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General Forums => The Mess Hall => Topic started by: Jeffy on February 07, 2011, 03:32:17 PM
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Since we haven't had one of these threads, I thought it would be useful. A quick background, I bought a GPS early on. It was a Magellan GPS2000 back in the late 90's. Then I bought a Garmin GPS III Plus. After that I bought a Garmin ETrex Legend and soon upgraded to a Legend CX. Sold those for a Garmin Street Pilot 3610 which I still use in the Jeep. It has TOPO's for the West Coast as well as street maps for the whole US.
Thinking about upgrading or supplementing it with a better street GPS. TOPO maps rarely update very much but street maps change every year it seems. Actually there's a hidden downside to this. It turns out as they add move roads, they remove some as well. Not major ones but minor ones. Especially trails and 'jeep' roads.
In any case, I'm currently looking at maybe trying out a Tom Tom. They have a Car kit to add a GPS to an iPod Touch which I already have. ($38). The app looks like it downloads 1.3GB of maps to the ipod. ($49). Seems like a pretty good deal for a SRiF chipped GPS. Anyone use one or the Magellan kit?
Feel free to add your GPS questions or reviews.
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i have a garmin 76c. works nice for off road trials and snowmobile trails with he mount i got to put it on the handlebars of an atv or snowmobile. my dad has a nuvi adn i love the thing, easy to use, and intuitive (at-least for me). my friend has a tomtom and it falls short of what the nuvi provides. seems to take longer to lock in, and free rooming / scrooling through the map seems to be a pain compared to the nuvi.. but for the price the app / connector the the ipod may not be a bad option. back in the days of Ipaq's we had a sleeve that an ipaq would go into to make it into a roads gps, worked pretty good for its time. would definitely be dated now. if the tomtom for ipod is executed similarly it would be worth the $50 id think (if you have the ipod which you do)
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i have a garmin 76c. works nice for off road trials and snowmobile trails with he mount i got to put it on the handlebars of an atv or snowmobile. my dad has a nuvi adn i love the thing, easy to use, and intuitive (at-least for me). my friend has a tomtom and it falls short of what the nuvi provides. seems to take longer to lock in, and free rooming / scrooling through the map seems to be a pain compared to the nuvi.. but for the price the app / connector the the ipod may not be a bad option. back in the days of Ipaq's we had a sleeve that an ipaq would go into to make it into a roads gps, worked pretty good for its time. would definitely be dated now. if the tomtom for ipod is executed similarly it would be worth the $50 id think (if you have the ipod which you do)
I have got the Garmin 76 Not color but it's decent.. I have all canadian topo map's on it. thats handy!!
also have iphone4 tom tom app witch works good to but not for off road. also have "topo maps" app on my iphone witch is cool as well. the gamin 76 is alot more rugged for hand held then a iphone..
only complaint about the garmin 76 is the screen is to small for my liking
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I have got the Garmin 76 Not color but it's decent.. I have all canadian topo map's on it. thats handy!!
also have iphone4 tom tom app witch works good to but not for off road. also have "topo maps" app on my iphone witch is cool as well. the gamin 76 is alot more rugged for hand held then a iphone..
only complaint about the garmin 76 is the screen is to small for my liking
Have an issues with the Tom Tom App? What do you like and what don't you like? It's the same app for the iPod Touch.
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I have a Nuvi; dont recall the model nomber, but it's the wide screen one with very few bells and whistles. Uploaded the street maps of Costa Rica (VERY GOOD MAP!) and Panama (not so great), and helps me a lot. I also got the topo map for Panama, but I have not uploadd it yet (I have it on the PC).
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I found they work great in town, not so much out in the sticks. I have a county road next to my house that end just a few 100 yards from my drive way but at one time was one of the main roads around here and went for miles past my drive way. That road has been closed for at least 70 years
Tom Tom still shows that road that is no longer there, If some one was to use the Tom Tom for any off roading you could be screwed in no time :eek: Soon as I leave my drive way it's telling to turn around and go the other way.
