I am looking for a GPS to use for trail and street purposes (if there is such a thing). The trail function will be used by my son to mark waypoints, trailheads, and to "help" me find my way home.
garmin nuvi 500 is the only one i have seen that does both. not sure about marking waypoints and the such, but as per there website, is the only one that comes loaded with both street and topo maps. this i think is a simple enough unit for me. but i am not looking for one with too many features, as i wont use most of them anyway. i will have to watch this thread...
I have had good luck with Delorme Topo 7 loaded on my Itronix tablet. Great topo imagery and all the streets you want.
However, I just ordered a Garmin Colorado which has 100K topo maps preloaded and I got the Garmin's street maps to load onto it, so I'll have to try it out before I could comment on it, but I've read great things.
Other options would be the Delorme PN40, or Garmin Oregon.
All of these are topo/trail first and street second, which is the opposite of the Nuvi 500.
I was poking around Garmin's website today. It appears that their topo products can be purchased and added to a substantial portion of their product line, including Nuvis; as noted above the Nuvi 500 comes pre-loaded with both street maps and topo maps. I suspect that your purposes would be better served by the 24k scale topo maps rather than the nationwide 100k maps that come with the 500.
I have a Garmin GPSMap 378, and I have been very impressed with the topo capability w/ the 100k (haven't tried the 24k, though they are available for the western states).
I got the 378 for overland purposes, and was planning to pick up a TomTom or other street-oriented GPS, but actually I find the Garmin to perform pretty well in city nav mode. Destination entry is a pain due to the lack of QWERTY keyboard, but after that, it works a treat.
Anyway, I'd say the Garmin range of "chart plotters" (e.g. the 378) is worth a look. I did have to buy a mem card aftermarket which was somewhat expensive.
i too had heard that the topo's could be loaded onto a variety of other units, but read somewhere that they are a pain to switch from street to topo. i like the idea of the unit being simple. that is all.
Street - Topo - Perfect? No. Pretty darn good? Yes
In heavy tree cover it suffers like any gps but still leaves a good bread crumb trail to follow back plus you can mark a waypoint as long as you have satellite connection.
You can set it for Car, walking, or biking.
Here are some screen shots
Lands End walk in SF (my hood)
Some Death Valley screen shots
Saline to Racetrack -
A few from a random walk in the forest
This dash board shot shows how it does not record the mileage very well when walking in the forest with lots of tree cover.
be warned just bacause most Nuvi products will load the topo maps not all of them will leave a bread crumb trail or save tracks. I think Garmin has a compare feature that shows all the features of the different Nuvis.
I have a Nuvi 205 with the 24k West Coast Topo installed. It works well enough. It does color topo in 2D not 3D. Screens a bit small as I dont have the "wide" version". It shows the bread crumb trail but you have to tell it to show that. It's factory default is to not show it. I believe all the Garmins have that function. What was alittle dissapointing was that it showed no more off highway trails then it did w/o the card. But it kicks a$$ on the street.
Wanting more off road trails, I did my homework and found the Lawrance Baja 540C was the only way to go. It was expensive with the software and all, but very detailed.
Wanting more off road trails, I did my homework and found the Lawrance Baja 540C was the only way to go. It was expensive with the software and all, but very detailed.
I am running the 540C in my rig also and love it. If you are looking for a good offroad unit it is the way to go but it is not so great for the street.
I use a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx with a 2G microSD card. For trails it would be fine. Car use sucks, too small screen, so I use it with a laptop. In another thread I posted a site that has Garmin compatible topo maps for some states with much greater detail.
Edit: One thing I will note is it even gets a position lock with dense tree cover.
I have the Garmin Oregon 400T and although I have nothing to compare it to... (its my first GPS unit).
Im pretty happy with it.
The only two things I do not like is that the screen is not bring enough under sunlight in the dashboard and the battery life is not the greatest.. but maybe I havent set it up to get the most out of battery life...
I have taken it to Zion and I was able to get great reception inside a few of the canyons... and it is water proof.
It also comes preloaded with Topo software for all 48 states and Alaska...
Oh and I got my my GPS unit at REI on a Sale..but Im sure you could get a better deal on the internet...
One thing I love about this GPS is that is has a touch screen..
I am running the 540C in my rig also and love it. If you are looking for a good offroad unit it is the way to go but it is not so great for the street.
Lowrance has discontinued the 540c. They replaced it with the HDS-5 Baja. Which I just bought. You will need their 'Map Create' software CD, or pre-programmed SD card if you want to see any trails or topo. For trails and topo it's great, but the streets are WAY outdated! About $120 for the card. The new HDS has the antenna built in with the expensive option of an external. I have found the built in works just fine on my dash. Screen is better then the old 540, but not by much. I got mine at Abes of Main for $590 shipped. You can also add outdoor temp and other stuff if you spring the dough for the network wich can get expensive fast.
I have a Colorado 400T (not worth what most are asking for it) and a Nuvi 205. You can upload free topos to most of the garmin units (including the two that I have) from gpsfiledepot.com. The topos on there are far superior to any that I have seen coming from Garmin. I spent a few weeks in Idaho with the 400T and was shocked at the detail those maps had, I mean every Paved Road, Graveled road Dirt Road and Goat trail was on the map. I short I would highly recommend the Garmin because of the Free maps and support (not the Garmin support though). The 60CSx is probably the best handheld on the market the only drawback is the screen size. The Nuvi are great for the car. The Oregon and Colorado are real pains to deal with if you try and make them do what the don't want to (I.E. make your own maps and upload them to the GPS).
