GPS shopping - What's the best for all purposes? (Off-roading being one...)

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LUV24BY said:
YES! Thanks for that Jack! I too have been looking on eBay. I liked the fact the 760/780 series have the SD slot. If you throw in a 4 GB card, that's a butt load of maps, POI's and waypoints.

Please either PM me or post up your findings. Refurbished sounds good if it's done right. Fry's Electronics though has tarnished my opinion on so called 'refurbished' items.

John
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Will do. Supposedly the ones I looked at on ebay (the one I bought) were factory refurbished. We'll see.

I thought about doing the Kenwood HU, but at close to 1k and fitting only one vehicle, I thought the portable unit would work better for me. With the nuvi, I can put in any vehicle, carry it around and I have the 60cx for serious offroad work if I need it.

Jack
 
I spent a little more and bought the Nuvi 500, It has all the TOPO maps built in, has an altimeter, compass, speed, waypoints, good battery life and will fit inside a sweater pocket. It has a $35 replacement battery so if you get low you can swap them out and continue hiking. It has no text to voice, but if you are in the middle of the Sierras, what is it going to tell you anyhow? Turn left at the big rock in 100 feet?
 
Well, I got the 760 and it and everything, including the box looked brand new, so if it was "refurbished", I can't tell.

I uploaded the western US garmin topo 08 maps onto the sd card that I had. It took me a little while to figure it out, but you have to go to the "maps" section and hit a few other menus to go back and forth between the road maps and the topos.

I didn't get a chance to really test it out yet offroad, but onroad the thing is awesome. Got to use it yesterday on a trip to Sacramento and between the voice commands and the screen, it makes getting to someplace you have never been a breeze. The onroad navigation is very easy to figure out, actually the unit as a whole is very intuitive, luckily because the owner's manual is pretty much useless. But with just a little time and searching through the menus, I was able to figure out how to switch between onroad and offroad maps. For $245 to my door, it's hard to beat.

So far really pleased with it and my wife, who was sceptical, is now a believer. I will let you know how well the offroad/topo side works, hopefully over the T-day weekend. Should be able to give it a real workout.

Jack
 
I have a Garmin Etrex Legend Hcx. It does everything I want it to. The only things I have against it is the small screen and no voice directions.
 
ca62cruzr said:
I spent a little more and bought the Nuvi 500, It has all the TOPO maps built in, has an altimeter, compass, speed, waypoints, good battery life and will fit inside a sweater pocket. It has a $35 replacement battery so if you get low you can swap them out and continue hiking. It has no text to voice, but if you are in the middle of the Sierras, what is it going to tell you anyhow? Turn left at the big rock in 100 feet?
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I think for a true dual purpose GPS, the Nuvi 500 might be the way to go, too bad they didn't give it the bigger screen.


Dudleyfj40 said:
I am looking at the same deal. I'm glad you liked it, price is right.
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Ok, I got to use the Nuvi 760 offroad this weekend and it will give you an idea of where you are and were you want to go (limited), but we ended up using my 60cx for searching ahead, it was just easier.

So my review of the 760, is that it is a great onroad gps, just limited offroad, because you can't change the fields that it displays, so that kind of limits it's usefulness. And, you can tell that you are asking it to do something it is not designed for. So it's not perfect for both uses, great for onroad and only "ok" for offroad.

Jack
 
The Garmin Nuvi 500 is on sale right now at REI for $289.99, I think until tomorrow. Just ordered one. Garmin nuvi 500 GPS at REI.com

So how do others with this unit like it?
 
Yes, the 500 looks very very interesting. And that price can't be beat right now (no affiliation). I'd rather wait for it to drop under $200, though.
 
Based on some things I have read on Mud, I am considering the Garmin Nuvi 750. It does on road stuff and is topo compatible with its SD slot. Under $200 online.
 
supercarrera said:
Get a double din Kenwood unit that runs Garmin navigation. Then get a cheap handheld unit for hiking. That's what I did :)
gps1.jpg
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Guys,
I've been following this thread and I agree with supercarrera. I've tried to use the handheld gps in the car while driving and the screen is just not big enough for me to safely use. That and the fact that my 40 has really no dash board is sending me to an in dash unit in the car and some compatible handheld for hiking. Still a long way off from pulling the trigger but I have been noodling a setup along these lines:

Kenwood - KNA-G510

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=10573


Kenwood KVT-512 DVD receiver at Crutchfield.com?
Just my .02
 
Hugh Heifer said:
Based on some things I have read on Mud, I am considering the Garmin Nuvi 750. It does on road stuff and is topo compatible with its SD slot. Under $200 online.
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Well I got one. $197 new from PCNation.com. Shipping included. (Sears lists it for $499 - no wonder they are probably going out of business) The thing is great. Has blown it a couple times. (It actually doesn't know where my house is so it must be using Yahoo maps or similar because none of the internet maps get it right) It failed to find a local sheriffs office and took me to somebody's house about a mile down the road. I followed it to see where I would end up. I think it may have misunderstood and thought I wanted to arrest someone cuz the house was a real dump...anywho...

