 Garmin is introducing real OS mapping on some of its units from November 1, 2008. Looks interesting.
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With touch screens that aren't considered reliable for the outdoors. Satmap10 is tougher and better designed for the outdoors. Still I believe they allow street GPS style mapping then full OS mapping for better details. If that's true it is one up on satmap. Imagine one unit suitable for the car with voice directions (possibly through your car radio) that is charged from the car. Then when you get there you have an OS map GPS that is light and waterproof for the hills. If you add blue chart navigation too you have something very usefull for outdoors types, suitable for sea-kayaking, walking and driving. Such a GPS still isn't available despite the launch of these new Garmin. How hard can it be?
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I'm sure it's very doable, I'm also sure it'd be quite expensive. I quite like the Satmap approach of simply creating a unit to do one thing and do it well. I see the latest Magellan GPS also takes photos, which seems slightly superfluous, even if you can link them to waypoints or POIs or what have you. I think the danger is that you end up with something that does everything in an average sort of way.
As far as the new Garmin units go. I don't know enough about touch screen technology to know how it's likely to cope with wetness, dirt, gloved hands etc - bear in mind that touch screens use different technologies and are developing all the time - but I'm not overly optimistic. I suspect that something like mountain biking or fell running use in winter may be a bit too much for it, but we'll see what happens...
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 I've got Viewranger on my existing mobile phone and its just £25 for all the national parks so at the moment they would have to bring these units down in price before I started to consider one. Does look good though and glad that GPS has gone in this simpler OS direction.
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 hi there is such a system .... i got the road angel adventure last year for my 50th and that does the road navigation with sound directions then when get to say the lake district it goes onto a 1/50 scale map of the lake district with ordnance survey mapping showing you exactly where u are. and leaves a trail of where u have been, having said that the battery life is poor when taken out of the car and mine is now useless out of the car as the battery wont take a charge but still works in the car, it has all national parks loaded onto it at 1/50 scale and costs around 280 quid i think at mo it was 350 when it first came out. les
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.jpg) I will be interested to see if they make it backward compatible with older units, I use a garmin edge 705 in Germany and the quality of mapping is much better than in the UK, I believe that their have been restrictions in licensing from the OS preventing usable detail. If they are now licensed then bring it on.
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The £129 quoted for the OS maps. What does that get you?
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The £129 gets you 1:25,000 and, I think, 1:50,000 mapping of a single national park as I understand it, though that's not definitive. However Garmin did also say that they were going to be bundling software with new GPS units, so you'd be able to buy a GPS with 1:50,000 mapping of all the UK's national parks, though I don't know how it'll be priced.
Generally 1:25,000 scale mapping seems to be expensive, presumably because it means a lot more data, Satmap sells national park packs with 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 mapping for a single park for £99.99, but you can buy all the national parks from them in one bundle at 1:50,000 for £39.99...
Arguably with a GPS unit, for most purposes, 1:50,000 mapping is quite adequate for general navigation anyway.
As far as backwards compatibility goes, at the launch, Garmin said that the mapping was only compatible with the Colorado and Oregon units. I don't know if there are plan to extend it to older unit.
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I understand the army has tried and ruled out touch screens on their gps units due to durability and reliability issues. Although I think most walkers are not likely to need units as tough as the army does, but won't be that far behind. You do need to be confident when you actually need it for real the interface does work and for that reason I think touch screens are not ideal (unless a back up interface is available should it fail). Personally I prefer waterproof maps such as the BMC maps. Why don't OS release their maps made of the same sort of plastic as the BMC maps? You don't have to worry about touch screens, batteries or reliability with maps (if they are like the BMC maps). GPS are still only really a back-up device for when your navigation skills let you down IMHO.
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1. You can get the OS maps in waterproof form - see www.aqua3.com. Works well, light, waterproof and very tough.
