GPS Devices Life

An awesome GPS - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver I received the standard Garmin eMap for my birthday and from the moment I turned it on I have been amazed by it. T...

Welcome to year 3001 - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver WOW! I remember back in the say when I used to drive with the wheel in one hand and a map in the other. Well my fr...

I got an emap (April 2000), along with 8Mb cartridge, Metroguide CD (2CD set), Worldmap CD, and external antenna for $390 at an online auction (www.ebay.com).

Compared to GPS III+ and StreetPilot:

Before the purchase, I gathered information about handheld GPS receiver(with moving map) that I can use during driving and hiking. Choice finally came to Garmin GPS III+, Lawrence 100, Garmin StreetPilot, and Garmin Emap. Emap was most appealing to me. Although when compared GPS III+ or streetpilot, Emap has less functions and configurable features, but has lower price tag and bigger screen size than III+’s. Also, it has comparable tracking accuracy as all the others. Finally, it is easy to use.

Accuracy, and reception:

Reception and accuracy of emap were great. Although it is officially said that error in the position is about 15 meters, it did track movements of 5~10 meters in the open fields. By the way, one can zoom the map to show ~800ft x 500ft in one screen. Just in case you wonder, it does function nicely in rainy/snowy conditions (in Oregon).

A GPS receiver has to “see” at least three GPS satellites to function correctly. This means most handheld GPS is unusable in covered structures such as parking garage buildings, tunnels, etc. Also, Emap occasionally fails to track the movement in downtown. Perhaps tall buildings are blocking the “view” of the GPS satellites. Anyway, I used to drive often in San Francisco, and also drove in downtown Manhattan with this GPS. Most of the time it had no problem tracking.

Tracking, route-recording function:

Emap records the routes I have taken, and shows it on the screen as a dotted line. It is very, very helpful, both during driving or hiking. You can give names to those routes, then can display any of them on the map when you want. One application: finding way back to my car in the VERY-big parking lots (not a covered ones, since you know, GPS has to ’see’ several satellites). Anyway, this track-memory feature is useful in number of situations.

Emap can “Guess” the movement when the satellite signal is lost. In case suddenly the signal is lost for some reason (driving under trees, etc), it will assume that you are staying on the current road at constant speed. This goes on up to 30 seconds until signal is restored. It works quite well on the local roads, where the trees momentarily block the GPS signal. By the way, more expensive In-dash navigation systems have built-in gyroscope, so those systems don’t have to “guess” much.

Ease of use:

Emap is very easy to operate, with nicely placed buttons and simple menu screens. You can set the font sizes of street names on the map, also detail level. Since the screen resolution is only slightly better than that of PalmPilots, using the full detail settings in Emap is not practical (at that setting, screen becomes very cluttered). With normal settings, one can see major roads and some side streets as well as rivers and lakes.

Readability:

Under the sun, screen is usually easy to read, but there

are slight glare problem (no anti-glare coating). Also, I can’t see thee screen very well with sunglasses. At night, backlight is a bit dim but ok, although as not good as that of streetpilot (with streetpilt, multiple levels of amber backlighting levels available). Emap has one level of backlight.

Battery Life:

Emap lasts about 8~10 hours with battery-saver mode, if you use alkaline battery. Since I turn it on only when I drive in unfamiliar places, the two AA batteries tend to last a couple of weeks, but that’s just my case. For continuous use, one might consider getting a power adaptor. Emap’s power socket is of a peculiar design, so most of us who don’t have a knack for fabricating electrical connectors have to buy Garmin’s adaptor.

If you get a emap(or any garmin receiver) please check out their website(www.garmin.com) for firmware updates, One can download the firmware update program, and connect the computer and Emap with a data cable, then just run the program. This will improve the Emap’s software. Mine was updated to version 2.50, then to 2.63, and these enhanced Emap’s capability sooo much.

