GPS suggestions?

[stevage]

Hi all, I'm in the market for a GPS, mostly for bike trips of various kinds, and was thinking people here must have suggestions. Some things I want:
1) Easy to upload/download routes, waypoints etc.
2) Long battery life. How do riders on the GDR manage, since most GPS's seem to only last 6-12 hours on a charge? I'd really like to be able to run a continuous trace for days at a time. If the device had to turn itself on and off periodically to conserve battery, that would be ok with me. I'd rather a 3 day trace at 5 kilometre intervals than a 6 hour trace at 10m intervals...
3) Flexibility over maps. I'm not sure what I mean here, but generally I use a few different map sources (Google Maps, local VicRoads atlas, 1:100,000 topo maps...). Is there a way not to be totally restricted to just whatever maps the vendor supplies? As we all know, small details like the surface of a back road, or whether or not two minor tracks meet are pretty important, but are frequently wrong...
4) I'm half tempted by some more generic iphone-like device that has GPS, and using some app (maybe Google Maps!) for the mapping. Is this a bad, or even terrible idea? Thinking that it wouldn't be rugged or waterproof enough...does anyone use anything like this?
5) I guess I would occasionally use it in the car, but I'm much much less concerned about that. It would be far more important to have a good clear view of the actual map than big 3D arrows telling me which road to take next. However, good indicators for following a custom (not necessarily road-bound) route are important.

This is primarily for use in country Victoria, Australia. I'm a bit ignorant of modern GPSes, as the ones I've used are pretty old, have very basic B&W LCD displays etc...

So, any suggestions and thoughts, whether of specific models, or things I should think about, or that turn out to be important for offroad bike touring, would be great.

[AZTtripper]

I have had good luck with the Garmin Etrex Legend with color screen.

With Lithium batts I was able to run it for 8-12 hours per day for 4 days on the Coco 250 stage race.

With a 1 gig card it can hold the Garmin base map for all of AZ there are also on line maps to load (I haven't used them but friends have).

The card holds all of the rides I do with the GPS on the bike I like to track at 1 second intervals so the tracks have a lot of detail.

On the down side I am on my second one in 3 years tho the first did last for the whole 800 miles of the AZT then I used it on the AZT 300 and also for tons of day rides before it stopped working. All in all I think I got my moneys worth out of it and had no hesitation to buy the second. The other down side would be the 10000 point limit on down loaded tracks as it would be nice to have more detail for tracks I want to follow.

Now for the new thing on the market the Dakota sounds pretty cool. I am sure Scott M will chime in here. Scott is working on getting one to make it work with his program TopoFusion from what he told me it sounds like I will want one.

What it can do for us is allow the down loading of map pages from TopoFusion (an export feature) a map/picture of an area. The exported map can be any landsat or topo map that you bring up in TF (or I should think other programs will get in on it) with as many tracks that you have loaded on that map and then show your location on the map. I am thinking this solves the second down side listed above. If the track I want to follow is stored as an exported pic/map then there should be no limit on the detail of the track. Scott does that sound right to you? I think that would make following race track much easier if we didn't have to simplify to get it to fit 10000 points.

Hope that helps tho it may just add to the confusion, as I said I am happy with the Etrex but looking forward to hearing more about the Dakota.

[Pivvay]

ETrex Vista HCx for me. It's the winner until one of these early adoptors find a better model. Until then it's relatively affordable, works great, pretty light, takes AA's and you can buy them at REI so if they ever stop working, just get a new one.

[AZTtripper]

Got my first look at the Dakota the other day it looks good but still won't do what I had hoped for.

You can load up more then 10000 points worth of tracks but the only way you are going to be able to see them is if they are all in a smallish area.

We were riding in an area with lots of trails (Tucson Mountain Park) and it will work good for that but they are limiting the number of maps you can load in.

Seems like they still aren't giving us access to the memory card. I have the base map for all of AZ stored on mine and it only uses  3 percent of 1 gig card. I have about 100 rides with thousands of point per ride and still haven't used up 1/4 of the storage.

Obviously we can see things stored on the card ie base maps I just don't see why they can't give us access to more of it.

I guess I stick with the Legend for now.

[stevage]

Cool, thanks for the replies, keep them coming if anyone has tried any others - particularly non-Garmin? Also, the eTrex Legend seems to be discontinued?

[ScottM]

A few comments--

2) Any GPS that takes AA's will last quite a while with Lithium batteries.  I regularly get ~50 hours with my VistaHCx.

