Sportrak Map

[Team Dragoon]

I'm considering buying a sportrak map....anyone have any expieriance or opions on this model?????

[+Renegade Knight]

It's a competant entry level GPS.

[tubemonkey]

It's major drawback is that it only has a 2mb basemap and 6mb of free memory. You can't get much in the way of maps in such a limited amount of memory. Think of it as an ST Pro with reduced memory.

 

It has it's place. I picked one up for one of my sons. He'll only use it to load topo maps for hikes into the Cascades and Olympics in his search for the perfect photo. He's an avid photographer, and currently in school to become a professional photographer. He has no need for a car routing unit, so 6mb is plenty of memory to download topo maps for western Washington (his favorite stomping grounds).

 

I picked the ST Map because of it's price and quad-helix antenna. Western Washington is heavily wooded and the ST Map tracks better than the eTrex Yellows we have as back-up units.

 

I seem to have the worst luck with Magellans. So far, I've returned one ST Pro, one Mer Gold, and one ST Map because of power issues. The Pro kept shutting itself off for no apparent reason and the Gold and Map both died instantly after I placed batteries in them for the first time. Lemons happen. So far, this ST Map is working great.

 

Costco was selling the ST Map (w/ neoprene case and MapSend Topo US mapping software) for $200 - $40 instant savings - $30 Costco rebate - $30 Magellan rebate = $100. Not bad. What made it even better, was the $50 rebate I received for the first ST Map I bought and then returned. I received a full refund for the unit and didn't have to return the rebate. So my final cost the replacement ST Map (w/ case and Topo US) was just $50. Sweet.

[+JohnnyVegas]

I have a Sport trak map and the 6mb of mamory has not been a problem for me. Right now my Sport trak map has topo maps loaded for the norther San Francisco bay area this includes most of Marin, Sonoma county and most of Sacramento area.

[Resu Eman]

My brother in law and I both have the sportrak map and we are very happy. I am in Eastern Washington State and my map covers 175 miles north to south and 140 miles east to west. This is a pretty square area, but it can be configured to a skinny little rectangle if needed - which I used to drive to the coast in August. The 140 by 175 mile area pretty much is the extent of the memory for adding the TOPO maps that it came with (Included streets and topo), but it has a world wide base map in it. I would believe that a lesser map that used only the topo or only the streets would use less memory and cover more area.

 

I have had a great time with it, and it is pretty simple to use. It is my first GPS and I have had it since last spring. I use it a lot when I work to navigate the streets of my city and it has never let me down. My brother in law had dropped his quite a few times, and it has held up surpisingly well.

 

If you are in need of driving long distances, then maybe you could step up to the Color or Pro, or whatever, but to use for a roughly two hour driving radius, and the street maps and Topo for hiking are wonderful.

 

There seems to be a lot of Garmin users around, and I have read great testimonials for them as well. One thing to consider though is the price of the maps. My brother in law had the GPSr and the Map Software, so I only bought the GPSr and used his CD, which saved me a retail of 70-75 dollars, though I have seen it cheaper online. THere are other mapping software options you can use too from what I have read in these forums, so you might want to look into that as well.

[+Semper Questio]

My brother and I are nboth happy with ours. He is in Wash state and I am in Texas. The memory has not been an issue for me. I have a big chunk of central Texas (the area around Austin) loaded in mine along with about 300 waypoints at any given time. It's accuracy is, usually, pretty darn reliable, I have no beef with battery life, and it is pretty easy to use.

[+Night Stalker]

I have a SporTrak Pro. It is just like the map except it has 23mb of free memory so It can download more maps. I am able to download Topo maps for most of my home state (Idaho), but if you are satisfied with downloading smaller maps to your GPS it is an excellent piece of equipment. I have found over 400 cache with this model.

 

Sure wish I could type!!

 

Edited November 13, 2004 by Night Stalker