Garmin GPS Receiver

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

As a personal GPS and especially at walking or sailing speeds the GPS V is fine. The display is OK for casual use and the unit is able to hold the maps for more land or water than you can sail or ride over in a day. If you aren’t in a hurry or especially demanding then you should be delighted with this unit. I have it as my primary GPS and it isn’t sufficiently problematic that I intend to replace it, I’ll soldier on and hope for some software updates for now.

For use in cars and for more demanding users there are some significant drawbacks.

During configuration it takes around an hour to load a full set of maps, 115kbps is not sufficient for loading 19Mb of data in reasonable time. This discourages modifying the map set, which reduces usability if you live round a big city.

The processor performance is borderline. For normal use the low power consumption of a relatively slow processor allows good battery life. For car use the power consumption is not an issue but the time taken to redraw the screen, which can be many seconds, becomes extremely significant. The menus are slow, it can take a couple of seconds to go between two entries in a list and I’m not even using WAAS. Routing also takes some time, mostly this isn’t too important because once you are on a route it shouldn’t recalculate often.

There are some bugs, which may have been fixed recently. When I upgraded the firmware the unit started dropping out during route calculation. I wrote to Garmin about this but got absolutely no response. That’s a mark down for customer support too.

The address entry is cumbersome. In addition, if you don’t cancel any other route that was in operation the unit will interrupt and discard your tedious entry if it completes the calculation. If it doesn’t then it will start on the new route.

Directions can be slow to paint, the wrong directions are sometimes shown until the unit catches up and swaps over to the correct picture. If one turn follows another fairly rapidly it may not tell you about the second turn until after the turn has passed, this is associated with the slow repaint.

When routing information is shown the native menus of the interrupted screen are not available, so if you have a sequence of directions to follow and wish to do something else the unit keeps interrupting and refusing your menu selections… there are no menu entries in the routing screen.

Perhaps I should have bought a more expensive model, but what could I get that is reasonably portable?

Finally, some of the routes would best be described as ‘entertaining’ or on a less charitable day ‘indirect’. For example, when the route from Via Del Oro via Bernal Road to US 101 is being followed in San Jose CA the directions will sometimes tell you to cross Bernal Road (ignoring the left turn) and then to take three right turns. On other occasions it will indicate the left turn. Routing seems dependant on precise location.

Finally, customer support at Garmin did not respond. I’d be happy to help them make this a better product, but they’d need to be interested.

12/21/2004

Last time I checked there were no further software updates, so it looks like Garmin aren’t interested in their legacy customers. That means my next GPS will have to be from someone else.

I found another routing amusement. Returning from the far north of California I didn’t include the Marin county maps but I had included Sacramento because I had intended to return on I-5. When I got well down US101 (a mountain range and probably 70 miles off I-5) I was getting crazy arrival times. Eventually I found that at Ukiah it wanted me to turn east and cross to I-5 because I didn’t have the detailed map for the next hundred miles of US101 to Richmond where the bay area maps resumed. It should not favor the downloaded maps to this extent.

On the bright side this and my old GPS III+ continue to function almost as advertised. Years of faithful, if slightly eccentric, service.

12/17/05

I now have a Tomtom Navigator 5 and their Bluetooth GPS receiver and iGuidance 2.1.3 for Europe. The newer software and receiver puts this old machine in a better light than you might think. True the SIRF III receiver is significantly better than this old Garmin. It may be old and slow and hard to use compared to the newer machines, but it does have an almost clairvoyant ability to correctly estimate trip times. If you are looking for an instrument that can record tracks and will show you a lot of current data (course, eta, time to destination, altitude, track, bearing to destination, time to next waypoint, distance to next waypoint, altitude, speed, time of day, date, trip distance, trip time, …) then this will be a lot more use to you than the late 2005 Tomtom and iGuidance software. But for them my PDA has the high detail maps for the entire US, Canada and UK and it took less time to install than it takes to copy half the bay area to this unit.

