Maybe you guys can help guide me toward a GPSr based on your experiences? I mainly started looking into one after reading about fellow empeger's geocaching thrills and Mark Lord's web tool that lets you do some way point stuff via your cell phone's web browser. The PDA solutions are WAY cool, but I have had two Palm pilots and I never use them except to control the empeg. I'm a builder and neat gadgets like that don't survive. I've had to settle for syncing Outlook to a beatup cell phone.

I think I'll additionally get use out of it for driving. I go on a few "Fun Drives" through twisty back roads where the route is a secret. They are about 120 miles long and I think it'd be fun to come home and view on a computer what route we did and maybe average speeds for each leg?

I don't need a unit built for extreme conditions as I don't be moutain climbing with it. Maybe hiking and exploring - but my wife will hopefully be coming along and the extreme stuff isn't "her thing". And to be honest, I'd probably hurt myself anyway!

I thought the unit would be fun for road trips too. No plans to hook it upto my empeg. The car that houses my empeg isn't driven enough to make that task worthwhile.

Here are the two I'm looking at (other recommendations are welcome):

GPS V Deluxe

• 19MB of memory (which sounded like a lot to me, but one reviewer said that loading New York, New Jersey, Long Island and Jersey City filled up over 18 mb).
  
• The "Deluxe" now means you get a fully unlocked set of maps for City Select.
  
• Included base map of N.A.
  
• Serial connector.
  
• No slot for memory cards (after reading how 19MB may not be enough, this one bummed me out a bit).
  
• Good battery life (over 24 hours).
  
• Neat stuff like Speed and ETA displays.
  
• 160x256 pixel, 4 shade grey scale display.
  
• Seems slightly tailored to driving, but doesn't seem to comprimise life as a hand held.
  
• $220 - $230 with all City Select Maps (not sure if deluxe includes car mount).

Garmin GPSMap 60

• Only slightly smaller screen size (160 x 240)
  
• 24MB
  
• Included base map of N.A.
  
• USB and serial
  
• Doesn't include any maps other than the base map.
  
• $250 - 300
  
• Still no expansion slot.

Okay, I guess that one's easy (sinking in as I typed it). The GPS V is a pretty sweet deal at $230 since it includes maps that cost $120 or so. I'm just bummed about the limited memory and no expansion. For my uses though, is 19mb enough? Would that be enough to load topo and city maps just for my local area and then I'd simply switch maps when I went out of town?

Exactly... And is depends on the size and density of the city. I have the entire Gulf Coast loaded into my GPS V.

Any objective comments on the V? Most of the reviews I've read are from people trying to sell me one!

IMO 19 mb non-expandable is not enough. I have a 128 mb card in mine and I will be upgrading to a 1 gb soon.

I bought my GPS V based entirely on a discussion on this forum back in 2002. I paid $500 for the non-deluxe version (only one map region), and then later upgraded to a newer, full US version of City Select. I really loved my GPS V until it died a premature death six months ago due to a rechargeable battery exploding inside. I'm still trying to figure out how to convince the battery manufacturer to pay for a new one...

Anyway, let me list some of the things I liked and disliked about the GPS V.

Likes:
-The overall size and form factor. It was just right for my three uses which were car navigation, handheld use, and motorcycle use. I think the key here was the fact it could do landscape or portrait.

-Rugged. Up until the battery incident, it did kind of get banged around a lot, and I never even flinched when it got dropped.

-Auto-routing. I wouldn't even consider a GPSr that didn't automatically create a route to a given address.

-All the things you said about eta and speed displays and things like that.

Dislikes:
-19MB is way too small. For example, it can't fit the whole set of maps to drive from Tucson to Las Vegas. It's only about 450 miles, but it goes through Phoenix, and that's a lot of data. Each new City Select version is a huge increase in size over the previous one, and they sometimes compensate for that by chopping the maps up into smaller chunks. Phoenix went from four chunks to eight chunks in one version, IIRC, but my route to Las Vegas takes me through five of those. Tucson is in two chunks, but I drive through both to get out of town. And there's a two mile stretch going through Hoover dam that's not covered by a Nevada chunk or an Arizona chunk, but rather a chunk that encompasses all of southwest Utah. I could leave one of these chunks out, but that sometimes causes problems with routing when it tries to route from the City Select map to the basemap or vice versa. Additionally , the basemap doesn't actually show the road going through Hoover dam, so if I leave that chunk out, it tries to route me through California. Yeah, my problem can be solved by them creating finer grained chunks of maps in City Select, but that's no excuse for such a pitifully small amount of memory.

-Battery life kind of sucks. That's not a problem in the car, but handheld it is. It's not really terrible, but I think newer models probably do better. I used rechargeables, which were even worse for life, but not so costly. Of course, in my case it's going to be a lot more costly now that one has killed it...

-Serial port is really slow. You can't just add a map chunk. To make any changes to the map set loaded on to it, you have to reload every map. 19MB of that over serial can take an hour, and unless you bought the cable that plugs in to AC and the computer, that's an hour on batteries.


