Garmin V Deluxe GPS

Anyone have any experience with the Garmin V Deluxe GPSR?
I'm currently using a Magellan 330, and was considering getting the $300-after-rebate Garmin.
The Magellan works very well as far as sensitivity under cover, and picks up with no problems in a car even without a clear view of the sky, and I was wondering how the Garmin would fare under similar conditions. My main gripe with the Magellan is the handling of the user waypoint selection in alphabetic mode, which is dog slow in scrolling (how did that term come about anyway- most dogs seem pretty fast to me-)
The autorouting feature is the main difference I'm considering the upgrade, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice sensitivity and reliability of lock for it-

Anyone with comments or experience with it?

Wingerr, I have the GPS V and for me, the autoroute feature is the feature which I immediately latched onto when making my decision to purchase it. I absolutely love it. I cannot speak from experience when dealing with cover, but living in NJ, it works just fine in urban settings such as in Downtown Newark, where tall bldgs abound. I never seem to lose lock, even when driving (quickly) under trestles and the like. I was even stuck in downtown (EWR) traffic, and didn't lose lock-on with the satellites, even when stuck in a seemingly narrow corridor of tall buildings. But as for trees, I couldn't tell you since I've never been faced with that situation. The way I figure, if it held up so well in the "concrete jungle" of urbana, it should fare pretty good in the "forest and trees" scenario as well. As far as response time of the menu's is concerned, while it is in the acquire mode when cold starting, they seem a little sluggish, esp if you have the WAAS enabled. I rarely use WAAS, since it seems to only make a difference when the current constellation of satellites is in a poor configuration to get a precise fix. But the times that I DO use it, it is a godsend. Once there were only 5 birds above the horizon, and they were all in a cluster which makes for a poor fix on ANY non-augmented GPS, I turned on WAAS and I got an accuracy of 17 ft. Pretty good considering the poor satellite configuration at the time. I could ramble on and on, but the gist of it is, I am very satisfied, considering the alternatives are $1500-$2000 such as the Alpines and other in-dash systems.

Hope this helps in your decision making process.

Ed.

I don't have a GPS V, I have a GPS III+ which uses the same antenna, case, etc. I suspect the sensitivity issues are the same.

I also have an Etrex Vista, one of the little all in one units.

The III+ works much better under cover. It works better in the car as well. The GPS V should be the best of all worlds.

Also, if you really want to get serious, the GPS III+ and V support an external antenna.

-john

I have a GPS V and I have a GPS 12 that I'm currently using as well. The GPS V beats the 12 in sensitivity by a far margin and I believe the GPS V is better than the etrex. From what I've read, all the Magellans have great sensitivity. I think the GPS V and the Magellan will fair about the same.

I have been using the GPS V now for several weeks intensely for looking for Geo caches and I can say it performs nearly flawless, in cover, poor weather etc.

Of course the main reason I bought it was it had white LEDs for the backlighting... To me, being able to read the little screen at night was as important as all the other features. And, yes, it is very bright. You could use the backlighting as a flashlight if you needed. (Well, kinda). I hate those green and yellow backlight screens.

I was thinking of getting an etrex for walking around with but, after reading and doing some research, I am holding off getting a second unit. I carry the GPS 12 around, but, mainly to use it as my spare battery holder.

Now that I've got a good belt clip open top pouch that I can slip the GPS V into, it's not as big as I thought.

Check out www.geocaching.com if you have some spare time and want to use your GPS for more than vehicle navigation.

Thanks for all the info- sounds really good, I'll be getting one. If sensitivity is as good as you're all noting, the included antenna should be fine, but it's nice to know an external antenna is an option as well.
The bright white backlight ought to be interesting; readability should be much improved with it, especially in the car at night. Is the level adjustable for situations where you don't require max brightness?
Looking forward to giving the autorouting a whirl-

Yes, the backlight can be adjusted from bright to barely glowing via the menu system. I forget how many levels or steps it has, but it is a vertical slider control similar to the windows volume control on a PC. You'll love it. The only negative thing that I have to say about the unit is the fixed, i.e. non upgradeable memory. It has approx 19 Megs for map data. In my densely populated area, that comprises about 7-8 counties. It all depends on the density of the roads. I have taken it to the country, and since the roads are more sparse, it held far more counties than in my area, which is part of the greater NYC area. Pretty dense populace.
Getting back to the memory, it is NOT an issue with me as I always have my laptop with me when traveling outside of my local area and downloading from the laptop to the GPS is a snap. The points-of-interest feature is golden. When in an unfamiliar place and you need food, shopping or whatever, you can locate by name or category and it'll find and route you to the nearest or most convenient one, your choice! This info is all stored in the unit, no need to be connected to a PC. I find Radio Shacks that way, when I travel. It is an invaluable feature.
[/ramble mode] /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ed.