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I found they work great in town, not so much out in the sticks. I have a county road next to my house that end just a few 100 yards from my drive way but at one time was one of the main roads around here and went for miles past my drive way. That road has been closed for at least 70 years
Tom Tom still shows that road that is no longer there, If some one was to use the Tom Tom for any off roading you could be screwed in no time :eek: Soon as I leave my drive way it's telling to turn around and go the other way.
Street Maps don't work well for offroad in general. Many trails, dirt roads, paths, etc... appear with TOPO's though. The problem with GPS's is you really need two GPS's. One for trails and another for street. Although my old Streetpilot 2610 does both. I don't like the 3D video the newer GPS's have since they're not that useful for orienteering.
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Have an issues with the Tom Tom App? What do you like and what don't you like? It's the same app for the iPod Touch.
works as good as a tom tom does with the app. it does have some quirks though.. like they said about the shortest distance and main roads.
I had it drive by my buddy's place to get to his street then back track to his place lol but I was smart enough to turn and have it recalculate it's self !! lol
but overall I must say it's great for being on your multi-use Iphone/ipad
what I like about it I can use my iphone car dock for everything now. music, gps, phone calls lol I was honestly thinking of making a kick plate for my car and having it all work off my ipad/iphone.
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works as good as a tom tom does with the app. it does have some quirks though.. like they said about the shortest distance and main roads.
I had it drive by my buddy's place to get to his street then back track to his place lol but I was smart enough to turn and have it recalculate it's self !! lol
but overall I must say it's great for being on your multi-use Iphone/ipad
I almost always check the route they choose to make sure. Although I also try to memorize the last few details of the destination so I'm mainly using it to stay on route and rerouting. Using the touch pad on my Streetpilot is a pain. It's great for showing you an overview of the area, upcoming streets and a few other things though.
I just got Mapsource reinstalled on my PC. Haven't had to use it other then uploading the maps to the GPS. I could make my own route for the Streetpilot and not rely on the GPS's auto route. Only problem is that Garmin doesn't like to update their software to make it easy to use. It's like using Win95.
I was looking at maybe getting a new Garmin Nuvi 2640 or something. Lifetime maps and traffic but it's $299. I'm not sure if it's worth it really. I HATE the zumo line. They try to make the Zumo do everything else like Pictures, MP3, etc... I just want a GPS. I also carry paper maps with me of the destination area so I can get a lay of the land once I'm there. But the GPS is great for finding the freeway onramps and other little things.
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lol ya but if your going to spend the time making your own route then why not just figure out were your suppose to be on the map when you get there and used the tom tom or whatever other town mapped gps and don't use there auto route just use your gps to see upcoming roads.. I found it's better to know what area your going to and memorize it so your not relying on the gps to guide you turn by turn
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lol ya but if your going to spend the time making your own route then why not just figure out were your suppose to be on the map when you get there and used the tom tom or whatever other town mapped gps and don't use there auto route just use your gps to see upcoming roads.. I found it's better to know what area your going to and memorize it so your not relying on the gps to guide you turn by turn
Kinda hard to memorize all of the side streets on a 350 mile route. I don't use my GPS other the logging where I've been for anything local.
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i use oziexplorer with backroads maps which I bought the DVDs for about 5 regions (they have trails, forestry roads and in some cases 4wd trails).
(http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g222/sharpxmen/Misc/gpsSmall.jpg)
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A laptop running a GPS would be cool. I can actually do that now. Just run Garmin Mapsource and plug the GPS into it with the USB plug. OR I could use MS Streets & Trips which I also have. Streets & Trips had a much better interface then Mapsource.
The only problem is I don't have a place to mount a laptop (Rental) a passenger hold it would be a PITA. I think I'll probably just use my Streetpilot and have some maps as back up. I'll also print out a Google Maps route which makes for easier reading while driving.
I think something like an iPad with TOPO's and street maps would be a nice compromise.
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i used a piece of plywood in the map shelf above the glove box and strapped it both to the handle with a bungee cord.
I find iNav to be much better than microsoft streets and trips, it's smarter on recalculating the path if you miss a turn and has all the major roads features.
