Garmin 010-00658-30 Forerunner 405CX GPS Sport Watch Review

If you are serious about improving your training and fitness, you might consider investing in a GPS watch. GPS enables tracking of speed, pace, distance and your route over a run.

The market leader by far in the GPS sports watch arena is Garmin with their Forerunner line of fitness watches. The Garmin Forerunner 405 was released around the end of 2007 as a successor to the 305 watch. Both watches featured the SirfStarIII chipset for much better GPS tracking than the legacy watches, but the Forerunner 405 has a smaller face and looks more like a sports watch than the chunky 305. It lacks some of the 305′s mapping and navigation features, making it more a running watch than for navigation.

Well now Garmin has just released an upgrade to the Forerunner 405, the Forerunner 405CX, but what new advantages does this new model offer and is it all it’s cut out to be?

Garmin nuvi 855 GPS Excellent Unit

This GPS works exactly as expected. The remote button attaches easily to the steering wheel. Wait until the green indicator shows up on the screen. It has an excellent voice recognition interface, and the advanced GPS features that I want. This is really helpful when you are traveling alone and can’t stop. You don’t need to use the touch screen
It reads street, and highway lane names.. The where am I ?, Point of interest (POI) features are very useful. It stores location when you remove it from the vehicle mount. It takes you back to your car in a mall parking lot. It re-routes fast without complaining & asking you to turn around. Easy to add and change order of “via” points. You can pre-program easily at home.

I suggest that potential buyers & users go to the GPS Magazine site and read the Garmin 885T review with step-by-step photos & examples of its functions. The 855 is the same unit without Blue Tooth & the Microsoft network. Here’s the link:

http://www.gpsmagazine.com/2009/01/garmin_nuvi_885t_review.php

Here’s a link to a PDF of the full owner manual

http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/nuvi855_OwnersManual.pdf

uPro Golf GPS Very Satisfied….Great Product

The Good

- Distances are right on.

- Basic mode gives you a quick, easy to read view of distance to the green and distance to reach and carry hazards.

- Mark feature allows you to measure the length of your shots. Sometimes gives erroneous readings. However, this only happened when I kept the uPro in my pocket, so maybe buttons were being pressed by accident.

- Aerial view of the hole is awesome. Like looking at a yardage book, with continuously updating distances. There is a small red diamond that marks your position on the hole and moves with you. I almost ran into a 150 yard pole because I was so fascinated with watching the little diamond track my position on the satellite view! Hazards like bunkers are marked front and back and also update continuously.

- Measure Mode lets you get a measurement to any point on the hole. I have used it to find the distance back into the fairway, but you really need a tree or something on the satellite image to reference. I have also used it to find distances not mapped by the company, like a layup distance to the front of a creek.

Magellan Maestro 4350 Excellent GPS features

As this is a lengthy review, those not wanting to wade through the entire text can find a summary under the ‘Conclusions’ heading.

Test Conditions:
All tests were conducted in the Northeast U.S. Although I don’t own another portable GPS, I do have a factory installed navigation unit in my 2006 Audi which I’ve utilized for several side-by-side comparisons (the Magellan is actually for my wife’s car).

Updates to the 4350′s operating system and navigational firmware are available at no-cost from Magellan’s website. These significantly improve the functionality and stability of the unit and if you own one you’d be making a mistake not to install them. The procedure is made relativity easy by the CD based instruction manual that comes with the unit. It took me about fifteen minutes to bring my unit up to date and in a month of testing since, it has never crashed, frozen, or seriously misbehaved. All findings posted here are based on a unit updated to the following: OS Version 00.42.01.0919 and Navigation Version 8.3.2.64084. As the 4350′s were just released in September 2008 there are no map updates available or required.

Startup:
If powered by an ignition controlled power source the 4350 turns on/off with the car. Otherwise pressing the power button for about two seconds turns it on.
Acquiring satellites happens very quickly – we’re talking seconds, not minutes. Only once, inside my house during a very heavy snowstorm, did it take longer (about two minutes) to lock.

Magellan RoadMate 1440 Absolutely the BEST!!!

This is a great piece of equipment. The CPU on this G.P.S. is very fast. Route calculation is fast and accurate. If you live in New Jersey and travel on the Parkway/Turnpike/Route 80, Lane Guidance works perfectly.

I drive 700-800 miles a week an and this is a must have. I did not want a unit with Bluetooth or FM Transmitter which is missing from this unit, and maybe that’s the reason it works so well. The 3D map is amazing unlike the Roadmate 1412. After 25 miles of driving, a message popup saying that the G.P.S. needs to reboot to improve performance after that I haven’t seeing any other issues so far.

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver Great for training; won’t work for backpacking

Reason for purchase: Triathlon training, monitoring my heart rate and run distances more accurately.
Evaluation: This product works very well: easy to set up, easy to use, no major annoyances. This product is surprisingly easy to use.

Cool bonuses that were not part of my purchase decision: the 305 replaced my bike computer. The 305 also has some competent training software that I never thought I would use, and now I find to be pretty darn interesting.

Some Issues:
Initially acquiring satellites is difficult if you are in a city, i.e. it needs a pretty good look at the sky when you first turn it on. After this initial phase I have yet to have it lose satellite reception. Note: I think this might be common to all GPS’s.