Considering I've been managing with much less memory on my Magellan, the 19M on the V should work out fine for me, since I'm used to having to download the necessary specific regions in advance anyway. Are the comments I've seen about it taking an hour to fully load it up still valid? Even so, that won't be a problem, so long as I have an idea in advance how long it should take.

The POI database sounds useful, but would they become less so as time goes on? Unless they provide some update mechanism- I assume they don't have annual updates or anything like that- Other than entering your own waypoints for new locations, there's no way to modify, delete or add to the built in POI's, is there?

Just got it today, and I'm still getting used to the menu settings and options-

The LED backlighting works very well, as you guys mentioned; I like the ability to step in small increments instead of going in just two steps. Definitely makes it readable in all conditions, and bright enough to use as a flashlight in a pinch.

The maps must be really loaded down with all the POI's, because the 19M would just barely get just get the NYC area in. There doesn't seem to be any option to turn off the POI data from the maps, to enable getting more road mapping in. It would be nice to be able to trade off the ancillary information for more street coverage, which I would do. I was really expecting to be able to get more into the unit than my 8M Magellan, but it doesn't seem to be the case, most likely because it packs all the other info with it. While the amount of detailed information it keeps on hand is surprising, such as the fast food eateries full address (even including zip codes and phone number), it's necessarily at the expense of the more critical road information, which is really what I need it for.

Sensitivity is good, but needs more signal than my Magellan does to maintain a solid lock, which never seems to drop out, even inside a house. Still, it should lock up well enough in most conditions.

The car mount included works very nicely, being able to easily adjust for angle and tilt.

I'll have to give it a whirl with the autorouting to see how that works under actual driving conditions, but looks pretty neat.

The drawback is the limited geographic download capability in the cluttered city area that I need to load, just like you mentioned- I'd like to be able to avoid having to reload it so frequently, since it does take a long time to load up, about an hour at 115kbs rate. The option for auto turn off after download was apparently tailored towards a "start-download-then-go-to-sleep" procedure, luckily enough. I'll have to investigate if it may be possible to turn off the extra data- if not, Garmin really should implement the option to make it more usable.

It would also be nice to have a combination data/power cable instead of the separate cables provided in the package, for use with the download process.

Can you get additional memory chips and load other areas on to them, and just switch over the memory chip when on the move? Or is the 19Mb built in and that's your lot?

Unfortunately the memory is built in and fixed, so you can only work with it by wiping and rewriting. For areas where there's not much density to the roads and points of interest, it may be fine; it's just that this congested area contains so much information per square mile that it ends up with a very limited area capability. It'd be nice to have a flash memory capability that you could just swap out on the fly, but that'll be another model..
Just using the base map may not work that well, because when I tried the autoroute before loading on the detailed map, it would show a really oddball route that took me miles out, then reversing direction and coming back to a waypoint that was right next to the current position. Without the detailed map information, it can use only the major roads, with strange results.
If you're just traversing an area to get to another location, it shouldn't be a problem; just load the detailed map block for the final destination to get the local streets and it would be fine.
When loading the maps, you can only select predefined blocks, and they're much larger than I'd like, because I end up needing to load up another large memory chunk just to get a small snippet that I wanted. With the Magellan, I could define the rectangular block I needed, and tailor it as necessary for best fit. I guess Garmin did it this way before to implement the unlock-for-pay map regions, even though it wouldn't be necessary with the Deluxe version, where it's all unlocked as a full set.

