Can load Europe maps on a local Garmin model ?

[giantcanopy]

Never used any Garmins before, but I will be looking to get one for my Iceland trip end nxt yr ( accumulative rental cost of a GPS unit there will cost more than a new one ). Thinking of getting the 255W which on the Garmin website is labelled as SG/MY.

Will it not work if i load a purchased Iceland Garmin map if I bring it to Iceland ?
Anyone has any experience mounting Europe maps onto local Garmin units ?

Much thanks
Ryan

 

[Yoh]

Never used any Garmins before, but I will be looking to get one for my Iceland trip end nxt yr ( accumulative rental cost of a GPS unit there will cost more than a new one ). Thinking of getting the 255W which on the Garmin website is labelled as SG/MY.

Will it not work if i load a purchased Iceland Garmin map if I bring it to Iceland ?
Anyone has any experience mounting Europe maps onto local Garmin units ?

Much thanks
Ryan

:think: I guess there shouldn't be any problem since its just as easy as loading the maps in?

I personally bought my Garmin GPS from States and load it with other countries maps. Works well for me.

 

[Zichar]

My friend was posted overseas with just a few weeks notice
So I accompanied him to SLS and he got himself a Garmin
The shop offered to load maps for a fee, because they have an account with them...
But you can also buy them from Garmin's website and load them yourself

Curious to ask, but you didn't explore using offline maps via Android?

 

[redstorm]

Never used any Garmins before, but I will be looking to get one for my Iceland trip end nxt yr ( accumulative rental cost of a GPS unit there will cost more than a new one ). Thinking of getting the 255W which on the Garmin website is labelled as SG/MY.

Will it not work if i load a purchased Iceland Garmin map if I bring it to Iceland ?
Anyone has any experience mounting Europe maps onto local Garmin units ?

Much thanks
Ryan

Regardless of where your Garmin is bought from - be it Sg, Timbaktu, Alaska or Taiwan - it can load any Garmin map of any country without any problem.

 

[redstorm]

My friend was posted overseas with just a few weeks notice
So I accompanied him to SLS and he got himself a Garmin
The shop offered to load maps for a fee, because they have an account with them...
But you can also buy them from Garmin's website and load them yourself

Curious to ask, but you didn't explore using offline maps via Android?

Original Garmin map of any country doesn't come cheap and could cost more than USD100 depending on the country. If the shop offers to load maps cheaply, I suspect these are hacked Garmin maps.

 

[zero o]

I bot a local set. When its time to travel, i rent maps from Navicom at S$2 a day. Saves me the headache of downloads and compatibility since Navi is a authorized distributor.

 

[Zichar]

Original Garmin map of any country doesn't come cheap and could cost more than USD100 depending on the country. If the shop offers to load maps cheaply, I suspect these are hacked Garmin maps.

And it wasn't cheap
It didn't go through btw, he had difficulty logging on and gave up
But he did show us that he was at the Garmin website

 

[giantcanopy]

thanks guys! nice. The Nuvi 225W looks good, I will scout for one before the trip

@ Zichar. It is a good suggestion but recently my old N1 keeps going out of memory after i installed google earth and keep missing out on sms which was a little irritating .. sigh. Garmin seemed a little more.. dependable

Ryan

 

[lamergod]

You can actually buy the map on garmin's website of most countries.

 

[ricohflex]

Nokia gives away maps of many countries FREE with voice navigation.
It is not like Google maps that require user to have internet connection overseas to have constant update download of the map. (and pay $$$$$$$$$$....phone bill after returning from the trip overseas)

With Nokia there is no need to rent and return any map.
It is yours FREE to use forever.

Google's decision and then Nokia's even more generous decision made Garmin's share value drop.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/the-game-has-changed/

From Phone review The Users Choice:
"The Ovi Maps firmware has now received a update from Nokia taking the version to 3.04 and delivers several new features along with offering a faster user experience, and delivers in excess of 2 million kilometres of extra road globally.