One annoyance, though. Probably because of Garmin’s lawyers, the startup screen has warning statements, and one has to press enter key twice to get to the map screen (or you can wait for about 30 seconds until it automatically switches to map page). Either way, annoying…

One thing this receiver cannot do is Autorouting (automatically generating driving routes between two points). As the name suggests, emap is intended to be used as electronic map. If you stil want to do away with manually putting in route information onto emap, you might wanna check out Delorme’s Street Atlas (version 8, as of March 2001). Street Atlas (as well as number of other softwares) will let you to put int two addresses, will generate efficient driving route between them, and will let you to upload this route onto emap. Then emap will display arrow showing your next turn, with a beep. Right now, there is no one-step method to transfer Mapquest or Mapblast (www.mapquest.com or www.mapblast.com/myblast/index.mb) driving directions onto emap. I really hope somebody to come up with a software that can do this.

Metroguide CDs

I really recommend purchasing Metroguide CDs. It’s a 2 CD set containing very detailed and highly accurate vector map (not bitmap) of entire 50 states. There are several map CDs sold by Garmin, including US roads and recreation CD. I chose Metroguide CD because of its accuracy.

Although the basemap hardwired into emap does have major highway/expressways in it, the additional detail and functionality that comes with Metroguide is worth the cost (less than $90 at online auctions. Retail price, about $130). By the way, emap does NOT accept any third party maps (bummer..). So one has no alternative but to buy those Metroguide CDs or memory cartridges to see street-level details.

Metroguide CD will let you download chunks of Maps into emap’s cartridge(can be purchased as a bundle with emap, or separately), and each map chunk is about 8mb in size. Entire San Francisco Bay Area (including SF, San Jose, and North of Golden gate bridge) easily fits into one 8mb chunk. Downloading map data onto the emap took approximately 15 minutes (on my old PC). One slight annoyance. You CANNOT select the map chunk boundary as you like. If a person happens to live on the boundary of two map chunks, well…

Anyway, with metroguide, the emap will tell you the name of upcoming cross-street, which I found very useful especially at night. Also, you can search addresses/street intersections/Point of interests (service stations/restaurants/hospitals…) through easy to navigate interface. But I seldom use the search function, since keying in the street names is a very slow process.

If you do get any Mapsource CD’s, also check out Garmin website for updates. As of writing (March 2001), version 3.06 update is available, which substantially improves the CDs. You can now plan route info on the Metroguide, and download it into emap (Still no autorouting).

Because of the availability of the online updates, one can simply buy a used Mapsource product of low version number, then update it.

Antenna:

External antenna comes with a magnet, a set of suction cups and a long wire that plugs into emap. One can place it either on the roof of the car, of somewhere in the windshied. Then one can place emap anywhere without worrying about the reception quality. By the way, I found no appreciable difference in accuracy as emap alone or with antenna.

In some future maybe I can connect emap (or some receiver) to compact notebook and install some autorouting/mapping software on it. Or, maybe stock in-dash GPS will become relatively affordable someday. However, until then, I am probably going to stick with emap. It’s a very useful product, and it already saved a lot of time for me.

External antenna is pricey but worth it - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver The eMap works great as long as there is nothing obstructing the line of site between the eMap and the satellites....

Better than SEX - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver I received the EMap for Christmas and WOW! It let's you see exactly where you are in world. To get highly detail...

Wonderful GPS! - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver First of all...please read the comments that are posted in RESPONSE to the lonely one star rating to see why is wa...

Great Travel companion - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver I can't say enough about this model, I don't have the other more recent models to compare, but this I do know "it ...

Garmin eMap deluxe - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver I purchased the Garmin eMap last week and received it day before yesterday in the mail. Right out of the box I was...

An outstanding GPS! - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver The garmin emap is one of those things that will keep you entertained for a long, long time. Think to yourself... ...

Reception is POOR - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver

Excellent GPS receiver - Garmin Emap Handheld GPS Receiver

Tags: Casio, DeLorme, Garmin, garmin gps, handheld gps, Palm