Wingerr, just a side note, when I purchased my Garmin V, it wasn't the deluxe version. The dealer I bought it from was unaware of its existence, so in a letter to Garmin, I requested the entire region. They complied with a small one time charge of 50, but at the time of my purchase, that's how much more the Deluxe would have been. So....I flashed my unit to bring it up to the latest version of software (free), then I installed the MapSource software that they sent me on CD, already unlocked. I didn't even have to connect to the net like the first time when unlocking the northeast region. That was decent service. Made me feel like they were responsive. I say all of this because on several other GPS forums, the members seem to bash Garmin's customer service, but when I read deeper, it seem everyone wanted something-for-nothing, i.e, upgrading the capabalities of their unit to the next level, which in most cases was impossible, since it would have required additional hardware as well. I have had garmin units for both marine and vehicular reasons since 1989, and they always provided me with the service that I would expect. I must disagree with those GPS forum members on their stance, as the Garmin product line delivers what is advertised. Addition features will cost money. I don't feel that this is a lack of customer service. As long as you yourself do the research, and not leave it up to the whim of a salesman at some sporting goods or marine supplies type store, you'll be fine.
(gasp) Rambling mode off...
So Wingerr, how do you like it so far? Feature for feature I like it a lot. It has a lot of features crammed in there, and even having owned mine for just over a year now, I still find newer ways via the settings to tweak the display, change the guidance settings, that make navigation much more enjoyable.

Ed.

[ QUOTE ]
e=mc² said:So Wingerr, how do you like it so far? Feature for feature I like it a lot. It has a lot of features crammed in there, and even having owned mine for just over a year now, I still find newer ways via the settings to tweak the display, change the guidance settings, that make navigation much more enjoyable.
Ed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I just tried it out on an actual drive, and it worked perfectly- I couldn't really ask for better timing on the turn screens, not too early, not too late, just about spot on where I would have liked it. The backlighting was superb and very readable in the night conditions I was using it. Recalculation when I purposely overshot the plotted route was quick, and brought the alternative route up on screen right away.

Terrific GPS - it gets a big thumbs up from me-
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif The only thing on my wish list is still to be able to turn off the POI data- it just hogs up too much room, IMO...

Thanks for the indepth reply wingerr!

Glad you like it. Just a little tidbit that took me nearly a year to discover:
I had always wanted as a wish list item is for the unit to tell you what town you are in. It displays your exact location as all GPS's should but I've always asked, "What the heck town am I in." I have AAA for roadside assistance, and needed to use them once in my entire 10 years of membership, and the lady asked me (via cell phone), Well, what town or jurisdiction are you in?" At that point I became frustrated, since telling her the intersection I was in wasn't enough info (I broke down on secondary roads, not near any highways) and became dismayed that I didn't know how to bring up this important piece of info on the unit. Now I know how, after a year of ownership of the unit. Maybe I'm just a little slow with these "newfangled gadgets" as my wife affectionately refers to any piece of my gear, but here it is in a nutshell, if you haven't yet discovered how to find it:
All you do is press the find button, then highlight the "cities tab" then select "nearest". Voila! Every time I do that, the top listing is the current town where I'm currently positioned! DUH! Sounds intuitive now, but when I needed to know, I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. Doesn't seem to mention it in the manual as a procedure. But then again, considering the endless number of scenarios possible, I guess they covered the most important topics. Knowing the municipality I'm in is particularly invaluable to me. Too bad it cannot be displayed on the main map, somewhere near the top or bottom border.

Enjoy it and you'll probably discover many other little tidbits, which weren't apparent to me at first glance.

Ed.

[ QUOTE ]
e=mc² said:
All you do is press the find button, then highlight the "cities tab" then select "nearest". Voila!


[/ QUOTE ]
Good hint- I'll remember that. I would have tried to zoom out on the map until something recognizable came up; Nearest certainly would be the best way to do it-
You would think the road service should get with the times and be able to use the exact coordinates you could provide them- Some of these package delivery services probably could use it too, for those "Address not found" problems they seem to have, all too frequently.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Another major improvement over my Magellan 330 is being able to spell search the user waypoints; now I can jump straight to the waypoint instead of having to move the map pointer to the general area, and then selecting Nearest. I could now list a bunch of Home Depots, and quickly find the closest one, for example. The alphabetical listing on the 330 was useless because it only stepped through the list, one-at-a-time.. The cows would come home by the time it gets to the middle-
A tip to make things easier is that when you spell search for waypoints, once you enter enough to home in on the one you want, you can just hit "Quit", and it'll go to the waypoint without your having to step over to the "OK" button. Makes it much faster by not forcing you to hit that final button. It ONLY works with the waypoints, though- for other searches, if you hit "quit" there, it just cancels out everything you entered so far and returns to the starting point..
When I hold the Enter button on while turning it on, it comes up in diagnostic mode, and has a display for the battery voltage (mine showed 5.54V on NiMH's fresh out of the charger), and temperature in Celsius. If you try it, do it where you don't see any satellites or shield the antenna, because it may temporarily recalibrate it to the satellite signal, when it's intended for use with a signal generator at Garmin. It also allows you to check the all the buttons on the unit as you press them, and some screens for checking for bad pixels.

