Handheld, Mapping GPS's - How much memory is good

[boonsur]

Looking at either the Garmin Vista, or the new Lowrance iFINDER iPRO. Don't like Magellan because they seem over-priced for the features, and some friends' units have died completely (poor quality?).



The Garmin wins out because it's waterproof, has the altimiter (which I don't need), and the electronic compass (might be nice). More compact, which will be nice for hiking, but at the expense of smaller display. I personally feel the Garmin is a better build, too. Biggest weakness, it only has 24mb of memory.



The Lowrance is not waterproof (BIG minus), but it does have a bigger display, and more importantly, uses SD memory cards to store more info.



The deciding question may be: How much memory do you need? Is 24mb enough for a large city? Can you change the resolution (only include major roads)? Can you have numerous blocks, from different citys/areas, stored in the unit?



Can anybody explain in layman's terms, how you download the maps into the unit? And/or do you have any personal yea or nay's about either? THANKS!

 

[juicedcummins]

Check out the rino 120 the base map for the US users it pretty good to start with. The 120 has a locater on them for others in your address book. This is a great feature if you have others with the 120 or 110. We bought 6 last fall prior to hunting season we can't wait to use them out on the water this spring.

The radio feature on these are compatible with the other handheld radios like Motorola so there is no need to carry both.

The base map for us up in Canada sucks compared to the US base map.

 

[DMosher]

Actually the Garmin Rino 120 only has 8 MB of internal memory. But Garmin is coming out with a Rino 130 with 24 MB of internal memory. They also added a built in electronic compass, barometric altimeter and weather receiver for 7 NOAA weather channels. I own the Rino 120 and like it a lot, but would love to have the 24MB of memory instead of the 8MB and the other new features.



Hope this helps.



Doug

 

[Eric_77]

I have the Garmin colormap GPS and added the 128meg card for it. I have filled it with detail maps for the following major cities NYC, OKC, Dallas/Ft. Worth/N. Texas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Orlando, Miami, St. Louis, D. C. , Atlanta, Richmond.



I have the the Garmin program called Mapsource that I use for routing and mapping and was told with that program it would take 5-6 128mpg cards to file all detail maps for 48 states. I hope this gives you an idea of how much space is needed for your application. or PM with the areas you are wanting to have detail maps for and I can tell you how much memory it takes.

 

[Bob Wagner]

I have a Friend looking to sell his Garmin V GPS. If anyone is looking

 

[boonsur]

Thanks, Eric. By your numbers, I should be able to fit even a large city into the Vista. (Chicago is one I travel to often). I'll assume the built-in database could get me to, and through, most of the cities anyway (in case my atlas ever broke down ).



Will they handle a wider area, if there's less roads (remote areas)? IOW, do they fill the memory; based on square mileage, or by complexity/amount of data within a certain area?



Is the CDROM & software pretty easy to use (is one brand better than the other)? How much memory is the entire CDROM if, say I wanted to put the whole thing on a laptop? ((edit: duh, I guess by simple math; if it takes 6, 128mb cards, then I need 768mb total))

 

[DMosher]

On the Garmin Mapsource MetroGuide USA the states are all set up in grids. You just click the grids that you want then down load it into the GPS. It tells you how much memory you are using with each grid. So that way you only down load what you can fit. The more remote the area the less memory it takes up. When you get into cities the memory can get used up quick because of the detail. The Garmin software is pretty easy to use, never did read all of the directions for mine. But it does not work on a Mac computer it only runs on windows.



Hope this helps



Doug

 

[JJW_ND]

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