Very simple to use, neat features and loud voice. Tells you street names as you go. Screen is very easy to see since it is big and it has an expansion slot and will update online. I am told that it will do topos with a card.

Some other stuff it will do is MP3 and has an FM modulator built in. It also will show jpegs and stuff if you want.

I am very pleased - especially at the price. PCNation seems to be a decent place to shop on line.

:cheers:
 
I bought a Garmin 760 and love it. Prior to that, I used a laptop with a gps reciever. The laptop gave you better positional awareness, more like a paper map. The 760 is far easier to set up and use and much better about getting you to a specific destination.

The traffic info and automatic traffic detouring on the 760 was basically worthless. It would take you on a 30 min detour to avoid a 10 minute backup and it only worked in a few locations.

What really surprised me was how much I liked and used the radio and bluetooth integration. I've got about 80 hours of mp3 music on the unit and also have it linked to my cell phone. I listen to the music through the radio speakers, get voice directions through the radio speakers, and use my cell phone hands-free through the radio speakers. The music is automatically muted for phone and directions. The only down side is that the transmitter in the GPS isn't powerful enough, so sometimes when you get into an urban situation, a radio station may overwhelm the GPS's transmitter and you have to select a different frequency.

Topo maps don't come with the 760, however, I understand that they are available at an additional cost.
 
Anyone ever thought of using this as the base computer to run with a GPS receiver? It looks like the perfect size to mount and not take over the passenger seat while allowing you to have a lot more features than a conventional GPS.

PDAToday a PDA and gadget blog
 
Just did a 4 day run through Anza Borrego with Topo USA running on a laptop with and inexpensive USB GPS receiver. The software is $50 and the puck receiver is $33. This is the way to navigate off road. It seriously rocks, but the down side is the program is very complicated and takes a long time to learn. The maps are easy to view, though, and the computer makes it easy to save map and track files. The nice part about Topo USA is that it contains the road and street layer from the on-road software so you can use it just like a regular GPS.

With that said, I think that for just on-road an all-in-one GPS would be the way to go. I'm currently thinking the Garmin Nuvi 500 is the deal out there.
 
Just got the Garmin 500 and tried it out in DV last week.
I still need more time messing with it But right out of the box it will get you where you want to go.
It was nice with the topo pre-loaded and the controls are pretty straightforward.
 
Brentbba said:
Thought you Norcal guys were finished with Anza? Sorry for the hijack.
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We had not been in a while and it was warm and dry, unlike the rest of the state! Fun place, but you can see most of it in 3-4 days.
 
450 DUDE said:
Just got the Garmin 500 and tried it out in DV last week.
I still need more time messing with it But right out of the box it will get you where you want to go.
It was nice with the topo pre-loaded and the controls are pretty straightforward.
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Cruiserdrew said:
Just did a 4 day run through Anza Borrego with Topo USA running on a laptop with and inexpensive USB GPS receiver. The software is $50 and the puck receiver is $33. This is the way to navigate off road. It seriously rocks, but the down side is the program is very complicated and takes a long time to learn. The maps are easy to view, though, and the computer makes it easy to save map and track files. The nice part about Topo USA is that it contains the road and street layer from the on-road software so you can use it just like a regular GPS.

With that said, I think that for just on-road an all-in-one GPS would be the way to go. I'm currently thinking the Garmin Nuvi 500 is the deal out there.
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That is nice to hear from 450 Dude because me and the lady are going to DV in April. I just pulled the trigger on the Nuvi 500 because the girlfriend did not get me one for xmas or my birthday :confused: - I even gave her my wish list both times with this unit listed as model specific request. Oh well I just got my tax refund check in the mail on my birthday so I decided to stimulate the economy and went for it.

For back-up and what I have been using forever is my old Garmin GPS12 to the laptop with Delorme Topo USA. A while back I got the National Geographic Back Roads Explorer 3D but have not actually used it. Like Cruiserdrew says, it might take a while to figure out but it's really nice with the big screen and saving maps.

I liked all the great reviews on the Nuvi 500 and like the idea of less clutter in the cab especially since my laptop has given up on life recently.

--
 
450 DUDE said:
Just got the Garmin 500 and tried it out in DV last week.
I still need more time messing with it But right out of the box it will get you where you want to go.
It was nice with the topo pre-loaded and the controls are pretty straightforward.
Click to expand...


Real topo maps on a Nuvi?! Unreal! But does it still do the stupid Garmin trick of rotating your view 180 degrees when you want to scroll around the view?
 
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