City Select

[+Team Sydster]

I have been lurking around reading thread after thread, now I need to ask some questions. This is a great website with lots of knowledgeble folks, so here goes.

I have decided on a Legend C and probably City Select maps. I will do mostly caching but would like to do road tripping with it too.

My question about the mapping is this: I have read about how much map area some people load in 24meg, and it seems to vary quite a bit. What I would like to know is can the unit auto route a trip from Houston to Los Angeles for instance, or do you do it in a laptop and load it to you GPS unit? For a long trip do you use the base maps or City Select? Any help on how the process works would sure be appreciated.

As you can see I'm a newbie, but I'd rather hear from you guys that actually use the units than just someone trying to sell them.

 

Also who is a reliable seller to deal with online? I have looked at ads from PlanetGPS, GpsDiscount, Comp-u-plus, Anchor Express but don't know who is really reliable.

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

[+Sputnik 57]

I'm pretty sure the Legend's autorouting is the same as the 60C which I use. You can load City Select maps for Houston, LA, and any city in between that you might lay over in (Fort Stockton and Tucson, for example). Then autoroute. The unit will use City Select for local streets nearby, and automatically switch to the base maps in between. Since you are not likely to leave major highways in between, you're set. If you need to find a hotel in Fort Stockton or an ATM in Tucson, you've got those local streets and points of interest too.

 

If you haven't seen it yet, there is a great review of the Legend C here. (Actuall, its there even if you have seen it).

 

Edit: I HAVE to start taking off my mittens before I start typing.

Edited November 14, 2004 by Sputnik 57

[+Olar]

Using City Select version 4, and going downtown to downtown, it looks like you would need approximately 61 MB of map storage in order to autoroute the entire way. This is only the maps required for the Mapsource route and no extra for wandering off route in-between.

L.A. alone looks like around 28 MB just by itself so you would be wise to use that laptop if you can especially if you want some mapping in cities along the way like Sputnik points out.

The alternative is going for the Garmin 76C with it's 115 MB of map storage but its still handy to have the maps with you on the laptapper.

 

Cheers, Olar

[+Team Sydster]

Now I'm really getting confused. If you can't even load a trip in the unit, what good is city select? Alaptop is not really that handy to carry in a car.

What Sputnik said sounded great but what Olar said didn't.

What do you use city select for anyway?

Thanks for the replies.

[+VisionQuest220]

If you are planning on using your GPSr for automotive/routing/road tripping as well as geocaching, take a look at the Quest unit by Garmin. It's very compact and ships with City Select v6. I got mine for just under $500 and think it is well worth the money.

[SergZak]

The Legend C is primarily marketed as an outdoor/geocaching unit but also has the same autorouting capabilities as the 60C(S), 76C(S) and the other newer Garmin color units like the Quest. The main drawback for City Select autorouting with the Legend C/Vista C is the 24MB of memory. While this amount of memory is very adequate for the unit's intended use, it's a pretty big limitation when it comes to loading City Select maps with autorouting data. Like Sputnik said, it's do-able but you'd have to use the basemap for alot of the trip. The 60C holds all of Los Angeles to San Diego and the Quest or 76C will hold about 95% of California. Like the others here mentioned, a better option would be either a 60C (56MB) or 76C (115MB) for long trips.

[tubemonkey]

It's a shame Garmin failed to add an SD slot for unlimited memory. Then a laptop wouldn't be needed and one could carry detailed City Select maps for the entire country on user replaceable flash memory and auto-route anywhere they wanted by just inserting a new card.

 

Lack of SD was a deal breaker for me. That's why I passed on the Vista C and 60CS. I don't want two units -- one for hiking and one for car navigation. I want one handheld unit that does it all.

 

Come on Garmin ..... add the SD slot. It's not like it can't be done or that it's price prohibitive.

[+Night Stalker]

The trip from Houston to LA would not be a problem if you only plan on loading maps of your route into the GPS. Your problems would start if you want to load all the streets in LA into the GPS. Like someone else already stated this would take about 28 meg. You could probably load all of Houston and your route and still stay within the limits of your GPS, but LA basin is to big.

 

[ubievol]

could you load up maps onto an SD card on a Palm or PocketPC and then transfer them to the GPSr as needed? still an extra item to have on hand but it would be more convenient than a laptop.

 

night stalker are you saying that one could load the route along the interstate (so that exits, restaurants, etc along the route would be available) and then use the rest of the memory to load the destination? it seems like that would be the best way to do it regardless of the amount of memory available. why load the entire state if you are just driving thru along the interstate?