Posts Tagged ‘GPS devices’

The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx is a great mid-range, hand-held site navigation device. It’s a little heavier than the cheapest or most expensive Garmins, but it still floats, if need be. It comes with a 128 microSD card and is geocaching/game friendly. Compared to your bare bones GPS, you’ll get a barometric altimeter, an electronic compass, turn-by-turn directions, tide tables, a high-sensitivity receiver, which will give you reception even in those remote areas, and custom points of interest.

The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx retails around $535.70, but can be found for as low as $191.50 at www.bestpriceaudiovideo.com or $339 at www.zappos.com. Compared to the $249 Garmin GPSMAP 60, this upgraded version comes with three important new features. First, the new SiRFSTARIII chip set has received wide acclaim for its ability to beam signals under canopies, around buildings, down into canyons and in typically hard-to-reach places. Secondly, this new Garmin model has traded in the dated internal memory system for a microSD card slot that can be upgraded instead, giving you unlimited storage capacity and the ability to use any new map software that comes out. Thirdly, the 60CSx comes with an electronic compass and barometric altimeter that the GPSMap 60CS doesn’t even have.

There are many pros to the GPSMAP 60CSx. The microSD card with improved storage ensures that your device will be able to load more complex maps and perform valuable auto-routing tasks. If you’re heading over to a European country, then you can simply buy that map set and plug right in easily. You can also download your track logs onto your PC through a USB connection, which can also charge the device. Secondly, the maps are displayed and redrawn much quicker than previous versions. For instance, a map drawn using the Garmin GPSMAP 60CS will be 2.4-2.8 times slower than with the 60CSx! This is important when you’re changing zoom levels, as the details change, and also when you’re scrolling or panning across your map. Older site navigation devices may occasionally show blank screens as you pan across the map, unable to draw in real-time, whereas the newer version can move perfectly. Lastly, the points of interest feature is much better on the 60CSx because you can load as many points as you like onto your SDcard, you can define categories using icons, you can add proximity warnings and you can write longer names, as well as descriptions.

There aren’t many glitches or problems associated with the GPSMAP 60CSx, but as with any technical gadget, you may occasionally run into something. A few times, your GPS navigation system won’t reach a fix within a few seconds, so you’ll need to turn it off and back on again to reset. Additionally, even though you save the same amount of points in your track log, the newer model will use more memory for some reason. There was an early altimeter bug that has since been fixed with firmware version 2.7. Sometimes the “find by name” in the points of interest doesn’t work either. Even so, Garmin has been working on improvements and the 60CSx is still one of the most highly rated GPS devices you can buy.

The games GPS gadgets offer may seem primitive at first glance. While cell phones and computer games have embraced new technology and offered thousands of options, what can you really do with GPS systems? There are some of the run-of-the-mill offerings like Poker or Sudoku, but the idea behind GPS games is to get families into the great outdoors, racing against other families in a thrilling competition. They call this “geocaching” or sometimes “geodashing,” which has become one of the uses for GPS navigation systems that is a lot of fun.

GPS games include cheesy arcade style things like “Gekoids Dodge” or “Virtual Maze.” However, the Garmin GPS navigation systems have now added more popular games like Poker, Solitaire, Sudoku, Brick Breaker, Rock Slide, Boxing and Space Shooter, which works with the Nuvi 850, 880 and Monster 5000. Most of the new games GPS are offered for free, while some cost anywhere from $5 each to $20 for a VIP package. To purchase, check out www.mygpsgames.com, where you can download the unlocked codes.

If you have ever watched “The Amazing Race,” then you’ve got the concept of the increasingly popular Geocaching games GPS has to play. Teams or individuals will receive sets of coordinates and will race from waypoint to waypoint, performing different tasks at each location and competing for prizes. In their ventures, seekers often find hidden containers with inexpensive toys, keepsakes or items and log books; they then replace the item with something new and record their name in the log. To find hosting in your area, check out www.geocaching.com to see if one of the 673,265 geocaches can be found near you.

Social networking has also reached the world of GPS devices. In addition to participating in some of the games GPS has to play, like “geocaching” and “geodashing,” you can also share your experiences of particular locations with others. At www.mscape.com, you can access games, music, images, text, videos, animations, narratives and games that are embedded in your location! You can then create your own mediascape or modify an existing one as well! To access these amazing interactive navigator maps, you’ll just visit the site, download the free software, connect your GPS to your PC, copy the player and starter mediascape onto your navigation device, start the player and head outside to play!

