Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

I'm looking for a new GPS - what should I get?

I see that the TOM TOM's are cheaper than the Garmin but just spoke to Outdoor Warehouse and they do not sell TOM TOM's anymore because of no customer support available.

I also cannot find a TOM TOM that is 4x4 applicable.

Kobus as far as I am concerned if you want to use a GPS for overlanding and general off-roading, then the standard maps are inadequate. The only map set I am comfortable with for this type of work is Tracks for Africa (T4A). Unfortunately, they cannot be loaded on all GPS's and one of the ones they don't work on is TOmTom. In fact if you want to use T4A then you are pretty much stuck with a Garmin. Their service is not always brilliant, but probably still better than anybody else in this industry.

I would strongly recommend Bolton's GPS warehouse, as he seems to give the best service. He is probably also the best guy to advise you about which model will best serve your needs.

Furthermore, if you want to use GPS technology for trip planning, you need to load Garmin Mapsource and T4A on your computer and use that, as it is virtually impossible to do a decent job on your GPS's little screen. The other major item is that T4A uses user information to determine the speeds possible on any given stretch of road, but these only function correctly on the computer and the times calculated by the GPS itself are wildly optimistic.

Personally I am fairly happy with my Garmin Nuvi 500. It is far from perfect, but still the best I have used for what I do with it.

Thanks Peter, I just checked Kevin website and his price is R3800.00!

On the Techshop website their price is R2799.00

Why such a big difference on the price? I e-mailed both of then and are waiting for an answer.

Kobus it could well be the mapsets loaded in the device.

As far as Garmin's own mapsets are concerned, for our type of use i prefer the topo maps, they have much more info and you can get some idea of the topography.

I use that on an SD card, and the T4A maps on the machine's memory, then I can swop between them at will.

I have a Garmin Nuvi 1440. The rationale for this choice was based on my requirements which can be summarised as follows;

The screen and actual display needs to be large enough for me to read without wearing my reading glasses;
Must be compatible with Tracks4Africa;
Must offer voice directions;
Must self adjust the display relative to light conditions;
Must cost less than R2500

I got mine through Trappers Trading on Fourways well within my budget criteria. I am very happy with it and it offers the same level of functionality that the factory fitted version in my Disco 3.

Regards,

Peter

I have an old Garmin nüvi 710 that works beautifully, but if I were in the market right now, I would have a good look at the Garmin Montana. Have a look HERE.

Garmin all the way

Search for the best deal on the internet - I got mine from http://www.easygis.co.za
Go for the biggest screen you are willing to pay for and then upgrade via http://www.garmap.co.za/ after you registered to the Topo map as Peter suggested.

The only trick is that one map (Garmin) must be on internal memory and the other (T4A) on external. Also get the CD so you can manage your maps & add routes