Hema or VMS?

[redneck.woman91]

Hi guys, my hubby and I are looking at getting a new GPS for the 110, but we arent sure if the VMS or Hema HN6 is better? We need something for on and off road use, on State Forest and National Parks tracks around home and in the High Country.
What have you guys found to be the best system?

[weeds]

never heard of VMS........just had a look at their website, I see it has street and offroad. I wonder what suite of maps they use

I have just purchased the HEMA app/map package to use on my iphone and ipad......I have sorta got my head around it, and only looked at the default map that comes up on the sreen

I also have tom tom for turn by turn on the streets

does the HN6 have turn by turn nav for cities?

[Ranga]

IMHO you're better off with a tablet.

[oldsalt]

I'm running a Nexus 7" tablet (which has an internal GPS chip standard) with the full suite of Hema maps on it (cost $179 for the Rasta Map collection on CD) and use a Sygic app for street "turn by turn" navigation... :) works for me...
cheers

[BMKal]

I bought a VMS a while back - they were on special at a local 4WD show. Best part about it was the larger screen. However, I found that it was very slow to lock onto satellites, particularly when I'm in the Metro area.

Have since given it to my son (he likes it and has it mounted in his D2) and bought a Hema HN6.

I find the Hema more reliable and easier to use. Offroad - the Hema has better maps than the VMS - but you can download additional maps for either if you like.

If you choose the Hema - buy the little plastic clip-on "verandah" that is available as an option. Great for keeping the sun off the screen in most conditions. :D

[weeds]

re: tablets....I haven't had a problem with glare/sun on my ipad.......

[kreecha]

I have a hn6. It's simple. My dad is simple and he can use his. He can even transfer and receive data from it to his computer. And looking on ozexplorer at everywhere we travelled when at the cape in August was cool.

I have no experience with VMS.

My only genuine bugbear is that I have not yet bought the $35 sunshade for the hn6. Sunglare in a Disco1 is an issue so I normally just use my akubra as a sunshade.

Hope that helps

[NavyDiver]

My VMS is very good in the city and up high in the mountains. VMS are local and actually help with faults :cool:

Mine is a VMS 500 about 5 years old now. I Re flashed mine to fix a boot fault with a card posted to me from VMS last year- VMS charged me $0 even though it is well out of warranty. It fits in my Disco 3 SE above the radio very well and sits there with out any fixing. I fitted a reversing camera to it which work fine.

I have several handheld GPS for backpacking with my kids and I. I find the satellite location times on my VMS, which is partly under the dash, as fast as the hand held ones at which cost me a lot more! Works very well in heavy cloud including heavy snow and rain. The only issue if you could call it an issue ( I do not) The 'off road' maps on mine are not as nice as one of my high end hand helds but work just fine from Oodnadatta to Wonnangatta :D

I have not considered or seen the hema units for five years. I could not imagine how I would 'not' break a tablet computer in many of the mountain tracks I have been on. It might be an option if you could secure one for off road use.

[PTC]

I run a Navman car gps with the Hema offroad maps on it. And a tablet that has the Hema Explorer for Andriod. As well as Oziexplore with other topographical maps.

I also have a set of paper maps for where ever i am traveling too. So i can check up between them all. I find the car gps is the best to be seen in the sunlight. Though the tablet has a lot more detail in the maps. So all of them get used the about the same amount.

[robertj]

I use Memory Map/ Hema maps on IPad - big screen easy to see and didn't miss a beat from Brissy to Big Red via Ularu while the Garmins and Navmans all had some issues. Keep these for the blacktop and use a tablet for the dirt as Ranga suggests.
Also have the marine charts on the IPad which I use instead of the chart plotter on the boat much more detail!

[Mercguy]

Going to dig this up again. for a number of valid reasons.

Hema is putting all their effort into their own hardware product and not providing digital maps with resolutions greater than 250K for their digital only offerings.

VMS is in a similar boat, but their offering seems to be better than Hema. I have also noticed that a lot of alleged 'professional' outfits are starting to move towards VMS. VMS is also getting a lot of attention through tv/digital media 4wd publication / television as well.

Of course, none of this helps me one iota. I've run a Garmin unit for 9 years now, and while the actual hardware is a handheld (it was a very expensive unit back then) it is still very fast to acquire satellites, and runs the topo maps which are the same as hemas 250K series and haven't been significantly updated for some years now.
I also have a subscription to Garmin's Birds' Eye imagery, which is simply an aerial photo overlay map. It's Okay-ish. It would probably be much better on a larger screen, like an iPad.

But my handheld sits in a ram mount, and has been stuck in the RRC since the day I bought the vehicle. One of the good things about the garmin is that it also has turn by turn 'beep' navigation (it's a handheld, not a car gps) and is actually very good. I had a tom tom which I threw out, simply because of the nav.

However, I am looking now for a dedicated iPad app. whether it be VMS or Hema, or some other app - it needs to have offline maps, and topo resolution better than 250K.

I'm keen to know what others are currently doing in this area, because the only fault of the garmin handheld now is the screen size and the limited microSD card size (4gb) maximum readable capacity.

Thoughts?

[Expedition 130]

Hi Mercguy,

Have a look at Mudmap 3 for the iPad. I recently purchased this and to date I'm impressed with the quality of the maps displayed. I loaded a heap of my old campsites into the iPad and they certainly show up much much better than on my Garmin Map60.

Greg

[Naviguesser]

Hi Mercguy,

Have a look at Mudmap 3 for the iPad. I recently purchased this and to date I'm impressed with the quality of the maps displayed. I loaded a heap of my old campsites into the iPad and they certainly show up much much better than on my Garmin Map60.

Greg

Will be good until they go Mudmap 4 and want you to pay again (and Mudmap 3 will stop working).