Archives for 2009

Garmin Dakota 20 review

October 27, 2009 By Rich Owings 87 Comments

Hands on with the Garmin Dakota 20

The Garmin Dakota 20 is a smaller version of Garmin’s successful Oregon models. It appears poised to replace the eTrex series, bringing all of the Oregon’s touch screen goodness while retaining the eTrex’s small form factor, light weight and long battery life.

Filed Under: Garmin, Garmin handheld GPS, GPS Reviews, Handheld/Sport, Hardware Tagged With: Garmin Dakota 20

Lowrance Endura Sierra review

October 26, 2009 By Rich Owings 7 Comments

The Lowrance Endura Sierra is the high-end model in the recently introduced Endura product line. It includes preloaded Accuterra™ “high-resolution” topo maps, a trails and POI database and NAVTEQ® roads for the 48 contiguous United States. Turn-by-turn routing is available as an add-on purchase. The Sierra includes a tri-axial electronic compass, barometric altimeter and 4 GB of internal memory. All three Endura models utilize a 2.7” color touchscreen.

Filed Under: GPS Reviews, Handheld/Sport, Hardware, Lowrance, Lowrance handheld GPS Tagged With: Lowrance Endura Sierra

Magellan RoadMate 1440

October 25, 2009 By Rich Owings 10 Comments

magellan-roadmate-1440-review The Magellan RoadMate 1440 is one of several models introduced by the company in the spring of 2009. This 4.3” touch-screen navigator offers Magellan’s OneTouch interface, AAA TourBook, Highway Lane Assist, exit POIs and multi-destination routing.

Filed Under: Auto, GPS Reviews, Hardware, Magellan, Magellan auto GPS Tagged With: Magellan RoadMate 1440

Two new tools for making Garmin custom maps

October 23, 2009 By Rich Owings 13 Comments

Garmin-aerial-Raleigh I didn’t think this would take long. Some of the more technically adept GPS enthusiasts among us have put together some great tools for creating custom maps for the latest generation of Garmin handhelds. Here are two new ones released in the last day or so. Both allow you to create maps without manually calibrating them in Google Earth.

G-Raster

Created by Lester Pawlowicz of Free Geography Tools, G-Raster allows you to create maps from imagery freely available online. The following formats are supported:

GeoTIFF
MrSID
NOAA BSB (.kap)
ERDAS (.img)
USA PhotoMaps Big JPEG
UTM world file images
World file images for other coordinate systems

Filed Under: Aerial imagery, Garmin, Garmin handheld GPS, Handheld/Sport, Maps Tagged With: Garmin custom maps

Magellan RoadMate 1220

October 22, 2009 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

Magellan-RoadMate-1220-review The Magellan RoadMate 1220 is one of several new Magellan units introduced in the spring of 2009. It has a 3.5” touchscreen and comes with pre-loaded maps of the entire U.S., with the exception of Alaska.

Filed Under: Auto, GPS Reviews, Hardware, Magellan, Magellan auto GPS Tagged With: Magellan RoadMate 1220

Garmin Oregon 200

October 16, 2009 By Rich Owings 17 Comments

Garmin Oregon 200 left

UPDATE: The Oregon 200 has been discontinued. For current recommendations, check out our handheld GPS buyers guide or our Garmin handheld GPS comparison chart.

The Garmin Oregon 200 is the entry level model in Garmin’s touch screen Oregon line, offering a great backcountry navigation and/or paperless geocaching solution at a reasonable price. It doesn’t have a barometric altimeter or electronic compass, nor does it come with pre-loaded detailed maps. The latter is not a huge issue, given all the free maps available for it. You’ll want a micro-SD card for the maps though, as the 200 only has 24 MB of internal memory. The 200 also leaves out the ability to transfer data wirelessly between units.

Filed Under: Garmin, Garmin handheld GPS, GPS Reviews, Handheld/Sport, Hardware Tagged With: Garmin Oregon 200

Google and the business of map data collection

October 15, 2009 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

A lengthy and detailed interview with Mike Dobosn of TeleMapics has been posted at Search Engine Land, where the map data insider hypothesizes about Google Map’s data sources. What’s really fascinating though, is the peek inside the business of collecting and verifying map data. I may have to print this one out and read it several times. If you have any serious interest in the subject, this one is well worth your time. Here are a few tidbits:

On the collection of “anonymized” cell phone data:

“Yes, I know that it is collected anonymously, but if that track starts out at the same house each day and returns to the same house each night, doesn’t it suggest where you live? For that reason, at least one of the major PND companies, whose users have agreed to tracking, shaves the first two minutes and the last two minutes off of every path. Does everyone follow this standard? I don’t know, but everyone should be interested in how the DNA of their GPS traces are “neutered” by the companies using them. Further, the four minutes of data thrown away probably contains really useful information about local streets, but so it goes.”

Filed Under: The business of GPS

Imagery sources for Garmin custom maps

October 13, 2009 By Rich Owings 8 Comments

Garmin-custom-map-DC There are a lot of new map makers out there now that Garmin has opened the door to custom maps on their latest generation handhelds.

And the results are cool. Just don’t expect those people standing around the Jefferson Memorial to be in the same place when you visit!

The process for adding aerial photos and topo maps is simple enough, once you find the imagery. To get you up and running faster, I’ve posted a list of sources for aerial imagery and various types of maps below. But first, let’s look at some of the acronyms and terms you’re bound to come across as you delve into this…

Filed Under: Garmin, Garmin handheld GPS, GIS, Handheld/Sport, Maps Tagged With: Garmin custom maps

Magellan Maestro 4370

October 12, 2009 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

Magellan Maestro 4370 review The Magellan Maestro 4370 has a 4.3” screen, Bluetooth for hands-free cell phone use, lane guidance, 3D landmarks and AAA TourBook. It comes with preloaded maps of the U.S. and Canada, six million POIs and text-to-speech, so you’ll hear "approaching right turn, Maple Street" instead of just "approaching right turn."

Filed Under: Auto, GPS Reviews, Hardware, Magellan, Magellan auto GPS Tagged With: Magellan Maestro 4370

Garmin custom maps – Day 2

October 9, 2009 By Rich Owings 15 Comments

Garmin-custom-map Owners of the Garmin Colorado, Dakota and Oregon series got a nice surprise yesterday, when the company rolled out the ability to create a custom map image in Google Earth, opening the door to viewing aerial photos, USGS topos and park maps on your GPS.

I immediately downloaded a US Forest Service topo (which often have greater FS road detail than USGS topos), transferred a portion to my Oregon, and hit the trail. You can see the results in the image to the left.

Accuracy is completely related to how well you georeference the image, but I was pretty pleased with the results. The red line is a track of the trail created by someone else, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of that, but my own track lined up well with the USFS trail on the map, and had me on the proper side of the creek, so I was pretty pleased with my first attempt. I’ll also note that the Oregon was in a mesh pocket on the back of my pack, not the ideal spot for reception. Admittedly, I wasn’t going that fast (15 MPH tops), but I noticed no problems with redraws. Others are reporting sluggish behavior for larger mapsets.

Filed Under: Garmin, Garmin handheld GPS, Handheld/Sport, Maps Tagged With: Garmin custom maps