If I’m heading for the woods or the water this is still the best GPS for me.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

This is the second Garmin GPS I own, the other being an eTrex Vista, and the first with road navigation capabilities. In my previous experience with Garmin, I was happy both with the product and the product support, and I was not disappointed this time. The user interface of the GPS is even more intuitive than the eTrex, and buttons and screen pass the test with flying colors. The software is robust, and it never crashed. Syncing with the PC is a piece of cake, and information such as waypoints can be transferred among different Garmin GPS.
The product is perfect for everyday use, but I have only three complaints. The first two are minor: the location of satellites when the GPS is "cold" can take 60-90 seconds, and the calculation of the best route eassily takes more than 60 seconds when the degree of accuracy is set to medium; much more when the level of accuracy is set to high. The two number could mean that the driver has to wait 2-3 minutes before getting any useful direction from the GPS.

The last gripe is much important: the maps are often inaccurate. Some roads have been permanently cut off at a major intersection; new houses have been built. As a result, the GPS might prescribe an incorrect route, or not be able to find a certain address. These accidents happen about 20% of the time in my area (NY city and surrounding counties). As a way of comparison, the GPS installed on Hertz rental machines, which uses Navtech maps, has never given me an incorrect route during my trips. I hope Garmin will provide better maps soon.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

My first encounter with GPS is from Hertz car rental about 3 years ago. It helps me to navigate through the dark winding country road of New Jersey in the winter evenings. With turn-by turn voice prompt, it is an amazing tool. The only draw back is the [price] price tag, which is a lot more than I want to pay.

I always wanted a GPS with auto routing feature for my personal trip. The Never Lost cost too much. The Garmin Street Pilot III Deluxe with color screen and voice prompt is the closest alternative to Never Lost. Again it is too costly at $800US and it is too bulky to carry it around.
In Spring/Summer 2002, Garmin markets a GPS V Deluxe version, with all North America regions on CDROM unlocked and price is not much more than a eTrex. The GPS V unit is very similar to Street Pilot III (SPIII). The major difference is that GPS V has a smaller monochrome screen and beeps instead of voice prompt on SPIII.

I have had my GPS V for over 3 months now. I have used in Toronto, southern Ontario region, San Diego California, Cap Code, Boston, Newport Rhode Island, New Heaven Connecticut, Kittery Maine, Washington/Dulles area without major fault.
Over all, I am quite satisfy with the unit when taking price into consideration, but it is not as accurate or fast as Magellan Never Lost.

My GPS V locked up twice in NY State. I could not turn it off. I had to remove the power supply to turn on the unit again.
On I-90, around Albany, NY. The GPS V sensed the vehicle went off-course and recalculate the routing again on two occasions.
In Boston area, the text message instructed me to turn left, but the graphic arrow points to the opposite direction.

Recalculation speed is the major drawback for GPS V. When the vehicle goes off-course (missing a turn), GPS V has the option to automatically recalculate a new route. This can takes anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes depends on the distance to the destination. The Magellan Never Lost usually takes no more than a 5 seconds to put you back on route.
There is major difference between the two when comes to recalculation. Never Lost recalculates to the last point where you went off-course, so you can continue your original routing. Usually Never Lost would prompt you to make a U-turn to go back on the route.
On the other hand GPS V recalculates a new routing base on your current direction. Only on one occasion GPS V suggest making a U-turn to get back to the original routing. All other times, GPS V recalculates a new detour which could be a lot longer than the original route. In GPS V, there is a Setup screen to setup your routing preference such as to avoid U-turn, avoid Toll road and 5 levels of calculation detail. I suppose if you pick the ¡¥Best route¡¦ option, it would take longer to find the optimal route. I took the default setting which do not avoid U-turn, do not avoid Toll road, medium setting for calculating route.

Recalculation and redraw after a turn is very slow especially in Boston downtown where visibility to satellite signals could be very limited due high rise buildings and narrow streets. I often miss next turn because redraw was too slow. In situation like this, I suggest switching to text mode and following text instructions instead.

Both Never Lost and GPS V has excellent Hotel/Restaurant database. Never Lost¡¦s database is more up to date and accurate. Both found my favorite ¡¥Legal Seafood¡¦ and ¡¥McCormick & Schmick¡¦ restaurants and some shopping centres. GPS V has a large Asian restaurant database for Toronto area, restaurant such ¡¥Big Mouth Kee¡¦ and ¡¥Taste of Japan¡¦ can be found in GPS V database.

