[clug] Looking to buy a GPS

[Cameron Patrick]

Sam Couter wrote:

> > It doesn't support directions in a particularly nice manner, but that might 
> > not be a big deal for the kind of touring you're doing.
> 
> It's not. I don't think directions cope well with the "What's up this
> road? Let's go see!" navigation style.

Mmm.  I have a Tomtom navigator and a Garmin Etrex.  The Tomtom is
really handy for getting around unfamiliar areas but the "this is where
you turn" voice directions drive me bonkers and the map display that
rotates as you change direction leaves me feeling disoriented and
feeling 'that map is ALL WRONG'.  People who read maps by rotating them
may disagree there, of course!  One thing that the Tomtom does very well
(and I've heard that some of the cheaper units don't) is readjusting
when you decide to take a route different from what it was expecting you
to.

The maps that come with the Tomtom are also absolutely ghastly once you
leave the comfort of suburbia and bitumen highways.  It doesn't even
know about the small town in Victoria where my aunt and uncle live.
Even for inner-city areas, data on things like "no right turn"
restrictions is often incorrect.

I don't have any maps on the Etrex but it's still very useful just to be
able to see where you are now in relation to where you've been.  The
higher-end Etrex models (the ones with colour screens) use an SD card
for recording tracks, which means you can record tracks for an entire
trip at at high resolution without needing to whip out your laptop -
ideal for being able to geotag photos, for instance.  (One of the things
I'd like to do in my 'copious spare time' is have a play with
geographically referenced web photo galleries; the software I've seen so
far is rather uninspiring but I know I'm far from the only one to be
interested in this.)

Cameron