3) This is a tricky one to fulfill.  Until recently the maps you can load have been proprietary, and they're not the best.  The new 'custom maps' feature that AZTtripper refers to is changing this somewhat, though there are still limitations to it.  You can't, for example, load enough high res maps to cover something like the divide or even the AZT or CTR.  Maybe something like the Coconino Loop...

But in general there isn't a good solution for getting google maps or different, generic, high res sources onto a GPS.  The problem with your #4 suggestion is battery life.  An iPhone doesn't last very long on a charge, and you'd have to bring some kind of replaceable battery driven charger to keep it going.  Plus, I don't think the iPhone will last very long on your handlebars. 

So, at this point the recommendation of a Legend HCx (original Legend is discontinued and has B/W LCD), or VistaHCx is still the best.  If you wait another month or so I should have a good handle on the newer Garmin units (Dakota is one of them) and what they mean for bikepackers.  Jury is still out.

Magellan units have been plagued by problems, and software support is limited (they don't publish protocol specs!).  I have a Delorme PN-30, and it can display real topo and aerial photos (just like the custom maps feature now on the Dakota), but you can only upload Delorme data, and you have to pay a subscription fee to download it.  Whereas Garmin custom maps can come from anywhere, including a number of free servers.

Anyway, hope that helps a bit.  Feel free to ask more questions.

[stevage]

>You can't, for example, load enough high res maps to cover something like the divide or even the AZT or CTR.

At the moment I can't really imagine doing a trip longer than about 3-400 km, but that could well change. Is it practical to store the extra maps on (micro)SD cards and load them as needed, or don't the devices work that way?

>Any GPS that takes AA's will last quite a while with Lithium batteries. 

Until I started searching for a GPS, I hadn't even heard of lithium AAs. From a quick search online, they're surprisingly cheap. Cool.

[ScottM]

Right now it's hard to tell how the custom map feature is going to end up.  You could swap in different SD cards with different maps on them, but you'd be using a tiny bit of the SD card and having the rest empty.  I'm hoping Garmin makes it easy to swap between map sets within a single sdcard (or the units internal memory).  I think the current limit is arbitrary right now, and the unit software is only in beta, so things may change.

[DaveH]

I have an oregon 550 with the beta software installed.  I've got 4 map sets installed on the device, 2 of them custom, and can enable/disable any combination of the maps.  All maps are on an SD card.

Now if I could only *see* them 

[stevage]

I was just looking at the Delorme GPSes, which look great...if you live in the USA.

DaveH, I assume you're referring to the apparently very dim LCD? I read about that in some 2008 blog posts, was wondering if they'd fixed it by now? Still, the Oregon is like $200 more than the Vista HCX for what seems to be basically fancier user interface.

What are the 4 map sets, incidentally? How hard was it to download a custom set and upload it?

[DaveH]

The Oregon's display in daylight is very much dependent on the angle of direct sunlight.  It needs to be close to direct, otherwise the shiny screen produces an eyeful of glare.  Complicating the issue for bike use is that the bike mount only rotates in one plane.  It needs to rotate in 2 planes to optimize that light angle and minimize glare.  If you can get the light angle such that there is no glare it's great.  At night it is fantastic.

For the money you get a lot more than a fancy interface.  A long standing limitation with older Garmin units is the 20 track/500 point limit.  It's a PITA to get high res tracks on the unit.  The Oregon has a huge memory...and 10k pts/track.  If that is important to you it's a big consideration.

Another major perk is the ability to use custom maps.  TopoFusion downloads them without a hitch, very cool.  There is a list of custom maps on the garmin forums, I downloaded one for a national monument in SE Utah and it jives perfectly with the maps currently installed (topo 2008).

It also has an electronic compass but I may be disabling that as the location "carrot" doesn't seem to orient with it (that's dumb but Garmin closely follows the pareto principal) yet it burns battery power.  It works well though.

The 4 map sets are topo 2008, the pre-loaded worldwide basemap, and 2 custom mapsets - one of which I downloaded from topofusion, the other mentioned above.  All were easy/fast and went without a hitch.

[stevage]

>A long standing limitation with older Garmin units is the 20 track/500 point limit.  It's a PITA to get high res tracks on the unit.  The Oregon has a huge memory...and 10k pts/track.  If that is important to you it's a big consideration.

Yeah, it's important to me to be able to load high res routes. Though I'm confused by what the actual limit is - Garmin's website doesn't really say, and there seems to be conflicting information. Is it 500 points per route, with a maximum of 10k points total?

