GPS purchase - offer your guidance

[asteffes]

UncleChris and I were talking about this today. It's definitely cool technology, but $1200 a year in service fees saps a lot of the expedition budget. The 276c with his APRS rig is pretty awesome!

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

UncleChris and I were talking about this today. It's definitely cool technology, but $1200 a year in service fees saps a lot of the expedition budget. The 276c with his APRS rig is pretty awesome!

Yeah, those fees are nuts! I use my 276c all the time and my only complaint is the track log truncating, other then that, the thing is awesome!

 

[xcmountain80]

UncleChris and I were talking about this today. It's definitely cool technology, but $1200 a year in service fees saps a lot of the expedition budget. The 276c with his APRS rig is pretty awesome!

Wait a sec I thought money was no object? Well your obviously right the 276 is a much better "financial choice"

Aaron

 

[BajaTaco]

Aaron, thanks for the tip on the XM WX, I had no idea that was out there. Pretty cool!

 

[BajaTaco]

Garmin FINALLY came out with a handheld GPSR series that uses removeable memory cards (not proprietary by the looks of it). It is actually their existing lineup of handhelds, made into an "X" series (for "xtreme"). The main difference is that they use removeable memory cards AND the 60 and 76 models will also have the SiRFstar III receiver chip which has been getting some rave reviews as far as acquisition times and performance goes. The antenna is a quad-helix. These should do really well. I might just have to get a 60CSx It would be sweet to have a hand-held that is color TFT, removable memory, and does auto-routing and topos (or marine maps for that matter).

Garmin News Release

 

[Super Doody]

just to follow up:

I now have the 276c for almost two weeks. I like it very much! Since I all ready own three XM units I opted out of the 376c.

The unit is easy to learn and fun to use. The turn by turn helps me out a lot when I am in a strange place looking for a location or need to return a rental car in an unfamiliar place. The unit is very smart in its calcs for routing providing it has the right base info.

I went out on a hike this past weekend and brought along the 276c. I was able to get lost on purpose then find my way back and enjoy all the calculations.

Takes a bit of time to customize - Due to Garmin not offering Mac USB drivers I am now looking into a PC portable to have along with me for way-point and map loading. ( I had a friend with a PC let me use it to load in 200 megs of my favorite spots).

The ram mount is solid and out of the way on my windshield - vibration off road is medium but the mount hold on well. You can unclip it from the garmin clip easy. I am concerned with disconnecting the power/speaker cable fromn the unit time after time - I think that could create issuse down the line. The antenna locks on to the sat. fast. and the screen redraws very fast.

I am still learning the depths of this amazing unit. With the 256 card I can load in nearly 3 states of cities select and topo info. Not too bad -Wish it used the CF memory cards then you could load a gig in...

I have spent the last weekend with the GPS intimately and now have many questions - time to head back to the manual to find answers.

Thanks again to all who chimed in hear, and to you Scott for the pre-research :wavey:

After some research, I think I'm going to buy the same thing. Now does this thing talk to you? Or do you really need that for city driving? I'm hopping that sirius will work with this unit.

 

[Desertdude]

After loading in Garmins Cities Select for North America maps - using the turn by turn directions to located any address works great (not for offroading) - It talks to you in many different languages. You will need the cig lighter power adapter/speaker to hear the voice.

The 276C does not include XM or Sirius sat radio

 

[GeoRoss]

I don't know if anyone has posted about this, but there is a relatively new OSX native GPS navigation software out.

http://www.routebuddy.com


I haven't used it or bought it yet, but from what I gather they are quite serious about developing a Apple OSX based navigation program. They seem to be actively updating it and making it better.

It is still far behind in features from PC programs like iGuidance, but it seems the only real complaints I find are from those who want better on the go route finding and people outside the US due to map availability.

For those of us who really would like to keep to one operating system platform, I think this may be the first real navigation software that can compete the Tom Tom units, PC navi software, etc.

I don't think it will supplant MacGPSPro for off road travel, using custom maps and whatnot, but I do think it make eventually become a great option for "in town" navigation.


There is a forum on their site and more information can be found on MP3car.com.