For offroad oziexplorer and fugawi are the ones i use, fugawi has 3D map as well and you can download (if i can remember correctly) the elevation files from NIST and use them to generate terrain maps.
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Well, I was curious enough that I bought the TomTom. Should be hear before my trip. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it sorted before Sunday.
I'd like to get a sub-notebook to use as a GPS. Having a passenger really limits how much junk I can have on the passenger side. Although I could install a touch screen and have it pivot down from the cage... Otherwise I could remove the glove box and make a shelf for a sub-notebook there.
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Well after reading some of this I went to bestbuy and bought the tomtom car kit for the iphone/ipod. First one I got the charger tip where the fuse goes in was broken before i even opened the package up, took that one back in and exchanged it then got everything hooked up and the ipod does not fit in the dock correctly. I was able to get it to fit in but i had to stick some folded up pieces of paper at the top to keep it pushed down on the charger and another one behind it so it would hit the switch to turn it on when the ipod is docked. So I took that one back and swapped out for the Magellan one. This one is designed more for the ipod, but the iphone will also work with it. One of the things I liked on the TomTom unit was the windshield mount, I feel that is much better than the Magellan but Magellan's also has a very nice hold to it also. The top of the Magellan unit is adjustable in height and also has a spacer on the backside that you can adjust so no matter what version Ipod or Iphone you have they should all work. It also has a built in speaker that has decent sound in my truck (Jeep might be another story since i dont have any carpet or anything to deaden the sound) The mount also has a swivel so once its locked on you can rotate the Ipod either vertical or horizontal. I will post some pictures and review the Magellan software once I get that downloaded on my Ipod, I need to take off some pictures and videos/music cause I dont have enough free space at the moment. But at the present moment I would def recommend the Magellan over the TomTom
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My wife uses a TomTom for all her travels. She likes it. When we took a family trip to Seattle we used it to get around. Came in real handy!
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Well, I was curious enough that I bought the TomTom. Should be hear before my trip. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it sorted before Sunday.
I'd like to get a sub-notebook to use as a GPS. Having a passenger really limits how much junk I can have on the passenger side. Although I could install a touch screen and have it pivot down from the cage... Otherwise I could remove the glove box and make a shelf for a sub-notebook there.
i wanted to get a touchscreen but always thought that the ones looking decent and are daylight/sunlight readable are too much money, they should be going down in price though.
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Well after reading some of this I went to bestbuy and bought the tomtom car kit for the iphone/ipod. First one I got the charger tip where the fuse goes in was broken before i even opened the package up, took that one back in and exchanged it then got everything hooked up and the ipod does not fit in the dock correctly. I was able to get it to fit in but i had to stick some folded up pieces of paper at the top to keep it pushed down on the charger and another one behind it so it would hit the switch to turn it on when the ipod is docked. So I took that one back and swapped out for the Magellan one. This one is designed more for the ipod, but the iphone will also work with it. One of the things I liked on the TomTom unit was the windshield mount, I feel that is much better than the Magellan but Magellan's also has a very nice hold to it also. The top of the Magellan unit is adjustable in height and also has a spacer on the backside that you can adjust so no matter what version Ipod or Iphone you have they should all work. It also has a built in speaker that has decent sound in my truck (Jeep might be another story since i dont have any carpet or anything to deaden the sound) The mount also has a swivel so once its locked on you can rotate the Ipod either vertical or horizontal. I will post some pictures and review the Magellan software once I get that downloaded on my Ipod, I need to take off some pictures and videos/music cause I dont have enough free space at the moment. But at the present moment I would def recommend the Magellan over the TomTom
Yeah, the dock is for a 1 and 2nd Gen Ipod. There are hacks where people get them to work though. I have a 2nd gen.
What App are you running? I've heard you can use either or on the Magellan.
The price difference is a bit much on Amazon for the TomTom and the Magellan. $36 v. $99. Retail on the TomTom is $99 I think.
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Magellan is the app that I bought, Im waiting on it to download as I type, its roughly 1.35gb. I was going to download it at work where I have a faster connection but needed to delete some stuff I had on my ipod to make room. I did download The North Face Trail Head app and played with that on the way home. It will record the route you take, average speed, distance, elevation and a few other things and you can save the routes and publish them if you want to share them. Not a bad app for being free.