There are so many great benefits offered by GPS car tracking and reasons why this is something that you would want to get in your own vehicle. Of course, most of the vehicles that are released today come with the car GPS system, but there are still some that don’t and then of course if you have an older model vehicle you are probably going to have to purchase a GPS car tracking system yourself and install it.

The Benefits

So before you are really going to want to get a GPS auto tracking device, you are going to want to learn more about them and what the benefits are. There are quite a few benefits that you get from having a GPS car tracking device in your vehicle. For one, you are never going to have to worry about getting lost ever.

Particularly if you are new to a city, live in a big city, or you just aren’t good with getting around to different places, you are really going to get a huge advantage by having one of these GPS devices in your car. This way all you must do is type in the address that you are headed to and it will let you know how to get there and what the fastest route is.

There are even some GPS receiver that are so functional and advanced that they are able to tell when there are upcoming traffic jams and other problems, so that you can avoid these as best as you can.

Another great benefit of the GPS car tracking device is that through these systems you will be able to get assistance if you ever need it. Let’s say that you were to get in a car accident, at least you know that you are not going to be alone and that someone is going to know that you were in an accident and are going to come to help you.

There are some insurance companies who have even actually taken to reducing the car insurance rates for people who either buy a vehicle that already has a GPS system installed in it, or who are willing to purchase one and as long as they have proven that they have actually installed it in the vehicle.

It is great to see all the benefits offered by a GPS navigational device and the reasons why you should get one for yourself.

Have you seen all the refurbished GPS devices for sale, especially at the big online retailers like Amazon.com, Buy.com, and Ebay.com? This makes total sense, finding quality GPS devices, especially those that you can use in your car, for a low price is definitely something that consumers want.

What are the reasons behind this deluge of cheap refurbished GPS out there? There are actually a lot of different reasons why a unit is going to marked as refurbished by a manufacturer or retailer. Oddly enough, some of the refurbished GPS devices have actually never even had a problem at all, and in some cases, they are still brand new, literally still factory sealed. The most common reasons for electronics based products (IE: GPS devices) becoming “refurbished” are:

1. For one reason or another the product was sent back to the place of purchase, this generally indicates that the original owner of the product took advantage of the store’s return policy for one reason or another. More often than not, there is literally nothing even wrong with the product; sometimes people just don’t want the product that they bought.

2. The product sat on the store shelf too long and became “overstock”. Here a store could simply mark down the product since it was opened and put it back out for customers to purchase, or send the product back to the manufacturer; when the product is sent back to the manufacturer, a business decision needs to be made about how to best handle the new inventory, this sometimes has the outcome of the device getting labeled “refurbished”, and then put the units back out on the market at a marked down price. The funny part about this is the simple fact that the product is still literally brand new, and has never even been opened at all.

3. Another reason could be that the product was the one on display in the store. When this is the case, the product eventually gets sent back to the manufacturer; the factory then inspects the product, makes any necessary changes, and ships it back out under the refurbished label.

4. The device’s packaging was opened by a customer. When this is the case, there is nothing wrong with the product, other than it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer to be repackaged, in which case, oddly enough, it is then labeled as “refurbished”.

5. Shipping damage. When this happens, it usually just means that only the box that the product was in got damaged, but if anything other than the product was damaged (accessories, or the actual unit), it is completely fixed or replaced by the manufacturer.

6. And finally, a reason for a product to be labeled refurbished is that there was an actual defect in the unit. How common this is depends largely on the product and how many mistake the manufacturer made in creating the product. When a product has a defect or cosmetic damage it is sent back to the manufacturer for repair, and if they are able to repair the item’s cosmetic or mechanical problem they do so; whn all this is over the product is going to work just like it was new, and some might say it is now actually less likely to become defective than the non refurbished products sitting on the shelves of WalMart; they argue this because refurbished devices generally undergo a battery of tests.

In examining all these reasons we can see that refurbished GPS devices are probably just as good as “new” devices. The chances of getting a bad unit is probably just as likely as getting a “new” one so take the plunge, save some money, and go refurbished.

Are you looking for the top selling GPS units in North America? It can be confusing if you’re new to GPS systems because there are so many different series, maps and features! Your best bet is to start by checking out some of the top brands like Garmin, TomTom, Magellan and Navignon. Often you can get software upgrades for older devices, although you can’t upgrade your unit to play satellite radio if the components aren’t there, so it’s important that you consider where you’ll be using your Global Positioning System and what you will expect from it.

