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| GPS for City Use Local and International |
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Posted By: Mark Roach |
Posted On:
Monday, May 28, 2007 |
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OK, so you’ve decided that you want to buy a GPS. You’ve also been able to figure that you need a "city navigator" autorouting type of unit (mainly for city/urban use and local or international traveling). Now you look at the available options and find 10 different units to choose from… What now?
The easiest way to categorize the units is as follows:
[Please Note: We categorize "Outdoor" use as hiking, biking, geocaching, hunting, fishing and other off-road & handheld use. "City/Urban" use is vehicle and road based use.]
Dual Purpose Units (for both City/Urban and Outdoor use):
These units combine both "City/Urban" use features (like street address lookup, autorouting, voice prompts etc) and "Outdoor" use features (like tracklogs and the ability to, not only look up a street address, but also type in Lat/Long coordinates to navigate to).
These units have a fixed memory and the maps on CD must be loaded to your PC/Laptop, registered online, unlocked and then loaded to the GPS internal memory via PC/USB cable (this process can be a tad confusing and frustrating).
These units also do not have a touch screen or built-in speakers so they would have to be placed in the vehicle suction mount (provided) and plugged into the cigarette lighter socket to get the voice prompts (the speaker is built on to the end of the cigarette lighter plug).
Because of the many options and setup screens, these units menu interface can also be a bit confusing and it may take a while to learn/find/get to know all the various options.
Garmin Quest SA – With Garmap Southern Africa and Garmin European detailed streetmaps on CD only. [The Garmap Southern Africa Streetmaps maps are +- 80MB's and European maps are just under 2GB's in size.] You have 243MB built-in (non expandable) memory available for loading all maps.
Garmin Quest II – With Garmap Southern Africa and Pre-loaded Garmin European detailed streetmaps. Garmap Southern Africa streetmaps are +- 80MB's and Garmin European streetmaps are 2GB’s in size but the whole 2GB's of the European maps are already loaded to the internal memory (you cannot remove or change these maps). You have a further 512MB built-in (non expandable) memory available for loading Garmap Southern Africa and other maps.
City Navigators (for City/Urban use):
All of these units have expandable memory capabilities (they use SD memory cards) and come with a "Plug-and-Play" option of the maps pre-loaded to an SD memory card (i.e. simply open the box, pop in the pre-loaded memory card and away you go) and the CD option.
Designed for the businessman who simply wants to climb into the car, look up a street address and "Go", these units have touch screens, built-in speakers and voice prompts. They also have a very simple menu interface and are easier to use.
One of these units has Bluetooth capability – this is used to pair the device to your compatible bluetooth enabled cellphone and make & receive calls through the GPS unit, effectively turning the GPS into a bluetooth hands-free car kit.
These units have no Tracklog functionality and they do not have the capability to type in Lat/Long coordinates to navigate to (you can only lookup/search for street addresses, intersections, city/town names, POI’s and user defined/created waypoints). They only use one active route at a time and you cannot upload/download routes or tracklogs to the unit (only waypoints).
Garmin StreetPilot C510 – With Garmap Southern Africa detailed streetmaps.
Garmin StreetPilot C550 – Bluetooth Enabled, with Garmap Southern Africa and Pre-loaded Garmin European detailed streetmaps.
Travelers Assistants (for City/Urban use & Local and International Travelers):
All of these units have expandable memory capabilities (they use SD memory cards) and come with a "Plug-and-Play" option of a pre-loaded SD memory card (i.e. simply open the box, pop in the pre-loaded memory card and away you go) and the CD option.
Designed for the businessman, traveler and "gadget junkie", all the units mentioned below have touch screens, built-in speakers and voice prompts. The units have built-in MP3 players, Currency and Measurement Converters, Audible Book Readers, World Clock, Calculators and the ability to load Garmin Travel and Language Guides (optional extras). They also have the simpler menu interface and are easier to use.
Some of these units also have the Bluetooth capability mentioned above.
These units also have no Tracklog functionality but they do have the capability to type in Lat/Long coordinates to navigate to (as well as the usual looking up/searching for street addresses, intersections, city/town names, POI's and user defined/created waypoints). They also only use one active route at a time and you cannot upload/download routes or tracklogs to the unit (only waypoints).
Garmin Nuvi 300 – With Garmap Southern Africa detailed streetmaps.
Garmin Nuvi 350 – With Garmap Southern Africa and Pre-loaded Garmin European detailed streetmaps.
Garmin Nuvi 310 – Bluetooth Enabled, with Garmap Southern Africa detailed streetmaps (basically the Bluetooth version of the Nuvi 300).
Garmin Nuvi 360 – Bluetooth Enabled, with Garmap Southern Africa and Pre-loaded Garmin European detailed streetmaps (basically the Bluetooth version of the Nuvi 350).
Garmin Nuvi 610 – Wide screen, Bluetooth Enabled, with Garmap Southern Africa detailed streetmaps (basically the wide screen version of the Nuvi 310).
Garmin Nuvi 660 – Wide screen, Bluetooth Enabled, with Garmap Southern Africa and Pre-loaded Garmin European detailed streetmaps (basically the wide screen version of the Nuvi 360).
Well, I hope this helps understand the units a little better...
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