Gps Or Not

[Matt2001TJ]

Im considering a GPS unit for my TJ but am on a budget and still don't know features would be best to have. ebay and harbor freight has deals for 100 bucks or less sometimes. Any advice on this one guys???

[TrAvELAr]

I have a garmin quest. It's nice because it's removable for when I go hiking and stuff. It does mapping and routing and you can load topo maps.

Of course, it's gonna run a little more than $100.

[Old Fart]

Depends on what you want to do with it. Basic Garmin ETrex is under $100. If you want to get into mapping - doing it right is going to cost you 4-5 times that.

[Jason]

I have the Garmin Vista. Pretty basic but does the job. You're more than welcome to check it out @ HDR.

[sarah]

We did a couple of low-end Garmin reviews here on the site. If you're not going to go all "FishPOET" with it, hehe, I'd recommend the V. They're discontinued so they're cheap! I just did a quick ebay search and the first one I found was $150 w/free shipping.

[Old Fart]

I may wind up with a Garmin 378 this year (or rather my consulting company may "buy me" one).

[sarah]

I may wind up with a Garmin 478 this year (or rather my consulting company may "buy me" one).

Fancy pants! If you get it, be sure to let us know if it's worth the price. Personally, I don't want to have a heart attack every time the thing falls of the dash

[Old Fart]

Very popular unit for the boating crowd - may be more than I need for our massive 18.5' ski boat though. I'd love to be able to know my exact position at Nacimiento, Shasta or Powell without having to manually move it over to my paper map.

I like the big display on the 478 - I've winched more than a few folks out of ravines 'cause they were trying to follow the map on their GPS with a 2" screen

[igofshn]

Very popular unit for the boating crowd - may be more than I need for our massive 18.5' ski boat though. I'd love to be able to know my exact position at Nacimiento, Shasta or Powell without having to manually move it over to my paper map.

I like the big display on the 478 - I've winched more than a few folks out of ravines 'cause they were trying to follow the map on their GPS with a 2" screen

I have a garmin V and a Garmin 2610. Both are great, the 2610 is color and has a removable disc. I put a 1 gig chip and it will hold everything I need.

[steelman]

We did a couple of low-end Garmin reviews here on the site. If you're not going to go all "FishPOET" with it, hehe, I'd recommend the V. They're discontinued so they're cheap! I just did a quick ebay search and the first one I found was $150 w/free shipping.

I have that Garmin V that Sarah 'reviewed' in her link above. It's served me well, but I'd have to agree that the only real downfall with it that I've found is the size of the memory. I do have most of Orange County stored in it, as well as the Big Bear area, and I think even out to Calico. Someday I'll get one with larger memory and larger screen and COLOR screen and, and, and...

[Russ Chung]

I'm using a Garmin GPS V. I bought it two years ago for $157 (it was a closeout) because at the time, it was the least expensive GPS unit with mapping capability and since it was my first GPS, I didn't want to commit too much money until I learned more about using one. I have since found it has been invaluable both in town and off road. The Garmin GPS V has many limitations 1) its black and white display is hard to see in daylight, 2) it has limited storage capacity; at any one time I can only load the maps for half of a high density area such as the Los Angeles basin or most of a low density area such as the Mojave desert, so I'm always loading and unloading maps before each trip. Each upload takes about 30 minutes because of the relatively slow serial port. On the plus side, Garmin has a large selection of maps, and there are many third party vendors who sell maps that will work with Garmin. Caution: I purchased the North American v8 upgrade CD, but I found that those maps were too large to fit in my GPS V memory. Now that I've learned to use a GPS, I'm thinking about upgrading to a color unit with more memory.

[SIZED]http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b53/UF92134/BBFF%202005/P1000311.jpg[/SIZED]

[Old Fart]

Here you go Russ - I did the hard part for you

http://www.gpsnow.com/gmmap378.htm

[steelman]

Here you go Russ - I did the hard part for you

http://www.gpsnow.com/gmmap378.htm

Wow, only $1,000!

[JeepGal]

I see a theme here:

I have that Garmin V ... Someday I'll get one with larger memory and larger screen and COLOR screen and, and, and...

I'm using a Garmin GPS V... Caution: I purchased the North American v8 upgrade CD, but I found that those maps were too large to fit in my GPS V memory. Now that I've learned to use a GPS, I'm thinking about upgrading to a color unit with more memory.

Which is why we upgraded to the Quest. (We sold our V to Sarah) We love it. It was totally worth the money My parents ended up buying one for their motorhome as well. We used a Garmin Nuvi while on our honeymoon, and we HATED it It also happens to be the one that Jeep uses for its GPS unit. (here's a link to the side by side comparison of the two)

Its very frustating finding yourself out of the mapping area due to memory size.

Tam

[sarah]

Caution: I purchased the North American v8 upgrade CD, but I found that those maps were too large to fit in my GPS V memory. Now that I've learned to use a GPS, I'm thinking about upgrading to a color unit with more memory.

What do you mean by this? How much bigger are they? Do they not fit at all or? I just ordered my upgrade so I'm curious.