Thread: How Effective are the little GPS units

Originally Posted by DEFENDERZOOK

maybe your village is in the wrong spot..........?

Nope. Just sloppy data compilation. Google maps for example, I have yet to find this sort of error. Problem appears to be that once you get below the level published street directories, location indices relative to the road data is pretty hit and miss.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I can't give an overall idea, just an example;

Anyone using the Sensis data to find my local village is going to find themselves about forty kilometres away on a very indifferent forest track - with no mobile coverage, and about a ten kilometres walk to the nearest house or trafficked road after they get stuck - assuming they head in the right direction to start with. Sensis appears to be uninterested in my advice of the error.

John

John, You don't have to be far from the main metro areas for some serious errors to show up. I am 40km south of Sydney and there are streets that don't exist, it tries to go via firetrails in the national park (locked) and Sensis don't seem to give a rats. It also likes to instruct you to do U turns at traffic lights and refuses to accept that a RH turn is OK at one particular intersection.


Martyn

I've got a Zumo 550 from Garmin..

Awesome unit, comes with a car and bike cradle, its IP67 so doesnt matter if it gets wet...

And had a very decent processor... Its quick, efficient and has never led me astray yet.

I love it! And the dashboard feature on the bike is brilliant!

It also has dual channel bluetooth so plays MP3s to my helmet and routes the phone too! Allowing me to dial etc from the handlebars

I've Just Purchased a Garmin 60CSx with a Micro SD card Preloaded with Oztopo V2.

For the 10m contour layer, 1600 MB for all of Australia but partial areas, as small as 50km x 50km, can be loaded.
As a guide, Qld-350MB, NSW-270MB, Vic-110MB, Tas-48MB, SA-192MB, WA-432MB, NT-220MB

For the Road and Track layer, approx 200 MB for all of Australia but partial areas, as small as 50km x 50km, can be loaded. As a guide, Qld-350MB, NSW-270MB, Vic-110MB, Tas-48MB, SA-192MB, WA-432MB, NT-220MB

It's Ideal for bushwalking and outdoor activities which is Why I bought it , but I was told for Street Navigation the Nuvi range would probably be more suitable , Although 60csx will navigate if City Navigator is loaded.

I can also use it as a reciever and run Oztopo V2 on mapsource software on Laptop.

cheers khos

I use Tom Tom 910, Garmin 660 and Garmin276C in Europe including Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

TomTom have a poor reputation for reliability. Lets say I am on its 3 charger, get fed up with it hanging up, got to send it off for repair. It is also good at trying to get me to cross railway cuttings where no road bridge exists.


Garmins are very reliable, never had a hardware problem. The 276C has tracking facility which is good when you are in forest areas etc and you want to find your way back to start point.

Regards

Brendan

As Tombraider mentioned, a lot of the GPS's ability comes down to the chipset used.
The Sirf Star 3 is considered to be possibly the leading chipset.
WAAS is handy, though Australia is not enabled for WAAS, so unless your planning a trip to USA (or Japan, i think) may not be that much of a selling point.

My Nuvi 360 is pretty good. Its reliable and small, touch screen operated with TTS.

TomTom is a good unit, though it's not as robust and seems (from reading forums) to be a little unreliable in build quality.

Tracks4Australia can be loaded (i have it on the Nuvi) and has some offroad maps.

TTS (text to speech) is the best feature, do NOT buy a GPS that does not have TTS. TTS will pronounce the street name for you, so you don't hear 'TURN LEFT IN 300 Metres', instead you hear 'IN 300 METRES, TURN LEFT INTO George Street' .. when you have lots of streets close together, TTS makes a huge different.

TTS can mispronounce some streets (aboriginal names challenge it) but its well worth the occasional raised eyebrow.

Brad