I've been looking for a replacement for the GPS V, and I can't really find one. If I had to buy another GPSr today, it would be the V, which kind of bothers me since it's been three years, and it seems like there must be something better by now. But, everything I look at is either great for the car, but crap for handheld, or vice versa. I refuse to consider a PDA, because I don't think a touch screen is good for the car, and it's not rugged enough. I don't want to put any of the walkie-talkie looking handhelds in the car, because they're too tall to sit on the dash, and I don't want to have to rig up a mount to stick out of the dash. The GPS V was very unobtrusive on the dash. There are some small car ones that also have internal batteries like the Quest, but the Quest doesn't switch to portrait mode, and it might not really fit in your hand well. Plus, it might not be rugged at all.

So, if I had to buy another today, I would begrudgingly buy the GPS V. If Garmin were to announce a GPS VI whose only changes were more memory (or else an industry standard expansion slot), USB connectivity, and internal rechargeable battery, I'd buy that in a heartbeat. Heck, if they announced a GPS V+ whose only change was upping to 128MB, I'd buy that in the same heartbeat. Sure, it would take forever to reload over serial, but I'd need to do it so much less often.

Anyway, I hope that's helpful to you.

I sold my GPS V and got a Garmin Quest and don't regret it for a second. The Quest is a huge upgrade over the V. The screen is amazing. 128mb memory was enough to hold my cross country route from SF to Louisiana through Colorodo, and back through Texas. The GPS V's memory and speed are huge limitations. It takes FOREVER to calculate a route. With the Quest, I can hop in my car, turn it on, enter waypoint, and 5-10 seconds later it's ready to route. The V used to take up to 5 minutes. With all the other options out there, I can't recommend the V to anyone... it's just outdated, has way to little memory, and is cludgy. If you can find one cheap and are on a budget, it's definitely a good little GPS, but if you can afford it, I think the extra hundred you'd spend on a Quest or other would be well worth it.

Cons on the Quest: not expandable, less rugged, built in battery (doesn't bother me as it lasts 10+ hours)

Loren, do you use the Quest for geocaching? How well does it work as a handheld? And, the cheapest I've seen a Quest for is $450. Do you know somewhere cheaper?

I haven't used it for geocaching yet, but it has all the same functions, namely off road routing with directional arrow) that the GPS V has so it shouldn't be any different... just faster. Hrm. Your right about the price. I thought I'd paid $400 for it but turns out it was $480. I must have blocked that out. Heh. Is that $250 WITH the mapsource data?

Still, the speed and memory are well worth the extra bones IMHO. I could be surfing with 56k but for twice the price I'll take DSL anyday. Not apples to apples but you get the drift. The speed and lack of memory on my V used to drive me NUTS.

I'll second Loren's Quest recommendation. I have a 60CS, and unless you need the independant compass & altimiter (think hiking with no signal due to heavy/wet trees) I think the Quest has the 60CS beat. Slimmer form factor, nice screen, voice prompts, City Select maps included in the price, equal waterproofing to the 60CS. I've not extensively used the Quest personally, but I've fiddled with a friends' unit and was very impressed with the size and build quality. The only place I think it comes up short is that it lacks USB 2.0 (the 60 doesn't have it either, rather only USB 1.1 which is pokey when uploading lots of data). That said the 60CS is no slouch either - I use it daily when driving and also take in on hikes. I think either beats the V hands down.

That said, both the 60CS and Quest are good deal more than the 60 or the V. Between your original two choices I'd take the 60 - faster processor, better upload speed. If you can spring the extra cash, get the Quest - more memory, color screen, voice prompts, City Select included.

-Zeke

Well, I ended up going with the GPS V because my budget was firmly capped at $250 and from the comments here and at geocaching.org, it seems like the best deal out there. One guy at geocaching.org also mentioned that since it comes with 100 bucks in software that can be transfered to one other device, it's like getting it for $130. When I get my next unit, maybe in a year, maybe never, I can still use the Garmin maps. And maybe in a year, the color screens will be more affordable...

I'm SO geeked to get out there and find some caches now! Especially the "virtual" ones that have historic points across the area. I even have a few gems that I'd like to share with people as well... old buildings that are still standing and of historical significance, but unknown to the average person here.

I'm resurrecting this thread to point out that I may have found my GPS V replacement. The Street Pilot i2 seems to do everything the GPS V did, except it uses standard memory (Transflash, and it comes with 128MB of it), and it has USB connectivity. It also talks (Oooh! Aaah!). The best part is that the street price seems to be just a hair over $250.

It's not quite shipping yet, and I'll have to wait until it does to see if the two buttons and a wheel are really usable for UI navigation. It can be battery powered, so I can use it for geocaching in a pinch, but I'll need to hold one to see if it's really awkward. I'll also want to make sure it's not slower than the GPS V or something.

Assuming it checks out, I'll definitely get one to replace my dearly departed GPS V. If it ends up not looking good, the other good news is that the Quest is now down to around $375 or so.

(edited because miniSD and TransFlash are evidently not the same thing)

Yeah. TransFlash is microSD because miniSD just isn't small enough it seems...

I attached a screen shot of my Buy.com receipt. The $50 off $500 coupon is here. This is a hot deal assuming the Buy.com price for the c320 is still $429.