How much to spend to get a decent GPS?

Mick,

You can buy a basic cheap unit on eBay and load OzieexplorerCE onto the unit. It can be tricky but there's plenty of help on forums out there.

In my case I got a Navman unit and loaded everything onto my SD card so I have turn by turn city navigation and when I go offroad I can load my hema 4x4 maps onto Ozi.

I have been in the same loop and got to wondering how important offroad mapping was to me and realised that it was not that big a deal for me - I am never going to wander off into the uncharted parts of outback on my own.

I have had various car gps unit since about2000 and find them extremely useful. I have a Garmin hand held as well (60csx that we mainly use for geocaching) and came to the conclusion that the Garmin with the (free) Shonky maps (as well as purchased paper maps) is all I need for offroad (if I know where I am, I can find my way home.

If I didn't already have the Garmin - I might consider getting the VMS500 or Hema unit but have read mixed reviews on both.

I guess it comes down to what you want to do with it....I need something that is good around town and hence have TomTom. I tried a Chinese 7" GPS (street mapping was fine) but never got round to going through the OziExplorer learning curve and it is now lying in a box virtually unused (I also found it way too big hanging in the window) but if you like playing around with something like OziExplorer this is another route you could try and they go for about $200 on ebay.

You will pay a big premium to get teh offroad mapping and may not find it that usefuls. For town use I've owned several units and althought they all differ slightly, they have all been Ok and have always go me to where I want to be.

Johnny Appleseed has a great offer at the moment on the Nuvi1490T , with it you get the EcoRoute HD , all for $379.
I just ordered one last night.

NUVI 1490T



.

Hi Mick
The Garmin Nuvi are a great Unit and very user friendly to use. Go to the Garmin Australia web site and check out what units qualify for the lifetime map updates for free until January on various models.

The HN5 are great units, but for me and many users their best ability is when using OziExplorer, as their Route 66 in my opinion needs a very serious overhaul and is not a patch for easy street navigation compared to the Nuvi.

I have both, a Nuvi for street navigation and for our outback trips the HN5.

These are just my opinions and other may tell you something very different.


Cheers

Stephen

I think if you want route navigation then buy a navigator (investigate the free map updates available, etc). If you want topo maps then there's a number of ways to accomplish this (HEMA, VMS, some better name brand models, cheap Chinese GPS, PDA, Netbook PC with GPS).

The major thing I found is once you start recording track logs you won't want to turn it off to do a bit of street navigation (the HEMA can't do both at once and I don't think the VMS can either).

I use a cheapo Chinese GPS running OziCE and rarely use the street navigation (I think it's Route 66). Recently my wife used it to get to a family gathering and her relatives using name brand navigators all ended up semi-lost and she drove straight to the property. So in one case, the cheapo one trumped the names brands :)

I have a 5" $60.00 Ebay special & a $300.00 Garmin 4.3", the Ebay special is far better, it picks better routes & has a more comprehensive display.

We spent $950 on the Hema N5 and it didn’t survive the corrugations on a trip from Perth to Cape York and return. Four weeks after sending it back for warranty, we were told it was unrepairable unless we paid $300 and waited six more weeks whilst it went back to China for repairs. Our travelling companions on that trip had an ebay special that worked on the same maps and software as us, had the same navigation assistance as us and their low cost option is still going fine.

After we engaged consumer affairs Hema replaced the unit with one that did not work at all. We are now on our third unit and simply will not trust it.

Save your money, Hema were not nice to deal with, for $950.00 you would expect a better product and better support.

Steve.

Another posibility no-one has mentioned is a mobile phone.

If you have a smart phone with inbuilt GPS (most have them) that uses the Android operating system, there is now a trial version of OziCE that will run on it. Very limited at the moment but no doubt it will get better as the software is developed.

I use a Garmin Nuvi for work and a $90 Chinese Ebay 5" one running IGO8 and Ozi Eplorer.

I much prefer the ebay special. I have used the Garmin, Navman and Tom Tom software and much prefer IGO. It runs Ozi just fine as well.

Regards

Pete

Thanks everyone for your ideas. Looks like i will have to investigate ebay a bit further. cheers mick.

x 2 against Hema - was on my third replacement, that blew the 15A fuse due to a bent mini USB pin, and have thrown it in the bin. I just couldn't be bothered with them anymore. I too will be searching for a better unit that is reliable so will monitoring this thread.

Another vote for the cheap eBay Chinese gps, IGO8 street maps and Ozi. Mine is 7" screen and done 1000's of kms and hasn't put a foot wrong. The mount on it has been better than most as well. Mike

Magellan Crossover. All the naysayers on here will say it is a load of junk but in 3+ years it has never failed, battery lasts between 6-8 hours, use it in the boat, car on foot, has street navigation and off road mapping and the standard mapping on SD is far superior to all other (words from a Garmin Resellar). Mine has been all over and as mentioned, never failed. Quick start up, quick sat location, and more than enough navigation ability for anyone in this country. It is expensive but there is no stuffing around with loading this, doing that, running this and that. Simply turn it on straight from the box and it works.

Our first Garmin was great and the only time we needed service Garmin performed flawlessly.

The second unit, a Nuvi760, was plagued with problems, needing call after call to Garmin before they finally called it back. They elected to replace it rather than repair it.

We were on the road and had asked for an email when it was ready to be sent so that we could arrange a suitable pick-up point. Garmin failed miserably - claiming three times that it had been sent and then admitting days later that it had not. We were held up for over a week in a country town waiting for the thing to arrive and then finding it had not been sent. Would have been cheaper to buy a new unit. No apology and no reasons given.

We'd never buy Garmin again.