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Magellan is the app that I bought, Im waiting on it to download as I type, its roughly 1.35gb. I was going to download it at work where I have a faster connection but needed to delete some stuff I had on my ipod to make room. I did download The North Face Trail Head app and played with that on the way home. It will record the route you take, average speed, distance, elevation and a few other things and you can save the routes and publish them if you want to share them. Not a bad app for being free.
I'll have to check that out that app. I'll probably end up getting the TomTom app. They all look about the same though. I know they get their maps from the same company.
I should mention that my Garmin StreetPilot has an external antenna. So even though it's old, (not a SRiF chip) it's pretty good. Still has trouble getting the initial lock but then it's usually for 3/4 bars or better.
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Oh I saw an app called copilot. It's only $4 but has all the maps so it's 1.19gb in size. Seems like a good deal. From a quick look I think they do the gps for Enterprise car rentals. The interface looks like a cross between the Tomtom and the Magellan.
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I bought my Dad a GPS 45 as a holiday gift in 1995. Got it retail at a little electronics store in northern VA. and remember paying about $350. I guess it was one of Garmin's first small handheld models.
In 1997 my Dad had it with him on a trip to Denver, CO for work and I was helping him. I remember seeing the hand-held sitting there idle at the hotel, so I took it outside and marked the location as a waypoint just for kicks.
As it turns out, a few days later, I'm by myself driving the rental Isuzu SUV; we had gone fly-fishing the day before. I end up getting lost in some residential area off Colfax Ave. in Denver and spend a bunch of time driving around. So, I pull over to see if I can find a city map in the vehicle. I open the glove box and there's the GPS 45. This was before maps or anything on handhelds, but I found the waypoint for the hotel and that provided a carrier-pigeon effect that reoriented me until I got back to surroundings near the hotel that were visually familiiar.
Never expected that a short time later they'd have handhelds with maps like the Street Pilot.
The first unit with Maps I bought was a GPS V that I got the tail-end of 2002 at a West Marine store for about $450. It was WAAS-enabled. It only had 19mb of membory -- enough to hold maps for maybe a large city. But the thing was worth its weight in gold driving around some city I didn't know my way around like Los Angeles.
Right now for the road though I'm using a GPS app on my BlackBerry that has traffic reports and no limits in terms of maps. The only catch is you need a cell signal. So I still have the GPS V around
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Right now for the road though I'm using a GPS app on my BlackBerry that has traffic reports and no limits in terms of maps. The only catch is you need a cell signal. So I still have the GPS V around
Which App? Many are available across many platforms.
The big ones are Navigon, Magellan and TomTom. But there is CoPilot, MotionX, Garmin, etc... The downside to some of these though is that some rely on Cell coverage or WiFi to give you maps so if you don't have coverage and drive too far you're SOL. This is what I prefer the ones that download all of the maps with the App.
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Which App? Many are available across many platforms.
The big ones are Navigon, Magellan and TomTom. But there is CoPilot, MotionX, Garmin, etc... The downside to some of these though is that some rely on Cell coverage or WiFi to give you maps so if you don't have coverage and drive too far you're SOL. This is what I prefer the ones that download all of the maps with the App.
I was following somebody elses advice downloading this one. It says "Sprint Navigation" TeleAtlas/Infogroup powered by Telenav. It's worked ok but I like that idea about an app that downloads all the maps with the App. So if the App give you all the maps and you are out of cell coverage, I guess the phone gets a GPS signal so you are still on your way?
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I was following somebody elses advice downloading this one. It says "Sprint Navigation" TeleAtlas/Infogroup powered by Telenav. It's worked ok but I like that idea about an app that downloads all the maps with the App. So if the App give you all the maps and you are out of cell coverage, I guess the phone gets a GPS signal so you are still on your way?
The GPS will still work but you won't be seeing the map overlay.
There's also Google Maps Navigator that's free on Android phones which is nice too. Still downloads maps though.
