GPS Frenzy

[LoneGunman]

Having had a Mio digiwalker 310x for a while, which routed me through a few thousand miles of East Coast and West Coast US road trips, and up and around in Canada.. the unit seemed to die finally..
This being the US.. naturally I thought 'time for another unit'. Having had such a good experience with Mio previously, I figured I'd stick with them, and grabbed the new Mio 'Moov' - which I rapidly discovered, is run by new software, not the 'iGo' software I was used to - instead, its some Navman uber-geeky thing. After much clicking away, and seeing that little things like 'train stations' arent even in its POI, as well as seeing how totally anti-intuitive the software is, I took it back to Radio Shack, and swapped it for a Garmin (the Nuvi 200)..

(On the various hack gps forums, I see that I could probably replace the Mio Moov software with iGo), but I couldnt be bothered to go through the saga, especially not with a new GPS that hasnt had enough geeks tweaking it yet, to find out all its ins and outs..

So Garmin Nuvi 200 it is.
Why? Well, its tiny and fits in pocket, its software seems to be a little more straightforward, and best of all - there are so many forums dedicated to hacked software and maps for the Garmin, how could I resist?
Naturally now I discover that the Nuvi has charging issues - and doesnt seem to simply charge up via USB cable, but requires some fiddling to get it to see that a charge is happening - havent tried it in a car yet, but if it doesn't recognize its own power cord from cigarette lighter, then back to Radio Shack we go, and a hunting for yet another damn GPS unit.
(There's a 14-30 days return policy with most US stores, so I'm happy to try something out, and if it sucks, I just pack it up in its original packaging, take it
back, and get something else. Very different to the SA model of business, as I recall).

Decided to go hunting anyway on Amazon, and picked up another Mio 310, which cost me 100 bucks. Given that I had such good results with it
previously, I figure the slightly larger unit is okay - and beats the convenience of the uber-tiny systems, at least for ease of use and reliability..
and that'll arrive in a couple of days..
So one way or the other, I'm gonna have a couple of gps units to choose from, for
traveling..

Going to be heading to Italy and Europe in a month or so, so I'm looking at ways to have a nice opened gps, containing all the maps I might need.. and again, both Garmin and the Mio 310 respectively, seem to have rather a lot of hacks, cracks and tweaks to ensure that one can have fun with them, without going broke in the process..

Thought I'd post links to a couple of forums, that have mind boggling quantities of information. The first one keeps itself 'legal' - but contains lots of useful info on a lot of different GPS systems - and given the rip off costs of GPS in SA, it becomes a big investment, which you dont want to mess up with..

http://www.gpspassion.com/FORUMSEN/default.asp?CAT_ID=2

Then for a 'not concerned with legality' GPS forum, with maps etc:
http://www.gpsunderground.com/forums/index.php

And then, sinking even further into the Dark Side, is the wild west of
http://www.pda4x.com/thread.php?fid=16&search=&orderway=lastpost&asc=DESC&page=1

Hope this helps some folks, more than it irritates and enrages others

All information presented purely for educational purposes - so that folks can get a sense of what's out there,
as well as read some heavily informative threads on the pro's and con's of the different GPS systems, from
the point of view of happy geeks, rather than corporate sites who just want you to pay up and then live
with a system that may be not what you need..

 

[LoneGunman]

Just a PS - gotta love instant gratification, American style, courtesy of Amazon+good postal service. Ordered a Mio 310x on the 19th of April (Saturday) and here we are on the 21st of April (Monday) - the parcel has arrived, and the unit looks fine, and is quietly charging up beside me..