GPS Navigation System Advice Needed

[Derek_Bullock]

I am looking at getting a GPS for the new Suzuki. I do a lot of street driving so am looking at a mapping system but also want something I can use off road that will give me co-ordinates.

Your thoughts and ideas appreciated.

Thanks


Derek

[choppa]

derek

the following will hopefully paste with pics ,,if not a short summary of the benefits and advantages over each brand,,,i've got access to all (and more not listed),, so if theres something your looking at that is part of the range at hand,,,let me know,,,may be able to get it a bit cheaper for ya,,,,as a guide,,, the ""points"" are recommended retail,,,,approx.



Navman In-Car Navigation GPS - F20 Navman In-Car Navigation GPS - F20
The Navman F20 introduces features that were once unheard of on value-for-money personal navigation systems. Coming complete with a large 3.5” colour touchscreen displaying the closest petrol stations and rest areas to plan your stops. Clear instructions make navigation incredibly straight forward to ensure you'll never get lost again!
Points 699
Posted in 7 business days





Navman In-Car Navigation GPS - N60i Navman In-Car Navigation GPS - N60i
Innovation, accuracy, reliability, practicality and a sleek, modern design… The list of impressive qualities of the Navman N60i In-Car GPS Navigation stacks up pretty well to ensure your purchase is an excellent decision. With smarter software and a more user-friendly interface, you can drive around town with your own personal guide and no fumbling around searching the maps.
Points 1199
Posted in 21 business days





Navman In-Car Navigation GPS - N40i Navman In-Car Navigation GPS - N40i
Get where you need to be, be it close by or far far away easily and without having to look in a book of maps! Coming complete with Australian road maps displayed on a 3.5” colour screen with clear indications of the nearest petrol station and rest areas so you can pre-plan your stops. This state-of-the-art system includes NaxPix technology which matches pictures to destinations you've visited so you'll always find your way back! More Detail
Points 869
Posted in 7 business days





MIO 269+ Satellite Navigation System MIO 269+ Satellite Navigation System
The new Mio 269+ satellite navigation system takes portability seriously: 13.2 million kilometres of road packed into a sleek, smooth, flat package with fully integrated GPS antenna. Weighing just over 200g, this pocket dynamo requires no installation with seamless detailed Sensis maps of Australia pre-installed on the internal hard drive. The Mio269+ comes with touch screen, built-in virtual keyboard and on-screen tutorial to provide you with easy, simple operations to navigate to your destination. More Detail
This product cannot be gift-wrapped or carded.
Points 1009
Posted in 21 business days




MIO C310 High Precision GPS Satellite Navigation System MIO C310 High Precision GPS Satellite Navigation System
The C310 from MIO is a high precision GPS satellite navigation system that is designed for maximum mobility. This completely integrated unit has a sleek design, highly sensitive SiRFIII GPS, extra bright 3.5" screen and fits into your pocket. With built-in 512MB flash memory and multi-language support, you'll never get lost again! More Detail
This product cannot be gift-wrapped or carded.
Points 609
Posted in 21 business days





MIO C510 Satellite Navigation System MIO C510 Satellite Navigation System
Small enough to fit in your pocket, the C510 comes with a big range of useful features that make it an ideal travelling companion whether you travel by car, by bike or on foot. These features include Bluetooth for handsfree calling, user friendly menus in 15 languages and the exciting MP3 player and picture viewer. More Detail

Points 809
Posted in 21 business days





TomTom One GPS TomTom One GPS
Your first step in car navigation? TomTom ONE combines ease of use, portability, TomTom's touchscreen technology and a sleek new design. Drivers can enjoy the benefits of a TomTom ONE immediately, thanks to TomTom's award-winning plug and drive navigation software pre-installed on a memory card. This means there is no need to download complicated software, just plug in and start using. TomTom ONE comes with the latest regional maps of your region. With TomTom ONE, everyONE can find their way from A to B! More Detail

Points 659
Posted in 7 business days



TomTom 910 GPS TomTom 910 GPS
Clear spoken instructions, including street and place names: TomTom GO 910 speaks some 36 languages in over 50 different voices and can even announce street and place names. Map of Australia on hard disk: Navigate throughout Australia door-to-door. Easy to use: Extra wide 4” LCD touchscreen gives you smart design and easy to use navigation literally at your fingertips. Hands-free calling: Doubles as a hands-free car kit using Bluetooth technology. So you can make & receive calls as you drive with just a touch of the screen. More Detail

Points 1139
Posted in 7 business days


hope some of this helps

choppa

[Tangles]

My input , you say mainly street driving and off road, i reckon its a compromise, its either the 3d view like for the streets or a toppo for off road... i couldnt find a suitable system for both( at a price)...choppa has listed a bunch for you...they look like mainly for city use,, but you have to ask yourself what do you want it for, city or off road?.

