GPS choices

G'day Graeme. I've been using GPS now for about 6 years and this is my experience.

I started out with a Garmin eMap, a nice little hand held unit that I fitted into every vehicle I had, using a laptop and OziExplorer software with the 250k NatMaps. It worked a treat, and took it all over Australia until I bought my BMW bike that came with a BMW Navigator (Garmin Street Pilot) and City Navigator Australia ver.4 on it.

I soon got the mounting brackets for the 4by for the Street Pilot and have been using that ever since (about 3 years).

The Street Pilot is fantastic for street level navigation (down to house number) and since I upgraded the software to City Navigator Australia ver. 6 (Australian "Where Is" mapping) it now covers the biggest part of regional Australia, including streets in Kunnunurra and most popular roads around that area, something the previous versions didn't do. It also uses voice promts so that you don't need to take your eyes off the road when using auto-routing.

The Street Pilot needs an accessory cable to run to the laptop (power/data) which allows the use of Oziexplorer as well, which does cover the out of the way tracks about the place. The original Garmin cable (as with all Garmin acessorries) are horrendously priced, but aftermarket ones are freely available on eBay for about a 1/3 of the price.

The only problems I have had with the Street Pilot are the dash mountings.

Firstly, Garmin supplied 2 type of "sticky pads" to mount the unit to the dash. DON'T USE the permanent type. It will tear the vynal off the dash if you have to remove it! The tempory ones work fine.

Secondly, I use a Garmin MKT-5 mounting bracket and have cracket 2 of these over the last 5 years, through vibration and corrigations. I just carry a spare one these days, just in case.

The little eMap is still going strong, it just lacks the colour display and voice promting and never caused a problem with cracking the dash mounts, probably because it is a much smaller/lighter unit.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Peter

G'day Graeme

Systems such as TomTom offer little room for playing when purchased as a unit.

Research

Laptop verses a PDA

Fixed/combined GPS system(garmin/TomTom) versus standalone GPS connected to laptop/PDA via cable or bluetooth (Hiacom)

CoPilot versus Destinator for voice operated street level navigation ( on PDA/Laptop).

Oziexplorer/Fugowi for laptop operation Oziexplorer CE ( runs on a windows CE based PDA NOT on Palm) for PDA use. (Ozi CE also needs Ozi PC version )

If you want small form factor, true portability, maximum flexability, multi function (does more than just mapping/directions and GPS) a high end Windows CE PDA with a SD and CF card slots, with bluetooth ( and WiFi) and a bluetooth GPS (eg Hiacom) combined with

CoPilot live or Destinator ( voice/street navigation)
Oziexplorer CE and Oziexplorer for Windows ( plus suitable maps)
Powered car mount with external speaker for the PDA (from Arkon)

A little cream :-)
Bluetooth equipped Mobile phone (GSM 3G) with an external high gain antenna fitted to the car with the phone hands free car kit. (You need the cig lighter to power the PDA's powered car mount). WiFi account with your favourite ISP enabling the use of wireless hotspots.

Suitable additional software for the PDA - GPS management/info software - SMS and WiFi management software - extra games - any other software that takes your fancy :-)

A bit of spare time to learn it all.........suitable amounts of dollars .......Have fun

Regards

Paul

Hello again Graeme. I can't comment first hand on Navman or Tom Toms, as I've never even seen or heard of a Tom Tom.

I know UBD supplies the maps for Navman, and they may be similar to Garmin's "Where Is" Mapping. A hands on approach should soon tell you, if you can find someone who has a Navman/Tom Tom. Someone else on the forum may be able to help. I can give you detailed advise on a particular area/s in the Garmin software if you wish. All Garmin's capable of street level mapping use the same software.

The catch is, with any GPS, is to get one with the features you need now and then have enough remaining features down the track when you have a real idea of what you want to do with it. eg, enough onboard memory/provision for expansion memory/slots/data ports, and at what costs involved, if they are available.

Some of the mid ranged ones I have seen have all the bells and whistles on face value, but I would find them restrictive further down the track, ie NavMan & Garmin's Street Pilot C320 series. The Street Pilot 26xx, 27xx series units are beauties, but come at a price.

Johnny Appleseed GPS, http://www.ja-gps.com.au/ have a good informative website and competitive prices on GPS, and are a wealth of knowledge on what the Garmins can and can't do, and as they sell other brands, presumably on those too. I have had first hand experience with them over the years. But watch genuine accessory prices! eBay is a far better option there.

eBay seems to have some good priced units there too.

Hope this helps,

Peter