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Well, I got the TomTom iPod Touch car kit. I have to strip my iPod down. I keep it in a hefty incipo case with a hard plastic back as well as a silicon sleeve. First thing I noticed the GPS only works if I plug in 12V power. Be it USB or 12v utility. The second thing, the SRiF chip is blazing fast. It only took a few seconds to have 10 Sats locked in at 80% or higher. My old GPS sometimes doesn't get a signal and I'm usually rolling which makes it worse. So so far this thing rocks. Now I have to get an App...
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Ended up buying the TomTom app. Looks like it's exactly what I'm looking for. At least for onroad. I have the other GPS for offroad. I'll have a couple day's to check it out before I head to LA though.
On another note, I've noticed stereo GPS's seem to be moving away from the Single DIN. Pioneer doesn't make anything other then a Double DIN GPS unit. This is OK for newer cars but I'm sure there are still a lot of older cars that only have a single DIN slot. Seems strange to do away with them.
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So far I like the Magellan app that I bought. Recal time is almost instant. It also will change the display from day to night depending on what time it is. Its hard for me to judge fairly cause my old gps was a delphi that i think my grandpa got back in 2000 or something so it was missing all the new roads and you had to load the maps you needed on to a memory card. I think Im going to my uncles in little rock next weekend so I will be curious to test it out on the trip down there and see how it works
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So far so good. I did run into one issue. When the app loads for the first time ti asks you if you want to allow 'Locations'. If you say 'No' the GPS won't work. It will load but it will never connect. Yes, I clicked no and ended up spending some time trying to figure out why the app wasn't working. Luckily, there is an other app that's free that allows you to check the GPS functions. I do wish it was integrated into the other app though.
I'm not sure if I like Portrait or Landscape mode better. Landscape allows you to see side streets easier but portrait allows you to see further down the road. MPH is kinda of small compared to my Garmin. That's OK since I don't really look at it other then to make sure my speedo is calibrated which it is. I do sort of wish the app would display cross streets larger. When running the voice, it doesn't say the street name but it does display at the top in larger font.
Bring up 'Favorite' routes is quick as well as canceling them. The routes so far have been accurate. POI's are hit and miss though. There are a lot of POI's in my town that aren't on the map for some reason. Not that big of a deal. When doing a route to an address it will ask you for a cross street unless it can find a number. For some reason Disneyland Dr is on there but no addresses at Disneyland. Then it say's the destination is in a carpool lane. Kinda strange. I'll do a few more tests with the routing this weekend and see if it goes OK.
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Well the tests were successful. The GPS worksed fine and was able to reroute quickly. I haven't tried using a 4Gen iPod touch with it though. My 2G works great even though it's slower. I was able to add addresses the App couldn't find by using the search Google feature. You need WiFi though. Plug in the address and Google will usually find it and then you can enter that address into the GPS by clicking on it. It's a nice way to get around not finding a POI.
I also noticed that the App is on sale at $34 at the App store. With the base at $36 on Amazon, it's a great deal. Although you'll need to use the AUX to play the ipod through the stereo rather then using the USB cable. Overall not a big deal. Well, except for teh fact that my stereo is old enough that it doesn't have a AUX input so I have to buy a new stereo. Might go with one that has Bluetooth so I can sync my phone to it. That's another thread though. After this trip I should have a good idea of the GPS's pro's and Con's. Not many cons' so far though.
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you sure there's no aux input on the back of your stereo, could be couple of wires and ground on the main harness/connector or have an additional connector for the aux input
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you sure there's no aux input on the back of your stereo, could be couple of wires and ground on the main harness/connector or have an additional connector for the aux input
It's an Alpine CD Receiver circa 1994, IIRC. I installed it myself. It's been out many times as it has to be removed to take the center panel off the instrument panel. No AUX.
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It's an Alpine CD Receiver circa 1994, IIRC. I installed it myself. It's been out many times as it has to be removed to take the center panel off the instrument panel. No AUX.
ok, i didn't think as old as the Jeep :lol:
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ok, i didn't think as old as the Jeep :lol:
Oh yeah, I have a lot of old stuff. :lol: The 50x2 amp is from the defunct US Acoustics. Great amp though. I have it in mono so it's 160x1 to my RF Punch 8" which I've had to repair a few times.