GPS V¡¦s memory is fixed at 19M which is big enough for the entire Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara Fall, Mississauga, Pickering and North Bay area. But 19M is not big enough for Los Angeles region. To download 19M from PC to the GPS V through serial port at 11500 baud takes almost an hour.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

I purchased the Garmin GPS V in anticipation of two 3-day trips into areas I had never traveled. The detailed maps that were supplied on the CD were excellent and accurate. Before I left on the trips, I checked out the detail on the streets of Seattle, WA, because the many steep hills provide unusual angled streets with many turns. The map followed them all and accurately named them. I was impressed. I was even more impressed when I traveled into the back country of the Olympic peninsula and, arriving at an intersection of two country roads, found that the GPS V maps named both of them correctly. I’ll never travel without it again.

The 19mb of memory is a bit too small to hold the number of maps that I regularly need and there is no additional memory card available to augment the capacity. Erasing and downloading a new set of maps to the GPS from the computer is very easy and intuitive, but somewhat time consuming. Adding even one detailed map to the GPS V required more than 30 minutes of download time, this in addition to any computer time selecting the maps to use. Fortunately, the base map built into the GPS V good enough for the major interstate highways, exits, and services, so if you do not regularly travel to a number of large cities, the 19mb of memory may be ample for the detailed maps desired.

The dash mount supplied with the GPS V is excellent with locking angle adjustments and a quick-release. It lacks only one very important feature: it must be mounted on a flat surface. Try to find one of those on today’s curved dashboards, and in a place where the antenna can acquire the satellites and you can see the display. Fortunately, I was able to make an adapter plate that fit the dashboard and allowed the dash mount to be installed. I am very pleased with the clarity of the display.

The instruction book that comes with the GPS V is very complete and leads step-by-step through the more complicated processes. At the same time, the usual functions desired from a GPS are easy to set up and fairly intuitive by using the menu functions. The quick start guide is all most people will need to use the unit effectively.

Battery life from 4 AA cells is sufficient if the backlight feature is not used too much. Typically I found the batteries needed to be replaced after 18 to 20 hours. The GPS V also comes with a cigarette lighter cable for powering the unit in the car. A cable for hard wiring the GPS into the car’s electrical system is available but not supplied.

I especially like the option of “on-road,” which moves the cursor to the nearest road, or “off-road,” which will point your way to your destination or back home if you are hiking cross country. Several pages of display will give you more information than ever thought possible: accurate local time, speed, distance traveled, average speed, latitude and longitude, elevation, time and distance to destination, and the best time for fishing (no kidding) just to name a few.

The auto-routing feature is a real help when traveling in unfamiliar areas, but I have found that sometimes it has made less than optimum routing suggestions when I tested it to destinations I knew. Not a really big problem as it always directed me to the destination eventually. One really great feature of auto-routing is that if you miss a turn or get off the suggested track, the GPS V immediately recalculates the route and displays turn-by-turn directions to the destination from where you presently heading.

In conclusion, I can say I am completely pleased with the Garmin GPS V and that it has many of the features of more expensive units. I highly recommend it.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

For anyone who wrote a not so great review of the previous GPS V product, Garmin has just released the deluxe version of the GPS V. You get an unlock code for the entire country now (previously you only got to unlock certain areas and had to pay get additonal unlock codes).

I have found the 19mb memory to be more than sufficient for holding maps. I live near Washington DC and can fit the whole area into the unit. For long trips, you don’t need to download detailed maps of your entire route. The base map built into the GPS V deluxe is plenty good for navigating major interstates, exits, and services. You only need a detailed map(s) of your destination areas or specific areas where you will be travelling local secondary roads (like neighborhood streets or rural roads).

I recently took a 600 mile trip down to Georgia and all I needed were a few maps of my destination. All major roads and highways are included in the built in base map (a lot of people seem to not know this). I was able to navigate all of my gas, food, and logding stops along the way without detailed maps. The base map worked fine. No need for a detailed map just to make quick stop for gas and bite to eat.

