I cancelled my order with Amazon today, and re-ordered the Garmin 60c through GPSNOW.COM

I originally ordered it on March 8. A few days ago I e-mailed Amazon because on my account it showed that it had not shipped yet. They informed me that they did not have it in stock, but when they did get it, they would upgrade the shipping. They did not give me a time frame. When I originally ordered it the screen said it was in stock and ready for immediate ship....I guess not.

Hopefully GPSNOW.COM will have better service.

 

I have a Garmin 60cs and love it. You'll have to buy the city select or topo maps seperatly. I bought the auto navigation kit which came with a 12v power adapter, two mounting options, city select v6, and a usb cable. Considering it was only 10 bucks more than just city select it was worth it. Got it all from Amazon.

As far as the 60cs goes, love it, no problems, def. a great buy.

 

I purchased a vehicle mount, boat mount, power cord, neoprene bag, and Blue Chart maps all from GPSnow.com along with my GPS.

 

what do you guys think of the 60CS as opposed to the 60CX? looks like the CX has removable memory and SiRF, but the CS has Electronic Compass + Barometric Altimeter...

the 60CS comes with 56mb internal memory... i have close to zero experiences with GPS's, what does 56mb translate to in road maps?? is getting a unit with removable media a good idea?

and as for SiRF, is it worth the extra cash? seeing as i have no previous experience to compare to, how would the SiRF equipped unit compare to the non-SiRF.

the 60CSX looks like it has everything all in 1...but thats a lot of money...

 

With my 60C - I can hold in the memory:
City Select North America- all of Louisiana, half of Miss., some of east Texas
and
Blue Chart North America- the entire Gulf coast from Galveston TX to Pensacola FL

...and I still have more room.

I don't think the memory will be a problem unless you need to load a huge amount of maps. I guess you could buy a larger memory card for the CX series. Sorry, don't know about SiRF. Both have plugs for external antennas, which IMO are an excellent feature.

 

I guess ill be the odd duck out and say i love my magellan merdian gold. (was replaced with a newer version but you can still find them)

I do geocaching with mine also and found the internal antena to be superior to that of the Garman 60cs.

Im not a big fan of the color screen and or lack of battery life due to it. Pluss you cant beat the expandable SD slot in the Magallen that Garmen doesnt offer. I can currently hold half the US in full detail on my GPS.

 

where do you get the gps maps? do you download them ofline and save them to the memory in the gps? i dont have one but it might be a possibility this summer. but my uncle has an 2005 BMW X5 and on the built in gps our cabin up the mountins and 90% of the dirt roads up their are non existant.

 

I too have this GPS, IT ROCKS. I have the city selet maps, and us topo maps. It does everything I need it to wether on the trail (wheeling), trail (hunting/hiking), skiing, city, hwy, even flying.

It has a barometric altimiter, which is really cool, it reacts faster than GPS altimiter, and you can predict weather with it when you are on a long trip.

It also has an electronic compass, which is not common in GPS's. This allows you to get your heading when not moving. It's great because you can hold the GPS level in your direction of travel and look at the topo map to see which road fork you want, and not get the wrong one because the GPS thinks your going the other way.

The city software is excellent, I can be out running around need to go to a store, find it in the GPS and it then gives me turn by turn directions to it.

The topo software has 99% of the forest service roads on it. They arent availble for routing, but you can look and see where camp is and take new ways to get there.

The Garmin software for your PC is great. I can plan trips, look at old tracks, look at the altitude profile. There is also an nroute program that is a moving map that uses the GPS signal. Imagne a GPS with a screen the size of your laptop, now that really helps for planning offroad trips.



All of my maps are Garmin maps. You can buy them online or at stores like REI. The best deals are online.

You then install a program on your PC. You connect your GPS to the PC via a supplied USB cable and download the maps you want to use. My GPS holds 25mb. It doesnt sound like much, but thats more map than I can cover ground in one day, on the interstate. Since I have a laptop I can reload each night if I am cruising state to state.



I use 2500mah rechargables in my Vista C, its full color and I get 20+ hours out of 2 AA's

 

bringing back the thread:

what are your opinions on using a laptop as a GPS? Cant get a better screen I would think. I just have to find the right software/GPS/mount for my new macbook pro, I would rather the software be for osx, but I also have windows installed, so its not that big of a deal. Also, would be nice if the mount did not get too much in the way of a passenger, might have the computer mounted for GPS/music/ or a dvd with other people in the truck.

 

Thanks for posting this... I've been using Palm since before they were invented, or so it seems.

If I could pull my Palm 3.5 into this, which runs Palm 5.0... that would be very cool. Should be easy, but don't know since strictly speaking its not a Palm device, right? Were you a previous Palm user, and, if so, were you able to suck everything into the new device?

I see one on eBay for $269 buy it now price.. man thats tempting as your device is about 10 generations beyond my Garmin GPS II. Dang thing still works as well as the day I bought it, so I've never updated.

Another question. My understanding is that at some point the GPS gods were going to let us more that 3 sats/channels (out of 12 received) simultaneously which would increase accuracy from 30 meters to... something much better. Know anything about that?

Thanks again,

 

Lee, thanks again for the post. Ebay price this morning... $280 out the door, including shipping.

Is the mount you show the one that comes out of the box?

When you say it shuts off after 2 minutes, is that the display, or the unit itself. I think you mean the display, as the system would be useless if it shut off without being in the charger cradle. I assume you operate as its shown, and there is no easy way to set up the cradle. That would be possible with an inverter and maybe by using an extra cradle mounted as the holder.

Anyway, can't wait until it gets here...:xmas3: thanks again.

 

Lee; I did get mine... great, as you've said.

I've mounted it for a few trips, using the provided mount, against the windshield. Stays put, but it gets hot to the point where it is not visible.

How have you mounted it where you show it in your pictures. Is that one of the mounts provided in the package (looks like it). Did you use an adhesive, if so, what kind.

Also, I see your antenna is in the vertical position. Are you getting adequate coverage from below the day, and with that antenna positioned vertical?

Thanks for the info.

 

received my garmin ique m5 this week. Awesome GPS!! I really like the address book feature (I can sync with my mac's address book) Directions are accurate, and it auto-redirects correctly, plus it came with desktop cradle and auto mount. I will post pics tonight. I would definitely recommend this to anyone shopping around for a new gps, its expensive, but the features you get are well worth it.