I've changed the second field displayed on the navigation screen to Turn, which shows the direction you need to turn (left/right, and degrees), which I find more useful than the default time to next intersection. The Distance to Next display is all I really need, along with the Turn.

That's the other great feature of this unit, that it calculates the ETA at final based on the full route, so you could give someone a good estimate of when you'll be arriving. My Magellan could only give the estimate to the next waypoint in the route, which is useful enough for driving the route, but the final ETA would be very helpful.

It really has a lot of nice features, which I'm still finding as I go. I like being able to move the stored waypoint using the graphical map; what I use that for is to fine tune the waypoint location that I just roughly generated previously. Once I get to the actual location, I just move it to coincide with the actual location cursor. With my 330, I'd have to read the coordinates and edit them manually, or just delete and restore the waypoint.

One thing I find more difficult on the V vs the 330 is entry of the text and numbers using the rocker switch; it has a bit of a squishy feel that makes it harder to quickly select the characters, and also I'm not yet used to the layout of the letters too. On the 330, it's more positive feeling, and the letters seem to be laid out better for fast entry.
I'm still looking to see if there's any easy way to transfer the waypoints I have on the 330 into the V, other than manual entry-

Kev1, hope you get your Euro-V; it's very nifty! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Well, just had a major glitch with my V- I was in the process of entering a waypoint, when the screen suddenly went blank- waited a few seconds, thinking it was processing or something, but it didn't come back.
Tried pressing the on button to turn it back on; nothing.
A few seconds later, WHOA! Smoke started streaming out of the battery compartment area, so I immediately popped the batteries out into my hand, burning myself a bit until dropping them on the floor- waaay hot. The negative contact spring was recessed, and the surrounding plastic melted away, leaving a blob on the battery.
It seems like something in the unit's power input shorted the batteries, and the current heated the contacts in the flip up battery cover to the melting point.
The contact is recessed too far now to make contact with the battery, but when I made the contact manually just to test it out, the darn thing still works! Wonder if there's some kind of crowbar circuit in there- very stange. Had freshly charged Energizer NiMH's in there, but I wouldn't expect that would be a problem, even if they were peaked out, since alkalines would be a higher voltage.
Sent an email to Garmin about it, so hopefully they can figure out what happened.

Wingerr,

There is a known problem with NiMH batteries with respect to some battery products (including Garmin)--

As I understand, if the spring slips off of the contact face, it can puncture the battery's "crown/side" insulation and short to the side case of the battery. And because the NiMH batteries have very low internal resistance, you get a nice "spot-welding" effect.

From reading long ago (newsnet GPS group), there may be an issue that some battery using devices (Garmin?--trying to be fair here as I don't have a GPS V) are placing springs on the positive terminal--instead of the more common practice of a flat/bump on the "+" and a spring on the "-" terminal end of the battery. If the spring tip slips of the center bump towards the edge--the spring (or spring tip) shorts to the battery case.

So--the end recommendations:

1. Make sure that you are very careful about replacing NiMH batteries and ensure that the spring(s) are centered.

2. I have read of people making insulating washers (perhaps something like hot-melt glue would work) for the top of their batteries to help prevent shorting.

-Bill

PS. I do have a Garmin Street Pilot III (color / autorouting unit). It has a 128 MByte memory module available (expensive for memory at $155 on the web). For me, it holds details for the state of California and the boarder areas of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona). Also, uses USB for downloading maps--takes ~5 or so to load maps.

And, went to the car and confirmed that the SPIII does have springs for the "+" contacts on two of six AA batteries.

The GPS V will probably be my second GPS unit (for hiking, and second car)--because of limited memory. -BB

I looked at it closely, and the "hot spring" was squarely in the center of the negative contact of the battery, so it doesn't look like the battery got shorted in that way- also, the battery insulators are still all fully intact.
The melted contact was on the negative contact on the hinged lid, and not on the positive battery contact, so it looks like the GPS itself was actually shunting across all the batteries. The wire path connecting between the two topside battery contacts shows evidence of overheating, so the current was passing through the normal path of the batteries; that negative contact was apparently the point of highest resistance, and resulted in the local overheating. Maybe Garmin will be able to give some clues as to what might have happened, but I find it amazing that it still works.

Let us know what Garmin say...I hope that they replace it for you!

Wingerr, if you don't mind my asking, where did you purchase it? I see lots of places listing the rebate, but even with the rebate, none of them are $300.00 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif