Garmin MapSource City Navigator, North America DVD-ROM for Garmin StreetPilot GPS Units
by Garmin
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Garmin MapSource City Navigator, North America DVD-ROM for Garmin StreetPilot GPS Units
Customer Review: Great Maps
Summary: 5 Stars
This mapping software, as with one other that I have tried, is not perfect.
The unlock process for this software makes it impossible to use with more than one unit. Once the maps are loaded onto the microSD card you might be able to use the card in several different units of the same model, but I only have one so I don't know. My suspicion is that the maps are encoded with the serial number for your unit, which you enter when going through the unlock process. Perhaps, if the microSD card detects that it is not in the correct unit it will not work. Who knows?
You can load the software onto different computers though once you have the unlock code.
I like to eat at Whataburger a few miles from my home. The mapping software showed it as being 3.79 miles from my home so I had it take me there, even though I already knew the way. It did a great job getting me to the exact intersection, but it showed the Whataburger as being on the opposite corner. I am not complaining!
After finishing my #1 Combo meal, with onion rings, I asked it to take me to my street address. It took me right to my driveway!
In essence, the software gets you close enough to use your eyes to find what you are looking for. Sometimes it is dead-on, other times it requires a little thinking on the part of the driver.
It is afterall just a machine and is prone to errors because a human made it.
I still am very pleased with all of the POI's (Points of Interest)that are listed. I am enjoying making my own waypoints for places I visit everyday for my job. It's neat looking at the map and seeing all of the little marks I have made that indicate where I have been.
Customer Review: Buggy in spots
Summary: 2 Stars
I got City Navigator North America V8 (CNNAV8) to upgrade from City Select North America V7 (CSNAV7), since City Navigator seems to be (as of Jan-2007) Garmin's standard and City Select is being discontinued. I am being disappointed. The map segments are large and so we have to be careful when loading our Quest (~100MB memory, fixed). I probably would not be able to load a 1000 mi road trip without being careful. The mapping detail seems identical where I have checked, and so the hoped for update to the map data did not materialize.
What is concerning is that the route finding is buggy. This is true on the Quest, the GPSMap 60CSX, and also when running on the workstation. If you own the software you can do a route starting at (UTM WGS84) 10 S 601058 4122344, and finishing at 10 S 601198 4123478. The route taken is about 2X as long as it needs to be. It cannot be that the software is running out of resources since the route is only 1.5 miles long (when going the long way 'round. CSNAV7 finds a route 1/2 as long.)
Given that CSNAV7 does not show these problems, the map segments fit into snaller units more easily and there is no apparent differences in the data where I live, I plan to revert to CSNAV7, and not use CNNAV8 anymore.
I givew it two stars since the remainder of the functionality is good. But if you are planning on buying it for route finding - and I do not see any other reason to buy it - I would look elsewhere, like CS NA V7 if you need Garmin mapping.
Customer Review: Garmin Mapsource City Navigator, v8
Summary: 4 Stars
I ordered this database to update my hand held GPS 60C. I like this unit very much, and have used it extensively for hiking. It works great, and when downloading tracks, waypoints, etc. to your computer, is an awesome tool. I recently bought my girl friend another Garmin specifically for her car, and it's awesome. So, I wanted to have a city navigating database for my hand held.
This product is pretty impressive. Adds a lot to my aging database, and it really transformed my hand held to a good car navigator. Your screen isn't as easy to read as a vehicle specific unit, but it's versatile. You do have to pick and choose your regions, on my hand held especially, because the fixed storage space (I believe 56mb on my unit) will only hold a couple states at a time. So in a new area, I have to connect and reinstall a different region, the one I'm in at the time.
Overall, this disk will add a powerful street and city navigation database to your hand held Garmin, making it more versatile and keeping you from spending big bucks on another vehicle unit. Pitfalls are the unlocking process which seems over complicated (Garmin should look at making this process more user friend, but is probably trying to protect from copying), and the fact that from what I can tell, you have to pay to keep the database updated in subsequent years. No free download to upload new restaurants, gas stations, etc. from year to year.
Customer Review: All the problems due to user error
Summary: 5 Stars
I was originally dreading the install of this software after reading many of the reviews on this website. To my surprise the install went without a hitch and I had it installed and working in MapSource on my computer within 10 minutes. To the people who didn't realize there was a code needed "inside" the packaging.... did you not notice the warning on the FRONT of the package saying there was a necessary code INSIDE? Also, I didn't hook my Vista HCx up to the computer until after the installer asked me to, and there were no problems detecting it. Learn how to use a computer people! In regard to people complaining about the account registration on Garmin's website - its not Garmin's fault that you failed to register your GPSr product. Paying this much money for 1.5gb of data on a 50 cent DVD, it makes me feel better that some other kid downloading illegal software won't be using my serial number to activate this program.
The software functions exactly as expected and after looking back, the GPS is really "full-featured" now compaired to the utterly crappy basemaps that were stock. I give this 5 out of 5 stars because I'm using this on a handheld HCx unit I take hiking and biking, and for less money (than the cost of the GPS + software) you can find a Tom Tom or another unit with a much larger screen if all you care about is driving in your car with this.
Customer Review: User Interface is Almost Useless
Summary: 2 Stars
This is an extraordinarily bad product that makes me question my recent purchase of the Garmin 60 CSX.
The problem is the extraordinarily out of date user interface. For example, in order to get directions to a specific address, the address must be specified in separate fields for the street number, the street, the city, the state, and the ZIP code. Even worse, you cannot simply type a street name but must then select from a drop-down list of every street name option in the database.
In Google maps, I usually find what I'm looking for typing the street number, street name, and ZIP code and pressing enter (without regard to "Rd." or "St.", even with misspellings). in City Navigator, this requires at least five different steps and use of multiple drop down menus -- effectively making it useless for me.
I give the product two stars rather than one because it is quite handy to have all the preloaded points of interest. If I am driving on the highway and would like to get something to eat, I can browse a list of restaurants near my current location and then easily have the GPS direct me there.
More commonly, however, I need to find directions to a specific address, and -- despite spending nearly $500 for a device and software to do this for me in real time -- I usually use Google maps and prints the results.