I chose a magellan explorist xl, its a toppo with the maps extra. Two things, its great for touring/off road with a map set ( you have to buy the maps, maps which come with it are useless, but with a map set its fantastic).. its a toppo system, ie hasnt that 3d look with voices etc telling you where to turn. Around town forget it... the units the cabbies use with the 3d view are better for around town. The toppo systems arent much chop around town but they aren't designed for that, they are designed for off road and touring. (I have no experience with the city style gps units off raod so i cant comment)

Really its up to you, after a lot of research i couldnt find a system great at both ( without spending a fortune). I choose a offroad solution rather than around town, Ive found the magellan xl to be great, its more for 4wd tours/ driving etc,

hope this helps
cheers
Mike

[blaze]

Hi Derek
I have a garmin 320 (one of those talking ones), put in Roz's address for 1770 at my place in tassie and took me to within 10m of her driveway. Top unit and the mapping in it is better for the more densly populated areas, some of the locations in small towns can be 500m from where you want to be, normally in the right street though. It has no functions for off road work and not worth a cracker for that. Cost about $800
For the serious stuff I have a megalen platium with all state mapping including little bush tracks and is for 4x4ing, bush walking etc, at the time of purchase including the mapping the value was about $2500.
Dont think you will find a unit that does both tasks (at least not upto my expectations)
In the boat navman 5380, its color and cmap with fuel flow sensor fitted.
cheers
blaze
ps
one of the best little basic units I had was a garmin etrex

[Fishin_Dan]

I'm in the process of converting my old laptop into a system that does both... Just running Windows XP. Powered by a 12V laptop power supply ($30 delivered off eBay - $75 at Battery World)

I am running UBD City Streets for the on-road mapping (Does moving mapping & has all oz street directory). This will connect to NMEA GPS units.

For off-road use, I am running OziExplorer with topo maps. I haven't found any good maps I like yet (No where near enough detail), but am still looking for those... This will also connect to NMEA GPS units, and does moving mapping.


Currently I am just using my Garmin 60 Hand Held GPS unit connected via the serial cable, but as it's running on AA's, I plan on buying a proper USB GPS Mouse receiver. You can get them for about $90 off eBay. That can be mounted in the cruiser properly. I will also be using an FM inducer (as opposed to FM Transmitter) to utilise the laptop as a MP3 player as well.

It's all pretty easy to do, and you can schmick it up with LCD touchscreens, etc, but for now, this will do for me.

[ar-we-ther-yet]

I picked up a Asus a636n a couple of month ago from Johny appleseed GPS's. Cost $770 with Co-pilot live software. Its a PDA with a built in GPS antenna. It has WI-FI and blue tooth,. can handle up to a 2 GB SD card.
You can get oziexplorer soft ware for $170 dollars to run your Toppo maps. You just need to buy the maps then.
The Co-pilot live has all the street maps of Australia but doesn't show the forestry roads. It has voice guidance, 3-d, birds eye safety camera alert, points of interest and it also will give you your longitude and latitude as well as letting you do multiple destinations.
There's a lot of other features you should check out Johny Appleseed web site. A lot of different types there.
http://www.ja-gps.com.au/

[Brett1907]

You really only have 2 options.

1 - PDA GPS. This is a PDA/Pocket PC with an integrated GPS reciever.

I have recently purchased an HP IPAQ 5965. It has 2GB internal memory and takes a 4GB SD card as well. Comes preloaded with TomTom street navigation which I am reasonably happy with it, takes a round a bout way of getting some places, but you do get there. I have loaded OziExplorerCE on it and have OziExplorer on my PC as well. Unfortunately maps of Queensland are few and far between, and the ones available are low quality and years out of date. (Sunmap 1:25 000 Raster and Geoscience 1:250 000)

The Asus 636n is also a good PDA/GPS. A friend of mine has one and he is very happy with it. The Asus locks on to more satellites than mine does at any given time, so is possibly more accurate. He isNOT happy with copilot. It has sent him to the wrong place on a couple of occasions. He even made sure the address was 100% correct. The screen also seems to be easier to read in full sun that the HP.

Asus is bringing out the 639 some time this quarter. It has the same features as the 636n, but has 1GB on board memory.

2 - multiple units. Buy a dedicated street navigation GPS and a Magellan Explorist XL.

The new TomTom's are good as well as a couple of the new Garmin street nav models. For off road I wouldn't go past a magellan. I have an explorist 100 & a 210. The 100 is the most basic model and the 210 accepts some mapping. If I were to buy this type again I would get the XL. Aslo, buy the topo maps on memory card. They are very good maps and have all Australian streets on them (they don't do point-to-point navigation though). They also have a lot of forestry and 4wd tracks I wasn't aware of. The viewing software for your PC from Magellan is brilliant. You can manage your waypoints, traks, logs easily; and plan your 4wd tracks on the PC then upload them to your explorist.

Hope this helps. If you want someone to ask about option 2, see Justin at Go Camping in Nerang. He plays with them all day.

Some web sites worth a look are

www.oziexplorer.com
mrgadget.com.au
gpsoz.com.au
www.ja-gps.com.au

Hope this helps

Brett

[mitch92]

The two brands i hear mentioned the most are both navman and tom-tom, and have not heard any bad reports about them either.

[bungie]

I have Copilot on my XDA, have had no prolems with it. Think its tops :)

[Derek Bullock]

Thanks guys. With your comments and a lot of research I am looking at the Asus PDA/GPS.


Derek

[Greg P]

If your workplace does it the ATO allows PDAs to be salary sacrificed like laptops ;):cool::cool::cool:

[Derek Bullock]

Greg, we do allow them however a trip to Hong Kong is coming up shortly and I am maybe gonna do some bargaining at downtown Kowloon............ :)

[ar-we-ther-yet]

Greg, we do allow them however a trip to Hong Kong is coming up shortly and I am maybe gonna do some bargaining at downtown Kowloon............ :)

Don't forget you will still have to buy software for OZ. It may be cheaper to get a package than buy it separately

[Brett1907]

Thats true, you can try www.travroute.com.au That is the site for copilot. I don't know if TomTom has a software install available unless you buy it in a package.

I'm looking at buying another 3 PDA/GPS units and am seriously considering the Asus also. As I said previously, it seems to be the most accurate. My friend checked his Asus against a Navman as well. The Asus showed more satellite access than the navman, so it looks like the Asus has the best GPS reciever I have found.

Brett