Need GPS help

[Stickjiggler]

Looking to buy the wife a GPS for Christmas and I know nothing about them. What should I get. Mostly for driving directions,restaruants,etc.etc.etc. Maybe marking the occasional hot spot if she lets me use it. Under $200 and easy to use.

Thanks! Andy

[hibanks1]

get an iphone

[kensom]

Look into the Lowrance XOG crossover unit....works well as an car navigational GPS and equally as well as a lakemapping unit with the addition of a Lakemaster or similar mapcard. I use mine for navigation and for ice fishing and it works great with a color screen for about $150. Marking hotspots is not as easy as a H2O handheld, but if you need the GPS in the car for navigation it does a good job.

[DTro]

If it's for the wife and limited to a vehicle, get a TomTom or a Garmin.

[Flooringuy]

I got the garmin for the wife and she loves it. I believe it was right around 200.

[PerchJerker]

I got a Garmin Nuvi for my wife a couple years ago and she loves it. So do I, when I get to use it in my truck.

[bobbymalone]

I don't think you can go wrong with any of the 150-200 units from Garmin, Tomtom, magellan, etc.

Go to that blue store with the yellow price tag and play with them a bit and pick the one that you like best.

[Northlander]

XOG if you will ever use it for fishing . The Nuvu and Tom Toms are nice otherwise. If I can find a XOG still I will buy one if not I think Ill get a NUvi.

I got my father in law a XOG last X-mas and its a great unit. Not as easy to save waypoints on as a hand held but for all around use in a vehicle or boat its nice. Only one I know of that takes a mapping chip.

[leech~~]

The wally world by my house in BC still had a few XOG's on clearance as of about 2 hours ago for $129 bucks. I have a XOG and H20. The XOG is good in the car and on the water, but you have to keep them plugged into 12v all the time or they kill the internal battery in a few hours. I went to a wedding out in VBeach VA this summer, and would still be there trying to find my way home without it!

[MN Mike]

Garmin Nuvi's will take Micro SD Lakemaster chips among MANY others ( topo, city and other country's )

If a person wants to keep it under $200 you can look at a 205 or 255 Nuvis, great units for both personal navigation and off road use. You might even be able to find some W units, a 255w is just a bigger screen version of the 255, wide screen I guess you would say.

Go to Garmins site, you can compare different units side by side and make a decision on what you might want.

Mike

[Ed Carlson]

Think Garmin...NUVI!

[jimmyjames76]

Another vote for a Garmin Nuvi. Takes lakemaster chips and other custom maps, works great for the driving, and it's not a discontinued product so you can still get map updates and firmware updates. They're a little more money but the Nuvi 500/550 are nice automotive units that are waterproof with a user replaceable battery that lasts 8 hrs between charges.

[s2h]

Nuvi's are great. I have them for both my wife and my vehicles and 1 for my work truck. You can find them cheepest online if you search a bit.

[Schloogs]

I just go the wife the Garmin Nuvi 255W, and she loves it. It is a little wider but still fits nicely in her purse.

[Stickjiggler]

Thanks guys I will check out the Nuvi's

[MN Mike]

One thing I should clarify from my earlier post, the 255w has a SD Slot not the Micro SD.

When it comes down to it, it's really not a big deal, you can purchase an adapter so you can use a Mirco SD in a SD slot.

I just recently did this for a friend that went west elk hunting, we downloaded topo maps for Colorado / Utah to a Micro SD card, put it into a SD adapter and all the info came up just fine on his Nuvi 255w.

Mike

[Ed Carlson]

The Nuvi's also takes the TRAX chips, (NDTRAX, MNTRAX, and MTTRAX)...very Kewl.

Useful info such as Hunting data, like PLOTS, parks, WPA, ect... and lake maps....just plug-n-play in a Nuvi, and they come with the converter ship so you can use them both wayss. The TRAX has very good enhances streets detail too.