There is a slight learning curve when using the GPS V Deluxe. But once you figure out all of the “bells and whistles” it’s easy to use. I am new to using a GPS and after purchasing this unit I am very satisfied. If you are the type of person who can’t find their way out of a paper bag – this unit is for you.

The included pc cable and software are pretty much idiot proof. I’m no pc whiz and didn’t need to be. Downloading maps is as simple as clicking the area you want to download and clicking the “download” icon. The GPS does the rest.

The unit works great in the car and while hiking. It also has a backlit screen for night use which is nice. Battery life is about 20 hrs (pretty good). Also comes with cigarette lighter car adapter.

I did have to purchase the “beanbag holder” for my dash since the included dash mount wouldn’t sit right on my SUV dash. So far, it hasn’t moved even on sharp turns.

All in all, this is an excellent GPS and has many added features that most cheaper units do not have. The autorouting feature is great and has saved me more than once late at night when I have been lost. Just tell the GPS where you want to go and it will start navigating you there with turn by turn directions, distance to the next turn, time to the next turn, etc.

Also, I never really knew how fast I was travelling in my SUV since I added larger off-road tires. The GPS now accurately calculates my true speed and I was able to get the dealer to adjust my spedometer (I was going way faster than what the spedometer in my dash said I was).

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

This is my 4th GPS unit and the most capable of the 4. Initially the GPS V is very similar to the GPS III Plus (I have a eTrex Legend and GPS 38 as well), the screen pages include satellite, map and position, the GPS III+ has a couple more. The thing that sets the GPS V apart is the City Select Map CD (included), which was designed for the GPS V. The GPS V has 19MB of user loadable map memory, be aware that the map loading is NOT a quick process. I selected about 18MB worth of maps and loading that to the GPS V took approx. 45 minutes; don’t start this on low batteries. Once maps are loaded the GPS V will display at the top the upcoming streets. If you ask the GPS V to "FIND" a waypoint it can give you turn by turn instructions. When a "FIND" is active you also get a 4th page that is just the next few "upcoming turns". While the V has the look and feel of the III+ the internal software is more like the eTrex Legend I own, i.e. more icons and a few more features than the III+. The GPS V includes a car lighter adapter and PC Interface cable. In Summary I am VERY HAPPY with the V Deluxe, the only downside is the long map load time. I have loaded maps for the following areas; Cincinnat OH, Dayton OH, Columbus OH and Lexington KY so if I stay within that area I shouldn’t need to load maps often. My III+ now rides on my motorcycle and my Legend is my GeoCaching device. Things have come a long way since the GPS 38.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

UPDATED July 8, 2008
My Garmin V is still very much in use today! I use it in the backcountry in tandem with an old Garmin iQue. The iQue displays USGS maps using Outdoor Navigator for Palm, while I collect tracks and view routes on the Garmin V. I can’t believe it has held up so well for all of these years in an open top Land Rover in Death Valley. They just don’t make ‘em like that any more — the new ones are all so light and delicate.

Originally written on December 7, 2004

The Garmin V’s strong feature set and ease of use make this my first choice of first generation GPS units. Although the single four-way directional pad is way more frustrating to use than would be four separate buttons, it is very compact while sporting a large 320 x 240 screen. Color would be nice, but it truly is not necessary.

It is very good for using on streets as well as the back country. Finding your destination is easy with its comprehensive searchable database of addresses and points of interest, and with its fine turn-by-turn navigation assistance. But park your vehicle at a trail head and the unit becomes a terrific tool for exploring and enjoying the great outdoors.

However, first generation GPS’s such as the Garmin V have their serious drawbacks. Managing and downloading detailed map sets is cumbersome due to its limited 19MB of writable memory. In metro areas, such as So. Cal., the map and address data is so cumbersome that you can only fit a very small geographic region into memory at any one time. Also, loading map data via the serial port is painfully slow and further reduces its usefulness for the regular traveler.

Current generation GPS units have two advances that greatly improve their usefulness. First, many now feature removable storage cards which allows you to hold address and map data for much, much larger geographic areas. For example, for our Garmin iQue I can fit the entire MapSource North America map set on two SD cards so I always have quick and easy access to all maps and addresses.

