Garmin Nuvi 500 preloaded with Topo and City

[Ryanmb21]

Garmin recently came out with a new Nuvi, it comes preloaded with City and Topo. It's waterproof and has 8 hours of battery life. It can accept routes, but I can't verify it keeps a track.

I've had GREAT experience with my Nuvi 680 running both topo and city but my unit doesn't accept routes.

This looks like a KILLER unit for those needing a dual purpose unit.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=&pID=13424

:gunt:

 

[CYi5]

Not bad, i'd wait for a widescreen version to come out first.

 

[Navman]

Not bad, i'd wait for a widescreen version to come out first.

Yeah, I was excited to see this one, but disappointed it wasn't widescreen. I am going to wait and see what comes next. I also just got an Oregon so I have something new to play with for a while.

 

[Ryanmb21]

I just bought one!

I just bought a Nuvi 500 at REI for $290 (on sale from $500). I'll update as I learn how to use it.

 

[adrenaline503]

I was just at REI looking at that unit. From what I understand the nice Topo maps with the shading and Forest Roads is an additional software add that costs 100 bucks...

 

[Ryanmb21]

I was just at REI looking at that unit. From what I understand the nice Topo maps with the shading and Forest Roads is an additional software add that costs 100 bucks...

Actually, the unit comes with the 3-d shaded topo maps. If you want to be able to load and print them on your computer, that software is ~$90 (amazon).

I will say the topo's on this unit look WAY better than they did on the 60csx or my Nuvi 680. They look exactly like they do on the colorado/oregon series. Something I really like is the unit shows detail from the City software as an overlay to the relief shading of the topo. In other words, it shows detail from both city and topo at once. Very cool garmin!

 

[adrenaline503]

How do you access the shaded maps? I messed with it for 20 mins and never got them to load.

 

[Ryanmb21]

I didn't have to load or access them. when I booted mine up the first time the default setting had shaded topo basemap with the city streets over layed. This is the same display uses all the time (unless you change it I'm sure). I wonder if the unit you were looking at was the 550?

This picture is how mine looks always (notice the relief lines/shading and city streets):

 

[opie]

I dont know if its overlaying the City navigator and the topo. The regular Garmin Topo 2008 shows all the streets the city nav shows, plus things like fire roads and such. You just cant route with the topo software.

 

[opie]

If I knew how to do a screen shot, I could show you.

 

[preacherman]

REI has them on sale for $289 IIRC right now.

edit ooopps just saw that someone else posted that already.

 

[Ryanmb21]

I dont know if its overlaying the City navigator and the topo. The regular Garmin Topo 2008 shows all the streets the city nav shows, plus things like fire roads and such. You just cant route with the topo software.

You're right, topo does show streets. This unit shows POI's for both city and topo and is route-able. From what I can tell you get information from both the City and topo products.

If this makes sense, the view is a hybrid always (showing topo relief and city streets and POI's) and while in the "driving" profile it routes via streets...when in "walking" profile it routes like garmin topo.

 

[opie]

It does look like a sweet little unit. Garmins answer to the Crossover.

If I didnt have over $200 wrapped up in software for my 60csx I would look into it.

 

[Ryanmb21]

How do you access the shaded maps? I messed with it for 20 mins and never got them to load.

I just realized why you may not have seen the topo detail, the default setting is "3-d" map view, if you change this to "track up" or "north up" you see the topo relief. I forgot that was the first thing i did. I'm loving the thing.

 

[rionorte]

So does it track/backtrack?