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I've been asked by quite a few people now about which Garmin GPS unit to purchase. Here's what they are looking for.  A larger screen, 4 to 5 inches, something that can be mounted in a Jeep for off road use. Be able to install maps and be able to upload tracks and routes to the unit. Also be able to download tracks and way points to a computer topo program. Not a deal breaker but being able to power the unit with a 12 volt power outlet in the vehicle would be nice, and a color screen would be a must. Backlight for night runs and better visibility in the sun (this is why vehicle power would be nice).  Enough memory for daily use for weeks? And enough memory for loading maps of several states. Being able to add mini SD cards in the unit would also be nice to add to memory. Smaller units won't cut it as these people are mostly older and like the idea of being able to see the larger screens better. Ease of use!

I'm asking here cause I know you guys keep up with this stuff and some of the Nuvi's had problems with tracks and being able to upload to them. Maybe this is not a problem now? Anyway any help would be greatly appreciated.
Don .....
www.in-the-desert.com 

I'm working on a project for our web site at www.in-the-desert.com some of you may remember me. I need maps that I can display on our site for fishing information, so it would need to have rivers and lakes and maybe just a few major roads. I remember seeing maps here or somewhere that were .img or raster files? This is why I'm asking, not sure about this, except it'd be nice to be able to zoom into them. I'd need them for All of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and the lower half of California, and the lower half of Utah. I may end up making my own from screen captures, but I'd like this as professional as possible. I'll need to be able to add locations to the map for known fishing locations. Anything come to mind?

Thanks in advance,
Don Gilmore.....

I currently am running version 6.15.11 in MapSource. I see there is an update available to version 6.16.3  I hate to update if everything is working fine, which it is. For what I use it for it's been flawless and stable. Are there any reasons to not update? Any negatives included with this update? I saw that Seldom is running the latest version. What do you think?

Don...

After downloading a lot of maps from here to review on our site I've come across a lot of differences in the maps. FIRST, I want to be clear, they are all great maps, much better than anything I've seen so far, and I do appreciate Oz, Seldom and maps4gps's time and quality of workmanship. I've been discussing this with maps4gps and he suggested that I bring to your attention also. I made a very temporary page on our site to show the differences which I'll share here.
http://www.in-the-desert.com/temp/garmin.html Unfortunately I can't leave this up for too long. I thought maybe you'd like to comment on this. Please in layman's terms, as I'm not a map maker. I do think however that I know what a lot of users would like to see.

Now this is all based on my use on the computer using MapSource 2008 to view them. I will, but have not yet, loaded them into my Garmin E-trex Vista HCx.

What does it mean in the description by Trails? Are these referring to hikng, walking, or off-road trails? Or all of them. On your Utah Garmin Compatible Maps page it doesn't have a check next to trails for the Utah 2011 map I just downloaded.

Second I see  you have a US Planimetric Desert Southwest map listed. Not familiar with that term? Could you explain what that means.
TIA  (thanks in advance)

Don....

Oz, I have put links to your maps with examples on our site. A lot of desert travels love the extras detail your maps afford them. In looking into the maps that would interest the desert crowd, I discovered that the California map is a large file size (over 900 MB's) and was wondering if you planned to split that map into North and South additions? I have no idea how much work that is or if it's possible without rebuilding the entire map, so please forgive my ignorance. Most visitors to the Southwest would probably only have an interest in the Southern half of California. Please reply,
Thank you, Great maps,
Don.....