturer support.

[+NightPilot]

The terminology isn't even close to standard. SanDisk calls it a Jumpdrive, and every mfr seems to have its own name. I don't like it for small devices - it's too big. An SD card slot is enough for me, and small enough to fit in most anything. A full-size USB port, with that thing sticking out the side, is asking to be broken off.

[Vlad]

i was thinking more so that this would be used as a map storage drive - it's only plugged in so you can load the map segments you need and then you remove it again... no need to have a pc handy - just this device...