[jimmyjames76]

One thing I should clarify from my earlier post, the 255w has a SD Slot not the Micro SD.

When it comes down to it, it's really not a big deal, you can purchase an adapter so you can use a Mirco SD in a SD slot.

I just recently did this for a friend that went west elk hunting, we downloaded topo maps for Colorado / Utah to a Micro SD card, put it into a SD adapter and all the info came up just fine on his Nuvi 255w.

Mike

Just as an FYI to anyone wondering, the lakemaster chip for Garmin comes with the adapter so it will work in units that take microSD and SD cards.

[wisky8]

I looked online at garmin's site. the Nuvi 550 seems to be a decent unit. Water proof and uses preload SD cards. Anyone use this model yet? I"ll be doing a bunch of research. I'm trying to accomplish the following.

- voice, turn by turn directions for the road

- trail maps from Sledmaps.com

- lake master chip

- program my existing routes from mapsource from the last 6 years.

also agree garmin is the only way to go, my last unit is 6 years old just want to upgrade but not get ride of. will be using both when pinpointing the area

[MN Mike]

wisky, you should be able to accomplish everything you want to do with the Nuvi.

Did you mean gpssledmaps? that would be nice to have that when you're out sledding.

From the way it sounds, you can put your MapSource data on the memory card, then put it in the Nuvi.

Good luck.

Mike

[jimmyjames76]

I looked online at garmin's site. the Nuvi 550 seems to be a decent unit. Water proof and uses preload SD cards. Anyone use this model yet? I"ll be doing a bunch of research. I'm trying to accomplish the following.

- voice, turn by turn directions for the road

- trail maps from Sledmaps.com

- lake master chip

- program my existing routes from mapsource from the last 6 years.

also agree garmin is the only way to go, my last unit is 6 years old just want to upgrade but not get ride of. will be using both when pinpointing the area

I have this unit with the lakemaster chip. Turn by turn directions work great. It has the spoken street names too, so rather than saying "turn right in 1 mile" it says "turn right on Cedar Ave in 1 mile." The road features are basically the same as any other Nuvi with the same features which is a good thing.

Battery life is fantastic. Garmin claims 8 hrs, and I think that’s fairly accurate. Haven't tested the waterproof qualities yet, but there is a video on the internet where it runs inside a fish tank for a half hour with no problems (good enough for me).

The lakemaster chip works great in this unit too. There was no noticeable difference in screen refresh rate or scrolling speed when the chip was plugged in. Also, check out the list of lakes and the demo on Garmin’s HSOforum for the lakemaster chip. It has A LOT more information than the same chip for Lowrance. Apparently Garmin adds a ton of lake data to their lakemaster chip that is not included on the Lowrance chip. This was one of the big selling points for me because it includes contours of a lot of smaller lakes not included on the Lowrance chip. I haven’t tried the sled maps or custom routes yet, but as far as I know both of these can be accomplished based on the research I did before buying.

[jimmyjames76]

One other neat feature with the Nuvi 550 is that it has different modes with custom settings for each mode. So you can have specialized settings for driving, walking, bicycling, scootering, and boating. For instance, if you are walking you can get directions to an address, but the Nuvi will ignore things like one way streets since you're walking and give you the most direct route. Since the settings are saved for each mode independently, it's just one click to get into the mode, rather than having to change all of those things each time you switch from driving to boating to walking.

[Kirsch]

Just a bit of FYI, the 550 and 500 are virtually identical and the 500 is easier to find and sometimes cheaper, so don't be scared to get the 500. Also, you can buy additional batteries as although propreitary, they are easily swapped out.

As Ed mentioned, check out the TRAX series now on the Outdoor Store here on Fishing Minnesota. Hunting, Fishing, Hiking, Camping, Traveling and even township, range and section numbers for those in surveying, spraying, or any land specific hobby or occupation. It is available for ND, MN, MT, and now even Wyoming.