Garmin MapSource 2008 Topographical U.S. Map DVD-Rom
by Garmin
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin MapSource 2008 Topographical U.S. Map DVD-Rom
Customer Review: Horrifyingly slow and lacks details
Summary: 2 Stars
I have a Zumo 550 that I wanted to load maps into. I have an 8gb SDHC card in the card slot, so plenty of memory for lots and lots of maps. I loaded California and Nevada into the card and checked out some areas that I know well around Death Valley. The map didn't even include Ballarat, as well as missing most of the mines and mining camps and springs in the area. Granted, most of what is missing is also missing on the USGS 100k quads, but the USGS 100k quads at least include Ballarat.
But still, it's the only maps pre-formatted for the Garmin GPS, so I checked the SD card. Two states was only 256mb. Great, I thought. I can put half the United States in there and still have plenty of memory for mp3's. *WRONG*. At 10:30am today I set it going. It is 6pm now, and still says it has almost an hour to go before it even starts transferring (it's been slowly crawling through "Building map set" for all that time). And I do *not* have a slow computer -- I have a Core 2 Duo 2.1ghz with 2gb of memory, and according to the Windows Task Manager less than half that memory is in use, and neither CPU is maxed out. It's just slow.
The only reason this thing gets two stars is because it's better than nothing. I reserve 1 star for the utterly useless. Unfortunately Garmin refuses to releases 24k-scale topo maps for most areas of the United States, even though the fact that they release such topos for the national parks shows that they do have the technology to do so. I guess they figure that the only place anybody wants to go hiking is in national parks. Sigh. I suppose they'll release full 24k topo maps on a state-by-state basis around the same time they release a Mac version of MapSource (i.e., "real soon now" -- for the past two years -- requiring me to use Boot Camp to boot into Windows XP to program the GPS). Grrr!
Customer Review: Useful for geocaching but many roads are inaccurate or missing
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased Topo US 2008 specifically to do geocaching and do some basic hiking as well. I was well aware going into the purchase that this product wouldn't have a tremendous amount of topographic detail or hiking trail information. I was expecting a fairly accurate road map though.
What I discovered over the past couple of months of using the product is that there are some serious deficiencies in a number of areas. The first is that there are many roads that just aren't there, including some fairly major roads that have been in place for more than a decade! Ironically, there are some roads in the map that don't exist in reality. I don't know if they are planned or have been eliminated since they tend to be in developing areas.
The second issue, which is less of an issue, is that the roads are somewhat off the mark location wise. If I zoom in on my Garmin 60CSx, I am quite often not on the road. Again, not a major issue but it could be nicer.
I have been fortunate in that almost all of my driving and caching has been done near where I live so I have a pretty good idea of the roads in the area. I will be a lot more pressed to follow the map in an area that I don't know well.
Frankly, if it wasn't for MapQuest and Google Maps to supplement this product, I would be even more disappointed.
All that said, I will say that I am pleased with the extensiveness of the map for the cost. It has been an invaluable tool while geocaching and it will be fairly beneficial when I go out hiking this summer.
Even knowing the deficiencies, I would buy it again since it is reasonably priced and it covers so much area.
Customer Review: Realistic Expectations
Summary: 3 Stars
I am going through the reviews here and one thing that I can see is that a lot of folks have totally unrealistic expectations for this product. A typical "quad" map that you would use for hiking is at a scale of 1:24,000. The maps used in this product are 1:100,000 which are suitable for hiking in some cases. Mostly they are going to let you know general proximity to features such as mountains, rivers major roads and so on which might possibly save your bacon if you are lost. You are dreaming folks if you think you are going to get 1:24,000 scale quad maps for the entire US for $75 that all fits on to your little GPS unit. For instance 1:24,000 maps that cover all of the state of Oregon from the National Geographic State series is over 3GB of data and costs about $100. The amount of data that you can fit on SD cards now is amazing but not that amazing that you could fit the entire US 24k maps on a micro SD card. By the way the paper version of those maps used to cost about $10 just for one map that covered approximately 7 miles in a north south direction and was two and half feet tall. Digital versions of these that are easy to use for the general public have only been around for about 15 years. How quickly we expect miracles in the digital age!
Garmin does make a 24k product divided up into regions like the west coast states for $94 (Garmin MapSource TOPO! US 24k West Topographic Coverage for Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada (DVD)) which is availble on Amazon. Even this is pretty amazing to fit on to a micro sd card assuming that you can in fact load it all on.
Customer Review: Meets expectations
Summary: 4 Stars
Overall, I am very pleased with this product. Having never used topo maps before, I did a lot of research to determine whether this product would satisfy my desire for more detail of my surroundings. The 1:100,000 scale is great for average canoing, hiking, mountain biking, etc. It doesn't provide detail of every valley and ridge, but neither do the USGS maps of the same scale. Most of the time (~95%) the map is right on; however, on occasion roads aren't exactly where the map says. The only time I've experience this so far, a road I was looking for was off by 300 ft. This is the only reason I did not give this product 5 stars. I was pleased to find that Garmn had updated the roads and streams since my previous software, Inland lakes. The maps don't show as many trails as I would like, but they do have more points-of-interest than I expected. I have been able to find every geographical point I've searched for so far. I have a 2GB microSD card, and can only fit 1/3 to 1/2 of the US on it. My only suggestion: use the GPS software to supplement, not replace, an understanding of topo maps, and I think you'll enjoy the software more. I own a Legend HCx and live in SW Missouri. I kayak and canoe frequently, am getting into hiking, and occasionally mountain bike, and this product is exactly what I expected. I considered waiting for Garmin's 1:24,000 scale to come out; I called and Garmin didn't have a release date, and couldn't tell me whether MO would be paired with Arkansas, so I decided to get the Topo US. I'll get the other later, maybe (who knows when it will come out).Customer Review: Garmin Topo US 2008 vs. DeLorme Topo USA
Summary: 2 Stars
I have been using DeLorme Topo USA to create trail routes and waypoints for hiking and backpacking trips for a number of years. I have also been using eTrex for GPS navigation for almost the same amount of time (I am now using Vista Cx). Recently, I purchased Garmin Topo U.S. 2008, hoping to save time to find/create trails and waypoints. But, I was wrong. Although the resolution and price of Garmin and DeLome products are about the same, Garmin Topo U.S. 2008 is a big disappointment. I spend more time with Garmin Topo U.S. 2008 to find trails and create waypoints. Below are my observations.
- It's impossible to find trails till you zoom in into about 1 mile resolution. Then, you loose a big picture of an entire trail. Also, it's very difficult to distinguish trails from roads and elevation contours - a display contrast is quite bad.
- Since it does not have a capability of selecting trail segments, it requires to manually creates a number of waypoints to follow the trail, to plot an elevation profile along the trail, and to estimate an accurate trail distance. This is time consuming.
- It seems that via-points of a trail are displayed with the names in the comment field. Also, the names are not editable. This makes the via-point names/numbers are not consecutive if new via points are inserted later. The eTrex Cx displays the names of all via points and gets quite cluttered.
- It does not have a 3D display feature. DeLorme Topo USA provides nice 3D plots.
Overall, I do not recommend this product.