This has probably already been discussed, but I am going to ask again. I have had someone offer to buy me a Nuvi for Christmas this year, and I am wondering how good it is for offroad travel. It appears to be really good for pavement, but can one put topo usa software on it and have all of the forest roads available? Does it have enough memory, is there a place for a memory card? Please let me know what you think. I am a GPS idiot and it looks quite user friendly.
I am no expert, but from my reading every Nuvi model is different in whether, and how, it handles topo maps. I use a Nuvi 5000 (5" screen but with twice the resolution of most other Nuvi screens) that I bought this past spring and have been very happy with. Although it came with the City Navigator maps (roads and streets) I never use them - they are useless offroad. 99% of the time I use the topo maps I downloaded from gpsfiledepot.com because they provide so much more detail. The 5000 takes a full-size SD card, including the SDHC cards; I have all of Nevada and Utah loaded onto one 4 gig card.
Here's a few shots of the GPS at work...I don't have pictures of all the pages available but these will give you an idea of what to expect. The gpsfiledepot maps show public land in green and private as white; you'll find many of the ranches and mines out there have names:
Highways are rendered in an orange color, primitive roads are gray, watercourses (whether flowing water or not) are blue, and the topo lines are brown:
Over the 4th of July holiday I was exploring in the White Pine Mountains east of Ely, Nevada where there are multiple old mines dating from the 1860s. They are shown on the map as a crossed pick and shovel. The route that I traveled is shown in blue overlaying the gray of the road I am on. Below the shot of the GPS is a picture of the road itself I was on - so yes - the primitive roads are on the map. That picture does not do justice in showing how steep that road really was - it felt like I was going straight up!
On the satellites page you can see your exact coordinates, your elevation, and which satellites the GPS is garnering information from. This shot was taken on Rt 153 going from Junction, Utah over the mountains to Beaver, Utah:
I also have the 24k Garmin maps for Nevada loaded on another SD card and use them occasionally but I don't like them as well as the gpsfiledepot ones. The Garmin maps show terrain by "shading" to show mountains and valleys but I guess I have been reading topo maps too many years because I prefer to see those squiggly lines! (This is a poor shot of what the Garmin map is capable of - it's better than this picture.)
Hope this information helps. If you want to know more, ask away! You might also check out forums.gpsreview.net for more information.
