Garmins new 24k northeast topo

[trapperrick]

   I was just on the garmin site this morning and noticed that they now have a northeast topo in 24k. For those of you who have garmins other 24k maps, are they any better than any of the free maps available from this site? I have the PA planimetric from here and it's great!

[Boyd]

That map came out within the last month. I have only read one report about it over on Groundspeak and the user liked it.

I suppose "better" is subjective. I have not seen this map myself, but it does contain full routable roads, like the City Navigator maps. The files here (or most of them) are not routable and cannot be used to give you driving directions. I suspect that the POI's are much more extensive on the Garmin map, but don't know for sure. People have complained about a lack of trails on the 24k Garmin topo's, but I'm guessing this could also be an issue with the maps here since that data can be hard to come by.

The 24k topo's are copy protected since they contain Navteq data. If you purchase a pre-loaded data card then it can be used in any GPS, but it cannot be duplicated. If you purchase via download then the map will become locked forever to the GPS that you install it on and cannot be used in a different unit.

They don't seem to be offering this map on DVD. That means you cannot use it with Mapsource. Neither the storage card or download work with Mapsource, only on the GPS itself.

[trapperrick]

   Thanks again Boyd!  It states that there are routable trails on this map but from reading other forums here that may not be the case. It was also good to know that you cannot use this with mapsource. I just was not sure if it was worth the $100 dollars they want for it.

[Boyd]

I think the trails will be routable. The issue is that there aren't many trails...

[alpine]

I don't see much use for route-able trails. But maybe that's just me.

I can make a route in MapScource or Topo Fusion, and send it to the GPS (well that oversimplifing the steps) and I use the great maps you get from here.

I guess  if you just have to give money to Garmin, that a good way. But I just don't see the need.

Besides, the greater detail of a Garmin 24K is going to be how useful on a little screen on a handheld?

Ok call me a cheapskate and a skeptic.

[Seldom]

The nice thing about routable trails is you can have them tell you how far you have to walk until you get to your destination. 

Of course, if you can download a track of your route, and track back over it, you can get the same distance to destination, ....unless you decide to change your destination sometime during your trip.

Since the trail data is limited on Garmin's 24k maps, you can generate your own routable maps using MapCenter2 (when its running), or mkgmap.

[trapperrick]

   Your right alpine, the maps are great from here! They have been very useful and everybody has been such a great help to me as far as leaning my way around a GPS. Besides, I have been experimenting with the PA planimetric map that I loaded from this site as far as tracking and recording the local atv trails and it is pretty much all I need. I just happened across that 24k topo on the garmin site and was just curious if anybody had any input on it. Besides for the cost of that and an extra 100 bucks you could pick up a half decent mapping gps on ebay.

[Indrid Cold]

Anyone interested in that map would be better off waiting for the DVD version.

[Seldom]

To elaborate.  The only products listed for Garmin's Northeast 24k Topo are a microSD and a download.  There's a good possibility that neither of those products is viewable in MapSource.  The DVD will be much better for trip planning on your computer.  

I read someplace that 24k topos aren't locked, and I can't find any mention of locked maps on Garmin's website, but they buried the locking description pretty deep on the CityNavNANT page, so I may have missed it.