According to the article by Mikey bee over on NokNok, the latest additions found in Nokia Ovi Maps v3.04 includes mapping of Iceland, Kenya, Malta and the Azores, along with 281 3D landmarks and an extra 25 million points of interest.

Furthermore Ovi Maps 3.04 now included support for 46 languages and 77 countries and also when you download and install Ovi Maps 3.04 you will find search and WiFi positioning is a great deal faster while maintaining a signal in low signal areas is smoother.

Nokia Ovi Maps v3.04 is available for download right now from the Nokia Ovi Maps website or can be downloaded direct to your Nokia handset. Of course if you do download and install Nokia Ovi9 Maps v3.04, feel free to drop us your comments on how you get along."

Someone here said Garmin (have to pay) Maps are not so great.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g189952-i223-k534094-Iceland_Map_for_GPS_Garmin-Iceland.html

 

[Zichar]

I was using Maverick Lite when in Australia
Just need to download your own maps from any of the online providers, Google, Bing, etc
A topo map would have been good when I was there (silly me didn't think about it)
But the maps can take up a lot of space depending on the zoom level.
Only for cities and town area did I go in deep

Not sure about other apps on the market
But for Maverick, there is a great deal of homework to be done, there isn't a searchable index if I'm not mistaken and no voice
The Lite version only allows you to save limited number of tracks (very important for me) and waypoints; my friend had the full version and saved all the spots before he went for his trip

The other drawback would be that leaving GPS on really saps the juice from your batteries
My Legend doesn't have great batt life to begin with, thankfully the car had a USB port in the cd player (for thumbdrive MP3s)
Even plugged in, I still had a nett loss of power

 

[redstorm]

Someone here said Garmin (have to pay) Maps are not so great.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g189952-i223-k534094-Iceland_Map_for_GPS_Garmin-Iceland.html

Garmin is the most popular GPS in the world and is at the top not for no reason. Garmin's strongest selling point is that it has maps of almost every country in the world. In USA and Europe, although Garmin is the market leader there, Tom Tom and Magellan are both doing well too but beyond both sides of the Atlantic, they are not popular due to the lack of or limited map support. Map support is the most important criteria one should take into consideration when purchasing a GPS device, not the bells and whistles or cheap price. Many ignorant ppl who have never bought a GPS device ended with a virtually useless GPS device when they went for one which is cheap and/or with plenty of bells and whistles. There are plenty of such cheap and loaded with bells and whistles devices especially from China using cracked software to run Gamin and other maps. Another reason why Garmin is popular is due to the wide availability of third party maps - both routable and non-routable. I think Garmin owes its popularity to this. With cgpsmapper (a reversed engineered Garmin compiler), anybody can compile a map that is useable on a Garmin device whereas there is no reversed engineered compiler for other brands, AFAIK. Besides these, in many countries especially in this region, there are web mapping communities dedicated to creating free maps for Garmin devices. In Sg and My, we have Malsingmaps and Mapfreemaps providing Singapore, Malaysian, Brunei and even Southern Thailand for the latter community. You can't beat the power of 10s of thousand members on the ground giving feedbacks on POIs and new tracks to the website for updating every week. Morever, their maps are completely free, updated and released EVERY WEEK! In Indonesia, you have Navigasi and there is also one such community in NZ. I believe there are also other such communities in other countries. The most amazing thing about their maps is that they are even more detailed and up-dated than the original Garmin map of the respestive countries - thanks to the availiability of the reserved engineered compiler. Some of the popular GPS brands in this region eg. Pxpxgx and Hxlux do not even have their own proprietary maps and relied on malsingmaps and malfreemaps to compile their maps using data provided by those Garmin users in these two communities.

 

[ricohflex]

A detailed paper map (plus map reading skills) and a solid military grade (like those we used in SAF) compass, supplement whatever GPS one uses.