“Garmin is founded on the principles of innovation, convenience, performance, value, and service,” proclaims the company website. In fact, Garmin, which has been around since 1989, is the most well-known North American brand name in Global Positioning Systems today. Based out of Kansas, no part of the manufacturing process gets outsourced, as the company designs, manufactures, markets and sells all of their products themselves. They offer GPS navigation systems for all different lifestyles, such as fitness-based systems, automotive GPS systems, systems for hikers or campers, aviation technology, marine technology and site navigation for geocachers.

There are a number of Garmin GPS systems to choose from for your automobile. The low-end Garmins are the 200 Series, which still offer color displays, 6 million points of interest and voice-prompted directions. The Garmin nuvi 350 (starting at $169 at Circuit City) is an incredibly popular device, which is called “a Personal Travel Assistant that combines a GPS navigator, language translator and travel guide capability, an MP3 player, an audio book player, a currency and measurement converter, a world clock and a digital photo organizer.” Instead of prompts like “turn left in 100 feet,” you’ll get “turn left on Main Street.” The Garmin 600 series add a number of exciting features: the 650 adds music streaming capacity, improved graphics, entertainment functions and a larger 4.3″ display; the 660 adds live traffic; the 670 adds European maps; and the 680 adds MSN Direct services with weather, fuel prices and movie times. The nuvi 760 adds multi-destination routing and track logs.

Commuters might like the Dash Express GPS, which displays crowd-sourced traffic data and allows live internet searches to find the best way around traffic jams. Boaters might like the Lowrance iWay 600C’s marine navigation mode with point-to-point navigation and satellite imagery. Hikers, campers and hunters can try the Magellan CrossoverGPS, while the Mio Digiwalker H610 works best for pedestrians and bicyclists. Garmin seems to be top dog for automobile GPS systems, although the TomTom ONE XL 330-S and Magellan Maestro have also made the top 10 list.

A Garmin GPSMAP can be used by motorists, bicyclists, hikers and mariners. The crossover GPS devices are usually smaller, which allow for hand-held capacity, especially when compared to the bulkier nuvi automobile models. The navigator maps can range greatly too, as some are in color and some are black-and-white. As well, some are equipped with customizable points of interest, some aren’t; some have 16 hour batteries, some with 28 hour; some with automatic routing and games, some without.

Garmin knew that active individuals needed a reliable crossover device to help them navigate their way. In this world of James Bond caliber adventure, we find ourselves traveling by various modes in our pursuits. At the very beginning of the Garmin line of GPS maps, there are aviation navigator maps for pilots to travel by land, air and sea, such as the GPSMAP 96 or 196, for example. From those basic grey-scale models, Garmin has advanced to full-color portable devices like the GPSMAP 495 and 496, adding airport maps, pre-loaded maps, 3,000 favorite locations, traffic information services, voice prompts, satellite radio and weather.

The Garmin GPSMAP 276c is “the perfect navigator for water or land,” according to the Garmin website. This portable GPS navigation device comes in color with a sunlight-readable display monitor. A built-in auto-routing base map allows you the ability to plot a course along interstates and highways if you’re driving; while the course deviation indicator lets you know if your boat is off course. If you plan on doing a lot of driving with your Garmin GPSMAP, you can buy the automotive kit with the City Navigator maps and mount, which loads detailed street maps onto your device and allows voice prompted turn-by-turn directions. You’ll have access to more than six million restaurants, hotels, gas stations and other destinations. The 276c is also compatible with Blue Chart marine maps, which provide more detail for your high seas adventures.

If you’re not much of an outdoors person, but you fancy yourself more of a road warrior, then Garmin GPS devices has something for everyone in their car navigator models. The 200 series Garmin GPSMAP (which includes the 200, 250, 260 and 270) has a 3.5″ screen and internal antenna. Next there is the 200W series (200W, 250W and 260W), which is the same as the 200 series but with a larger 4.3″ screen. The Garmin 2×5 Series (205, 205W, 255 and 255W) adds live traffic reports via MSN Direct and also includes that nice, larger 4.3″ screen. The 500 Series include crossover models good for hiking, cycling and boating, as well as driving. The 700 series adds anti-theft, multiple-destination routing and entertainment functions. The 800 series adds voice recognition, lane assist and 3-D buildings. The 300 Series and 600 Series, though you can still find them online, have been discontinued; while each step was celebrated at the time with a new series, the newer models include all those features and more, so Garmin is simplifying their line.