Ok i do have a GPS, well my nokia phone does, good for telling taxi drivers where to go but no good for my bike. been looking at the COLORADO 300 HANDHELD among others, i want a colour screen becasuse it is pretty. needs to work in remote areas (outback tracks) etc. waterproof etc etc. What do people advise for a GPS newbie? there are a few models with seemingly not much difference between them. Anyone got a 300? Also Oztopo seems to be the map download to go with as far as i read? Ps i will also use this for bushwalking, do i download other maps for those tracks? Any advise would be appreicated.
Some folks like the larger screens, and touchscreens are flavour of the month. Personally I use a GPSMAP60CSx, after using a mates for a while and getting recommendations from a couple of folks around here (BurnieM for one). The C is for colour, the x is for expandable memory (up to 4Gb) and the S is for barometric altimeter and spiffy compass thingo. The screen is smaller, being a handheld, and it uses butttons, but then the touch screen won't delaminate on me either. It is waterproof and robust, and takes up to 4Gb sd cards. I use OZTopo, and I also use shonkymaps and tracks4australia, both free downloads. None of these products are auto-routable btw, even though the gps unit supports it the maps don't. The new Garmin topo for Australia apparently autoroutes, and the version of OZTopo in development, version 3, will also support autorouting. City Navigator does autorouting. Offroad, tracks are where its at, and the 60 series units do these very well. The topo software will do for bushwalking no worries, OZTopo is prolly the best for that as the topo is 10 metre, where shonkymaps is 50 metre. Dunno about the new garmin topo, maybe someone else can chime in?
I have a colorado 300. Good points are the rendering and pixel density (I made up that term, there is a more accurate one but I can't remember it) but the screen is a little dim without external power even with maximum backlight. I tried running on external power from the bike but possibly the connection died due to vibration (trail bike) and the unit had to be replaced. I have never run out of space with a 4gb card. I find it pretty easy to use and it seems to show mulitple map data at once which the 60csx doesn't do but I haven't proven to myself that this is the case. Just when you turn off a map and leave others that cover the same area then some detail dissapears or there are no longer 2 slightly out of line versions of the same road. Oztopo is a must if you are going deep bush but possibly not if you are just doing main roads and the odd dirt road. You would get by on a combination of the free Shonky, T4A and OSM (available in autoroute) maps. I am not sure if Oztopo has walking tracks; not sure if anything has them. There seems to be a view that the Oregon screen is even harder to read (check the Oregon and Colorado wikispaces) because otherwise that would seem to be a great unit. I did a lot of research and it seems that the perfect handheld hasn't been made yet. Surprise! Although as mentioned, the 60csx has a very strong following. Good luck with your choice, they are fun I wouldn't agonise too much over it. cheers, Jas
I love my GPSMAP 60Cx and you can't go past BurnieM for knowledge. I have Australia 20m Contour Lines but hardly ever use it on the PC. I can't load it 'on top' of another map to have both visible. I use City Navigator V7 pretty well exclusively. I also use Tracks4Australia PRO v1.2 on the odd occasion. The frustrating part of using CNv7 is that when you zoom out in the bush you lose your tracks. This is fair enough in densely mapped areas but not when you want to see tracks in the bush; that's when I swap to T4A. I've had a look at Shonky a while ago but there seemed to be a long drawn out process to get a CD with the maps on it passed around.
you don't need to get a CD Download from one of the servers from here: http://www.gpsaustralia.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2525 Seems better than Tracks 4 Australia in most areas I have looked. jason
On the 60CSx shonky keeps detail out to 3km zoom, OZTopo cuts out after 1.5k zoom. This has an impact when trying to locate yourself in the bigger picture, eg out in the sticks, zoom out over 1.5k with OzTopo and the screen just goes blank - most aggravating! Shonkly will keep detail up to 3k zoom. Tracks 4 Australia has less detail in many areas, but it seems you can just keep zooming out and everything stays onscreen, which is really nifty when you're out in the sticks. I use a combo of all 3, and it seesm to cover most bases.
Thanks Jason, shows I haven't been that way for a while. However I couldn't go passed getting a CD sent out for $5 incl p&h containing Shonky et alia; ordered on a Monday and received on Friday. I agree with Godsilla - it's horses for courses.