The second benefit of many new generation GPS units is the USB interface rather than serial. Maps sets can now be loaded into GPS units far more quickly then before making it much more convenient to keep your unit loaded with relevant map and address data.

Using MapSource detail maps is important as the default base map contained within the Garmin V is not only sparse but also woefully inaccurate. For example, Elizabeth Lake Road in Leona Valley is mislabeled the California Aqueduct, and many common rural highways are simply not there. This isn’t so bad in metro areas, but in rural areas the base map is virtually useless.

Although the Garmin V is the best of the fixed memory/serial interface GPS units out there today, I recommend to those looking to purchase a GPS look to the new generation of devices that address the issues of limited memory and slow data transfer rates with expansion card slots and USB capability.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

I installed this GPS in my car and use it daily. GPS’s have come a long way in the past couple of years. This unit has a rapid acquisition time and very good monochrome display. I drive through rural areas and as long as you load the detailed maps for that region, the GPS will do a great job of selecting a route and finding just about any address. It did well in the dense city too. If you use the GPS at night, you really need to use the car’s power instead of battery. You can do this by hardwiring the unit into the car or using the supplied cigarette lighter adapter. It is difficult to see the display in the evenings and at night without the background light. The refresh rate of the unit is acceptable, just barely though. Once you give the unit a destination, it does a wonderful job beeping and giving you ample warning that a turn is coming up. In future generations of this unit, it needs more RAM, larger display, and faster processor. But, I find it a great navigation tool and doubt that I will get lost using it.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

I drive 40,000 miles a year and have had plenty of opportunities to use the GPS on the road, however the main use is for forestry related work (marking waypoints, measurements,roads,etc..) I believe it is most useful when PLANNING a trip, if you have a specific hotel you would like to stay at you can find the info, such as address and phone # in your GPS and call the hotel, same with national/state parks. There doesn’t seem to be a way to find any info at your destination site though, not until you reach the area at anyrate. So you can set your course to LA, but you can’t plan on what lodging is available or food until you get there.
The downside is that the software never seems to be current enough-(a problem w/roads near cities, worse w/ food/gas stops). Carry a map or a cellphone. In the city you can easily be left hanging for info from the GPS as it thinks (very slowly at times) where your route should be, also frustrating is that it does this whenever it thinks you turned the wrong way. My Garmin 5 has frozen on me on a few occasions on my way to Crater Lake Nat’l Park,(freezing near a dozen times in 2 hours) leaving me no options but to turn it off and on several times. Garmin has said it would like to the repair the unit. The GPS 5 also takes a while to start, as you must agree to the legal talk on each of the 3 screens before any satellite info is given, this gets old very quickly. I was told when purchasing the GPS 5 that it would have 20 hours of time on batteries, not so. The best I have seen it about half that time.
This is my first GPS purchase so I have nothing to compare it to. When the GPS is working the way it is suppose to then it is great to have. When in a big city it can be more stressful then being lost on your own.

This review is from: Garmin GPS V Waterproof Hiking GPS (Electronics)

We love this gizmo! We use it both for its navigation capability and we also use it for geocaching – you get both options in one small, easy to use package.

We used the navigation on a recent vacation trip. The navigation helped us through several tricky turns and helped us avoid a lot of aggrevation. I found the maps to be accurate and complete and the refresh rates more than adequate.

When we are caching, the unit works just like any other portable gps complete with WAAS for precise location finding, and automatic tracking.

We found the handheld unit to be high quality, easy to use, with a crisp clear screen. The map software has a lot to be desired. It’s harder to search for a location with the PC software than it is on the handheld. Also, the handheld plots different routes than the software, fortunately, the handheld does a better job.

Our complaints are minor and similar to what others have noted – we’d like more memory to download additional detailed maps, the map download rate is slow and takes an hour for the full 19MB, the database of points of interest is incomplete and it would be nice to be able for the user to update the database. It would also be nice if the unit informed you when you were navigating outside the range of the detailed maps currently downloaded.

All in all, for the price, you can’t beat the GPS V.