>It also has an electronic compass but I may be disabling that as the location "carrot" doesn't seem to orient with it

Buh? I thought that was the entire point of having an electronic compass - so the local map, route etc can always be oriented with your direction of travel, even at low speeds. Otherwise it seems a bit daft...paying $50 for that an the altimeter, when you could just use a normal compass.

But yeah...damn annoying about the bad screen. Other than that (and the price), it sounds pretty perfect.

[stevage]

Btw, while googling I found this "An “enhanced sunlight-readable touchscreen”, one of the common complaints about the current Oregon series.  Garmin claims the screen visibility and touch sensitivity have been improved."

Not true?

[stevage]

Hmm, reading more reviews
http://www.buzzillions.com/reviews/garmin-oregon-550t-gps-reviews?prRo=5#singleReview=9439738

It's fascinating that the screen rates for some people as "great", and others "unusable".  Sunlight can get pretty bright around here, so I'm worried.

[karpos4]

I got Sportypal, it's not a device, it can be used only on mobile phones. Gps tracking is done with Google Maps.
It has nice developed service on www.sportypal.com, with all the stats like speed, altitude, distance, nicely mapped the rout. The only thing that is weak, is the battery life. I have nokia n78 and for one day trip or up to 10 hours it's ok, but after that the battery is dead. The uploading of the GPX files is easy, overall for free is suitable for short rides.

[stevage]

Yeah, but I really need something that will work outside mobile phone reception.

[DaveH]

Btw, while googling I found this "An “enhanced sunlight-readable touchscreen”, one of the common complaints about the current Oregon series.  Garmin claims the screen visibility and touch sensitivity have been improved."

Not true?

First I should be clear that I'm not endorsing the Oregon as a bikepacking unit.  It's got some great features, but the parts that miss the mark are close to being show stoppers.  I've had a Vista HCx in the past (donated it to the Canadian outback) and it was probably the best model I've used despite it's limitations...

About the screen visibility:  can't say if they've improved or not as I have only seen this one unit.  If the sunlight is direct visibility is super.  If you were using this on foot you'd have unlimited options for orienting towards the sun and it'd be great I'd think.

Storage limits:  I'm pretty sure Garmin doesn't put this info out there for a reason - they change with firmware releases/updates and they are notorious for not documenting features, at least in the owners manuals.  You might find a change log on the net somewhere for firmware updates...in any case, the 500 pt/20 track limit applies to the vista hcx but the Oregon is different - something like 10,000 pts per track and 100 track capability.  I could be off on that - Scott care to chime in?  I know for the Coconino route I had to split it into 2 pieces.  250 miles of high res data was just a touch too big

Electronic compass:  it operates like a real compass and does not require you to be moving at all, and doesn't need to have the unit level either.  The current position carrot on the map does orient properly when moving, but as soon as you stop it loses it's bearings.  That's a feature, but more like a bug.

I'll be testing out a new homemade mount that allows orientation in 2 planes, if that fixes the display issues I'll be a happy camper.  If not another vista is in my near future.

Edit:  LOL, if interested in the Dakota or Oregon read this:  http://gpstracklog.com/2009/10/garmin-dakota-20-review.html.  Great info and tips towards the end.  Free maps for Garmins???  Good stuff.

[stevage]

hrm. hrm. hrm. I don't see anything in the firmware update log about changing those limits for the vista hcx. expertgps.com says "the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx can hold 50 routes, each containing up to 250 turns or stops". I guses I'll need to find out how annoying that limit is. For hand-made routes it's probably ok...but for tracks generated by other people, not.

[DaveH]

Routes and tracks are different.  I always use tracks, and I think in the vista the 500 pt per holds true.  The 250 may apply to routes?

Those limits have always been annoying to me.  There are great tools built into TopoFusion to simplify and split tracks but you still have to do it.  It's cumbersome enough that when my sig other needs her GPS setup I often end up doing it   Also, you end up using simplified track data for the longer trips (assuming you have detailed track data to work with).

OTOH, saving route data with an "x" model is easy.  There's a setting to write out track data to a SD card, so as long as the card has space you will retain all data.  The Oregon firmware does not have this option (part of the 20% they missed) and if you hit the 10,000 pt track limit the GPS goes positively bonkers on you.

[Pivvay]

Yea the 500 pt/20 track thing sucks but at least with a data card on the Vista HCx it just writes it all out the the data card. I just set the current log on wrap and it all works fine. Took me a few mistakes to figure it all out but  now I've got it.

I saved the whole Tour Divide on one data card. Talk about some valuable data if I ever do it again!! I'll happily share the points but no one is getting my time logs, haha.