2. Garmin confirm that the mapping will only work with Colorado and Oregon units, no backwards compatibility.
3. I'm dubious about touchscreen in theory, but as I think I said above, technology doesn't stand still, so the latest versions maybe tougher.
4. The Road Angel unit is basically a modified car GPS with a touch screen. It gets some extra weatherproofing, but was never really designed from the off as a unit for outdoors use. It has no back-up power options either. I'm guessing, btw, that soldered inside is some sort of standard rechargeable battery and, if you're careful, you could simply replace it with a new one.
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 The touch screen is the only way of operating the Oregon...in fact there's only one button on the whole device - the power button. The major problem, however, is the screen brightness as it becomes pretty much unreadable in even what passes for normal daylight in the UK, and anything remotely resembling sunshine leaves it completely unreadable despite 10 levels of brightness to choose from. Battery life at around 10 hours is OK, but certainly not up to the levels of SatMap's Active 10. The other downside is the GPS chipset.....not sure what they're using but it has a tendency to lose signal under tree cover, although it does re-aquire signal very quickly once back in clear view of the sky..
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| Edited: 06/10/08 14:19 |
Garmin OSGB mapping - Only National Parks!
What about the rest of the country?
I live & walk in Scotland & most walking out-with National parks.
I like the Oregon but needs OSGB maps for the whole of Britain.
I have a Mio P550 with Memory Map, but is not waterproof & battery life is at most 4.5hours, so runs out of power too soon. Also being windows based tends to crash & loose track data, so need to do periodic back ups. Memory Map is Great.
I have a Garmin e-Trex Legend which is very good & never crashes, but maps are very basic.Battery life is very good & last a few trips.
I am wanting to buy the Oregon, but may have to wait to they get OSGB mapping.
Has anyone used Garmins Topo maps & if so how good are they?
Has anyone used the Oregon & if so how good is it?
Looked at the Satmap 10 but lots of negative reviews & battery life not that great!
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First impressions review should be up tomorrow David 
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Decided to get the Oregon & works well, screen brightness is OK in sunlight but not as good as my PDA.
Gets good fix outdoors, not tried it under trees yet, but will do tomorrow.
Picks up satellites whilst i'm indoors which my other GPS does not do.
One problem is that I cant't get it to download a track to my Memory Map (V4)
Has anyone managed to download a tract to Memory Map?
If so please let me know the settings.
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hello all,i am new to the world of gps and in need of much help by the looks of things and the size of the instruction manual i have just bought a garmin 60csx and am trying hard to work out how to use it. i want to buy mapping software for it and was looking at the TOPO but some reviews dont seem that inspiring. obviously OS would be the best but is it or will it be availible for my new toy??
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Does anyone know how to download track data to & from Memory Map from a Garmin Oregon?
Someone mentioned a GPX convertor, if so what is the best one & how is it done?
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I had this problem with Anquet maps on my Garmin Oregon and it took four weeks to figure it out!! You need to save your route as a gpx file. When you have done this plug in your Garmin with the usb and go to 'my computer' and click on your 'garmin log (blue triangle. When you have don ethis open the files until you get to your gpx file. I then minimised this screen and opened my Anquet map software and dragged the saved route from my Anquet map file over to the garmin gpx file. from here I was able to view my saved route on my Oregon. Hope this helps Neil
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Good gpx converter at: http://www.gpsies.com/upload.do;jsessionid=23CA819879E36721F3F058016D4BF5E4?uploadMode=convert seems to have a variety of formats. certainly works with garmin forerunner 305. Does anyone know of an online resource for accessing OS maps in a similar fashion to GoogleMap?
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Thanks Neil & Dave
Got GPS Utility and it works well converting GPX track files to Memory Map.
Oregon works well & am getting the hang of it. Had no problem reading it in sunlight, best to turn shading off.Love the touch screen.
Battery life around 16hrs using NiMH batteries.
Route tracking very accurate when downloaded to Memory Map.
Anyone know when theGarmin OS mapping is coming?
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