2 replies to this topic

[scorpio_ariadne]

I have never owned a GPS device myself, but I have come to realize it would be most useful for both my work and play so I'm looking to buy one in the near future.

I have been browsing some sites, but I'm not really sure about the features I should be seeking out or ignoring, nor what brands I should be focused on... so I was hoping I could get some advice about what would be good to look for and what features probably don't matter.

Here's my situation....

I do a lot of traveling by car in the US and by train and on foot in Europe and am looking into a potential grad school in Canada. so I need a device with good maps for both North America and Europe. It needs to provide good info/directions for both roads and public transit/pedestrian travel. I go backpacking/hosteling (mostly urban/subburban settings but also some out of the way archaeology sites and a few established trails) in Europe, but I won't be doing any hardcore mountaineering type backpacking.

I am also an archaeologist and it would be very helpful if the device could facilitate GPS tagging of artifacts recovered in surveying and excavations with a reasonable degree of accuracy. And a compass feature would prove very useful as well.

So, what specific features should I be looking for?? And/or does anyone has any recommendations for specific brands/devices??

Thanks So Much!! :-)

[Dan Hickstein]

I did a lot of research before I bought a Garmin Dakota 20. You can buy maps for it from Garmin for all around the world and I have also had good luck using the free maps that I've found online. I haven't bought the maps that give you turn-by-turn directions, but it claims to do this as well. The dim screen isn't as bad as some people claim, but the compass is terrible, even after the firmware update. If you're in an open area, the gps accuracy is better than 20 feet and there is a function to do waypoint averaging to get even better than this. I don't know if this is good enough for archeology, but it generally keeps me from getting too lost.

-Dan

I have never owned a GPS device myself, but I have come to realize it would be most useful for both my work and play so I'm looking to buy one in the near future.

I have been browsing some sites, but I'm not really sure about the features I should be seeking out or ignoring, nor what brands I should be focused on... so I was hoping I could get some advice about what would be good to look for and what features probably don't matter.

Here's my situation....

I do a lot of traveling by car in the US and by train and on foot in Europe and am looking into a potential grad school in Canada. so I need a device with good maps for both North America and Europe. It needs to provide good info/directions for both roads and public transit/pedestrian travel. I go backpacking/hosteling (mostly urban/subburban settings but also some out of the way archaeology sites and a few established trails) in Europe, but I won't be doing any hardcore mountaineering type backpacking.

I am also an archaeologist and it would be very helpful if the device could facilitate GPS tagging of artifacts recovered in surveying and excavations with a reasonable degree of accuracy. And a compass feature would prove very useful as well.

So, what specific features should I be looking for?? And/or does anyone has any recommendations for specific brands/devices??

Thanks So Much!! :-)

[s hubbard]

it all comes to, yes, money.
how much do you want to spend?
i've used alot of them out there, and the cheaper ones aren't worth having at all if you're gonna use it a good bit.
spend at least $250. if thats your high range, try a garmin, they're pretty user-friendly, resilient, and strong signal strength (for the money)
for a little more, one company - Bausch & Lomb - made one called the "onyx" is it awesome. this is the one i will buy next if i don't get a mobile mapper first...
here's the onyx...onyx gps you can stream XM satellite radio through this bad boy...awesome