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Selecting a GPS Unit

Started by outandabout, October 30, 2009, 08:03:17 PM

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outandabout

Hello,

I've been researching and reviewing specs for various manufacturers and unit for about a month or so now and, while I'm sure I have learned enough to select a decent unit for basic needs and possibly an interesting 3rd party tool or 2, I'm finding most spec sheets to be sadly lacking in the kind of detail that would allow me to educate myself enough the make a solid purchase decision that meets my needs.

As such, I'd like to take a moment to describe my needs  - I *think* I know what I want - and it can be summed up in a high level statement and get your opinions on three points; 1) Are my expectations reasonable, 2) Are there other features I should consider and, 3) What units/3rd party recommendations you may have based on your experience.

Here's what I'd like:

       I want to create service routes and have the ability to measure performance.

Now, this is a loaded statement so let me add a little more detail.

Routes - Most route features I see seem to max out at 10 stops. I could live with this but would like to have 50 for a typical sales route and up to 500 for some marketing routes. Also, the ability to save/import/export routes is highly desirable.

Performance - Most current units claim a tracking feature (Track, Trip, Breadcrumb...). Unfortunately, I have yet to see enough info in a user guide/manual to help me understand what I am tracking or how to make use of it! For example, I have a sample track-log from a sony navu 044 I borrowed from a friend. It's a comma delimited flat text file with 5-7 fields, 2 of which look like lat/long but the others are indecipherable to my eye.

What I really need is time elapsed through the route so I can determine both duration of task for future scheduling and general performance throughout the route.

Of course, many of the basic features like text-to-speech are useful also but much easier to assess and quantify.

I'd really appreciate a few opinions on units I may consider for further research/selection and would be pleased to add more detail if clarification is required on anything above or some significant criterea item is missing.

If it matters, most - if not all - of my routing will be in Canada, 99% in Ontario.

With thanks,

-Van.

Boyd

#1
But I would like to address #1 from a little different angle. I don't think your expectations are reasonable when it comes to getting advice on this topic here at GPSFileDepot. I love this site myself and spend a lot of time here. But it's just the wrong place to ask a question like yours.

The site is primarily dedicated to topo maps which don't usually even support routing, but show the maximum amount of detail about your surroundings. It is also 99% Garmin-specific. There is some discussion of GPS units, but usually only in terms of how they may be used with the maps here.

To get a more complete answer I would suggest visiting a couple sites which cover more of the entire GPS spectrum and have a lot of users with experience using different models. IMO, the two best places for that would be http://forums.gpsreview.net and http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen. Since I am a moderator at gpsreview, you can imagine what my bias is.  :)

Regardless, here are a few quick observations. Most of Garmin's current Nuvi line supports mult-stop routing with the exception of the 2x5, 12x0 and 13x0 series. Some of the older models do not. They don't publish a spec for the number of stops in a route, and there has been some confilicting info about this. But I believe it's definitely more thant 10. I have seen both 50 and 100 stops mentioned. It definitely isn't unlimited though, and I doubt that it's as high as 500. I think a route with 500 stops would be really unmanageable anyway.

You may be getting confused with the number of ROUTES which can be loaded on the gps at one time, and that is 10. You can actually have more than 10 routes stored on the unit, but you need to "import" them to use, and that maxes out at 10.

Users have discovered that some of the Nuvi series contain a "hidden track log" which provides much more information than the simplistic feature in the menus. Go to the Nuvi forum at GpsPasSion and do a search for this to learn more. Otherwise, all of the current Nuvi models record track and you cannot even turn this off. The only control over the tracklog is showing/hiding it on the screen and clearing it out. What can be done with the data is generally dependent on the software you use, and there are many, many programs for that. It is stored in a .gpx file which can be copied to your computer.

Good luck with your quest!