GPS Advice

[dysan]

Hi All,

I could do with some views on GPS's. I've read some threads on here and people have been suggesting get a cheap Garmin Quest off ebay but what I can't find out is what maps are available for these older devices.

I think the best thing is to list my requirements and hopefully someone that has a device that ticks all the boxes can let me know.

1) On road navigation with voice (europe)
2) Off Road navigation (Can take waypoints, from Memory map would be nice)
3) Can be plugged into a Starcom or similar
4) Can be plugged into 12v supply
5) Can get a Touratech mount

Don't really want to pay more that £500 if possible.

If someone could offer advice that would be great.

Thanks

[StumpyFingers]

Take a look at This or its older brother.

[dysan]

Cheers

Are these any good at the off road stuff? from Garmin's website description they seem to be very road biased.

[Curzon]

Just bought myself a Garmin Streetpilot 3 deluxe with full Europe mapping. £35 of ebay! Still waiting for it to arrive, so can;t comment yet on it;s usefulness, yet.

What I do know is that it is waterproof, rugged, well suited to bike use, an originally cost almost £800. You can update original basemaps via download from Garmin website, at a cost obviously. I'll wait first and see how good / update the supplied maps are.
Oh and yes Touratech do a mount for it, although they are silly money. £100 from Touratech. Not paying that for a £35 GPS. I was bidding on a TT lockable mount currently on Ebay, although this has now gone to silly money also, so I dropped out of the bidding. I'll fabricate or rig up my own system.

Although the Streetpilot is now considedred to be an obsolete model. At £35 i'm not to worried. Hopefully I'll get enough use out of it to justify the cost. If not, or I don't get on with it, I'll just stick it straight back on ebay!

[davsato]

you could get a brand new zumo for £500 which comes with full euro maps and a RAM arm and 12v garmin bike mount better than anything TT do, bluetooth and headphone socket, bells and whistles

[tramp]

I have the garmin nuvi 550 and has all you want.

garmin mapsource compatible, uptodate 2009 mapping for whole of europe and beyond. marrocco,Russia ,Americas etc

either on road ,car ,bike , cycle or off road .

plan your own routes and import, ive just done a 10 day tour of the french/spanish pyrenees all loaded and go were I want too

its the same as the bike zumo 550 but loads cheaper a nd water proof too, noticed aon fle bay recently that loads waterproof bags coming up for older models , but not suitable for mounts such as RAM or touratech

[Dee Duble Yuh]

How does the Nuvi 550 connect to a head set?

[tramp]

hi Dave ,
sorry no external volume available , I just follow the directions on the screen clear and simple . The volume can be heard at slow speeds around 30mph at the price of around £250 its cheap compared to the bike based Garmin zumo`s. all depends what you want

[ian porter]

may not be relevant at all but if you have a Nokia Smart Phone then the Nokia Maps satnav is now completely free, no nead to pay a licence for voice guiding or anything.

I've stopped using my Tomtom and just use Nokia Maps on my phone in my tankbag and wired to my headset, cost me nothing as I already had the phone and headset in my helmet.

it does live traffic update and stuff as well if your on a contact with internet access.

you can download the software from HERE or the OVI store

Ian

[Dee Duble Yuh]

Good point. I think advances in other technologies is catching up - in some respects overtaking - the dedicated GPS. Garmin needs to look to its laurels.