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I have a Tom Tom that I like. My wife got GPS on her new cell phone which has the advantage of instant updates for traffic jams and construction. You can't really see it while your driving though, we listen to the directions with it more than looking at them.
Tom Tom has the advantage that you can download George W. Bush's voice.
"Up ahead bear left, but I'm not sure what kind of bear it is...grizzly bear or brown bear."
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I LOVE the Garmin unit built into my Kenwood stereo....I'm planning on doing a video review once I have some time. :thumb:
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Well, I just got back from my trip to SoCal. The GPS worked out great. Went to the Petersen Auto Museum and then ate lunch at Pann's. Also drive by the big donut at Randy's.
GPS worked great and was fairly accurate. There was a point where it had be drive throught the backstreet of a mall to instead of just have me do a U-turn. I also noticed I was using it check the speed of the car as the speedo went from 60 to 60 and had onlu hash marks for everything in between.
The only downside I found is that it says "Turn..." way before you need to so if you turn after it says turn, you'll turn too early. It also sometimes gets confused with overpasses/cloverleafs but that's not a big deal.
I do wish I could change the icon and voice like with the regular TomTom.
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Hey Jeffy, I ended up buying a longer usb cord for my cradle so i could tuck all the wires behind the dash so it was hidden, My problem though is that when using just a regular usb cable, it will power the unit to operate the GPS and the speaker but will not charge my ipod while it is in the dock. If I use the 12v cord that came with it , every thing works fine, but when i switch back to using the 12v to usb adapter and usb cord it will work just not charge :brick: I checked the specs on the adapter and it says it will support two 5v, 1 amp usb devices and on the power cord that came with it, it says it puts out those same specs... have you tried messing with any of this or using different cables to power yours
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Hey Jeffy, I ended up buying a longer usb cord for my cradle so i could tuck all the wires behind the dash so it was hidden, My problem though is that when using just a regular usb cable, it will power the unit to operate the GPS and the speaker but will not charge my ipod while it is in the dock. If I use the 12v cord that came with it , every thing works fine, but when i switch back to using the 12v to usb adapter and usb cord it will work just not charge :brick: I checked the specs on the adapter and it says it will support two 5v, 1 amp usb devices and on the power cord that came with it, it says it puts out those same specs... have you tried messing with any of this or using different cables to power yours
I have used normal USB cables with the base with no problems. I don't have any long cables though. I wonder if your longer cable is just cheaper quality or maybe USB 1.0?
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How do you tell if it's a 1.0 or a 2.0? It's a Belkin 6' cable that I picked up at walmart today since bestbuy was out of the brand they carry
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How do you tell if it's a 1.0 or a 2.0? It's a Belkin 6' cable that I picked up at walmart today since bestbuy was out of the brand they carry
Well there shouldn't be an difference. Cheaper cables can have less shielding though. I'd try the long cable with your PC and see if it works. There could be an issue with the cable itself.
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Well, I have run into a few problems with my TomTom. One, the iPod isn't able to see the GPS unless you plug the GPS in first then attach the iPod. Quitting out of the app then removing the ipod, then remounting it usually fixes this. That being up the second problem. You have to make sure you're not running the app before docking it. The third problem is if you leave your iPod on 24/7 like I do. For some reason the app has trouble finding the mount and a hard restart is the only way to fix it.
There are work arounds for this but it's something to be aware of.
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Mine has some of the same issues youre having. I usually need to do a hard reboot once a day to get it to initalize otherwise it will just sit and search for the satellites. I ended up calling Magellan about the cable deal cause it wouldnt work with my laptop either. It would power the base but not charge the ipod. The guy wasnt very helpful on explaining why it wouldnt work, just said to order another power cord for my jeep
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The only other problem I have with the iPod is that the screen is polarized. It's OK when in the vertical but when in horizontal, the screen sucks with polarized sun glasses. I'll have to remember that when I get new sunglasses.