Some HR monitor inaccuracy on a treadmill. In my experience this seems to be best resolved my getting the strap very wet before putting it on; retraining the strap to the unit does not seem to be as effective.

Altitude is not accurate. I did some research and learned that this is endemic to all GPS units. If you download this (free) training software from www.zonefivesoftware.com it will improve the altitude (smooth) readings. (No, I don’t work for Zone Five or have any vested interest in them).

Side Note: I do a lot of backpacking and thought that the 305 would also be good for this. It is not. The battery life of 10 hours precludes it from being a worthwhile backpacking accessory (again, probably common to all wrist mounted GPS units).

Garmin Oregon 550T navigates and photographs the great outdoors

Garmin has just announced its newest outdoor handheld GPS units, the Oregon 550 and 550t.

The new units pack a 3-inch, color touch screen and a high-sensitivity GPS chipset into a rugged, waterproof casing that should withstand the bumps and splashes of Mother Nature.

Not only will the Oregon 550/550t get you where you’re going, it will also help you remember what you saw while you were there. A 3.2-MP autofocus digital camera is wedged into the mix, so you can capture photos of the great outdoors. We haven’t seen any test photos to discern the quality of the camera, but as soon as we get our hands on a unit, we’ll let you know if it’s any good!

The Oregon 550/550t automatically geotags the location of each photo taken, as a GPS device with a camera built into it should. A microSD card slot makes sure you always have space for one more shot.

The unit also features a built-in three-axis electronic compass with tilt-compensation, so it doesn’t rely on motion to know which way you’re pointed. A barometric altimeter helps keep track of the altitude and certain weather conditions. According to Garmin, you can also wirelessly share routes, tracks, waypoints, and geocaches with other select Garmin devices.

The Oregon 550t is available now and comes preloaded with detailed U.S. 100K topographic mapping for $599.99. The 550 forgoes topographic data for the lower price of $499.99.

Tata Teleservices offers GPS service

NEW DELHI: Tata Teleservices on Monday launched a unique ‘Quickfinder A-GPS’ (assisted global positioning system) service, a location-based service. The telecom service provider also plans to invest $2 billion in the current fiscal for its upcoming GSM-based mobile service, which will be launched in a few weeks.

“Our new technology offers greater accuracy and real-time access. The A-GPS service will use the most advanced positioning methodology to provide users with precise position information, including inside buildings and structures,” said Tata Teleservices Managing Director Anil Sardana after launching the service here.

‘Quickfinder’ will deliver advanced location-based services, enabling consumers and enterprises to pin-point locations of interest or track vehicles and consignments from origin to destination in real time, he added. Tata Teleservices’ latest offering is powered by Qualcomm’s ‘Qpoint’ solution and ‘gpsOne’ technology integrated into Qualcomm chipsets.

On future plans, Mr. Sardana said: “We have planned a capital expenditure of $2 billion in 2009-10 for our GSM services that will be launched shortly.

“The GSM launch will take place in the southern region of the country and then will move to eastern part.”

Garmin nuvi 780 GPS Great Routing, Lousy Price, Limited Features

The 780 is much thinner and lighter than the 550 and, presumably, therefore less inclined to fall from the windshield just when you need it most. Tip: If you have trouble with your suction cup falling off after a few days, pop a hard candy into your mouth, suck on it for a bit, then lick the cup and stick it on. This may sound a bit unhygienic but the sugar mixed with saliva makes a great bond with the glass.

The pressures of marketing have motivated manufacturers to load gps routefinders with all sorts of stuff that I suspect few use. For example, in a time when most all new cars come with relatively good sound systems, how many people will use their gps as an mp3 player or am image viewer? Or rely on it as a currency convertor or a calculator? I dunno, maybe people use those all the time. In any case, those and more are all available.

Magellan RoadMate 1470 Excellent GPS For The Money

I have been testing this unit for the last couple of days and am very satisfied with it. I already have a Garmin 765t which costs twice as much. Compared to the Garmin I like the units turn by turn directions better. It seems to be able to better predict a route than the Garmin and the voice prompts are offered in a way that makes it easier to navigate. The screen is .4 in bigger. So what are the “problems”? The unit takes a few more seconds to boot than the 765t but still is really not that bad. I went to the Magellan website to see if a firmware update was available and there was none. I really don’t have any experience with Magellan products so I cannot comment on whether or not they are proactive at correcting problems by providing frequent firmware updates as Garmin surely is. I will check back in a few weeks and report back here.

Anyway, here are the noteworthy things (good & bad) I think need to address specifically:

Traffic Receiver
I can’t say TOO much about the traffic receiver yet, since I’ve only been able to use it once. When I did use it, it worked very well in the Fort Worth, TX area. When I arrived at my destination, Houston, TX, there wasn’t any traffic (11PM at night). I’ll be sure to update you guys if performance improves/gets worse in Houston.
The ads from the receiver aren’t too bad because they somewhat blend in with the settings, but they are there regardless. So they are kind of like the billboard signs along the road, while you sense the ad’s presence, you can ignore them if they don’t apply to you.