Garmin Map 175 GPS
Feb 28 '00
Trying to determine which of the many GPS units would be most useful for both Great Lakes fishing and road trips, my first choice was the Magellan 410. Handheld, small screen but affordable ($349) and downloadable (CD and cables extra$. It seemed to have many features useful for fishing, but when I went down to West Marine, they didn't have it in stock. Being impatient and eager to play with a GPS, I took my second pick, the Garmin Map 175. The West Marine catalog had a features chart and they made the comment that it had "super software". I understood this as meaning that it would accept programming from a CD ROM like many GPS units do. Though it was more expensive, it did have a bigger screen and you get what you pay for right? Here's the review:
I got home, pulled the box out of the bag and immediately noticed a sticker with the date 3/26/98 on it. I thought to myself that this unit was in stock allright, for about 2 years! Okay, no big deal.
I opened the box and looked at the unit. It was far bigger than I anticipated. This was a real plus because they seem to be trying to make these things smaller and smaller but at some point in time they're too small to read! The Map 175 has a 2.3" x 3.5" screen, and the whole unit looked and felt real comfortable.
For some strange reason, they include the AA batteries with these things, but looking through the box, I couldn't find them. After minimal searching, I figured they must be inside. The next trick was trying to figure out where the batteries go. Not until I checked the index did I find that on page 73 of the manual (Not the "getting started" part), they told you where to put the batteries. Looking for page numbers through the manual was a chore in itself however, because the black page numbers were printed on some sort of a green cloverleaf. This provided great camouflage for the page numbers. After finding page 73, I found quite the unique system for removing what amounts to a battery "tray". Needless to say, after sitting on the shelf for at least 2 years the batteries (all 6 of them) were dead. I replaced them and fired it up.
Don't let me mislead you, this unit was very impressive. It's extremely easy to figure out and has some very nice features. One feature allows you to program a destination and it puts a 3 dimensional highway on the screen with an arrow. The highway should stay in the middle if your on course. If your off course, the arrow points to which way you should steer to get back on course. If you have programmed any waypoints that you'll be passing by on your way to this destination, they appear as roadsigns on the 3 dimensional highway.
The backtrac feature leaves crumbs (ala Hansel & Gretel) throughout your journey so that you can always turn around and go back the way you came. (This would be great if you happened to have passed over a school of fish). (Also pretty useful if your lost)
Other features are pretty standard with these units such as massive numbers of waypoints that you can save, programmable routes, etc.
One nice feature was the availability of icons that you can use to mark your waypoints. Choose from a fish, anchor, wreck, boat ramp, 28 in all. These appear on the map display when you zoom in close enough.
This is where the negatives started to appear. The Map175 comes with a World Map preprogrammed. These maps do show interstate highways and shorelines, but don't get nearly as detailed as one might expect for the $499 price tag. To get more detail, you need to buy Garmin's G-charts. These are cartridges that snap in place on the GPS MAP175 at a cost of $99 each for each of the 54 cartridges that cover the U.S., and $99 to $299 each for any of the 450 offshore charts that cover the world. This could add up to ridiculous expenses. As for the "Super software" listed in West Marine's catalog? This is it, the cartridges. No Cd Rom to scan through and download. Even the $299 E-Map by Garmin has a programmable cartridge.
Though I didn't try any of the expensive cartridges, the documentation made little mention of information that would be useful on road trips (Interstate exit info, services, sites, etc), and certainly none of this data was built in to the unit.
After experiencing this disappointment and paging through the camouflaged manual for an hour unable to find a means for "downloading" information to this unit, I decided to take it back and order the Magellan 410 GPS. It's due in a couple of days (I can't wait) and I'll review that one when it's in. (I ordered the CD and Download cable with it).
Summary:
Garmin GPSMAP 175 Cartographic GPS
Price: $499.99
Optional Cartridges: $99 to 299 each (504 available)
Rating for Marine (Oceans) navigation: A-
Rating for Great Lakes navigation: B-
Rating for road trips: C-
Programmability: Limited to user's waypoint/route data
This Handheld unit functions primarily for use aboard a boat where a fixed mount unit is both more functional and more affordable.
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Epinions.com ID:
Jerry_Maras
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Reviews written: 2
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