hello all. im about to take my first motorcycle trip cross-country and also to alaska and maybe mexico. i know nothing about gps systems, but would like one with a good basemap of the u.s., canada, etc. also a compass, thermometer, altimiter, and clock. all of the other stuff that is offered is not so important to me. i just want to know where i am without constantly stopping to look at a map. how cheap can i get one of these things?

Kind of a big, general question, but I will do my best to try to give you a decision-making tree to follow.

First, a disclaimer: Although I do not work for Garmin (meaning, I'm not paid by them), I am a designated "motorcycle beta tester" for their new hardware and software products, therefore my answers will address only Garmin products, simply because that's all I am familiar with.

First decision: Do you want street level mapping, or do you just want to know where you are, more or less within a mile or so?

If you want street level mapping - meaning, every city street, every rural road - then be aware that this is currently (Nov 2003) only available for Canada, USA, Western Europe (basically EC less Greece), South Africa, and Australia. Some of the more populated areas in the Middle East (Dubai, UAE, etc.) will probably come on stream in early 2004.

If you just "want to be able to locate yourself on a paper map with some precision", meaning, within about a km or so, then you don't need to buy a GPSR that comes with street level data.

Second Decision: Do you want a GPSR that will tell you where you are, or do you want a GPSR that will tell you how to get to your destination?

This is where you decide if you want a GPSR that has auto-routing capability, or a GPSR that just displays your present position.

This is also where the first big pricing decision is made. A GPSR that simply displays where you are with reasonable accuracy (the lat/long will always be perfectly accurate, but the display on the built-in map will only be as accurate as the level of detail the built-in map provides - typically 1 km accuracy) will cost you about USD 200 or so. End of story, nothing more to buy. Just remember that the GPSR's come pre-loaded with a "base map", so if you want one with a North American base map, buy it in North America, if you want one with a European base map, buy it in Europe.

A GPSR that will calculate how to ride from A to B, telling you where to turn, where the closest gas station is, etc. will cost you between USD 400 and USD 800. The purchase price will include a set of maps for either Canada and the USA or Western Europe. It is quite expensive - about USD $500 again - to buy a complete set of maps for the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. A complete set of South African or Australian maps will cost about USD 250 or so.

What you have probably figured out by now is that the cost of the map products can easily exceed the cost of the GPSR. This is because Garmin does not collect map data themselves, they buy it from NavTech, who are the world's leading supplier of electronic map data. NavTech prices their electronic data about the same as Michelin prices their paper data.

Third Decision: Will you be taking a laptop computer with you?

If so, you can reload fresh street level map data into your GPSR as you move from region to region of the continent you are visiting. This saves you the cost of buying additional memory chips to store the map data on. By example, for each 1 million of population, you need about 4 megs of GPSR storage capacity to hold street level detail. If you have a 128 meg data chip, you need to load fresh data each time you move out of a region holding about 40 million people (e.g. all of Canada, or the US states of California, Oregon, and Washington, or all of France).

If you don't plan to carry a laptop, but you do plan to visit the entire continent (Europe or North America) and you want street level detail, then you need a 1 gigabyte CF card, this costs about USD 200. You can load a whole continent on a 1 gig card.

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If you decided earlier that you don't want street level detail, you can ignore question 3. However, if you want auto-routing, but don't want street level detail, you have to buy a GPSR that is capable of holding street level detail - although you are not obliged to load all this map data, which means you can also ignore question 3. But this would be odd - kind of like buying a Cadillac, but getting only an AM radio in it.

Does this help?

PanEuropean

[This message has been edited by PanEuropean (edited 12 November 2003).]

looks like i'm getting to this back to this post a couple of years late! i kind of gave up on it after a couple of months of no replies. i just happened to come across it today and would like to thank you for your detailed reply.