0ur opinion:

:
GARMlN 010-11001-00 USGS T0P0GRAPHlCAL DATA AT A 1:100,000 SCALE USGS T0P0GRAPHlCAL DATA AT 1:100.000 SCALE

:
Explore every nook and cranny of the U.S. with the help of Garmin's Topo U.S. 2008 topographical mapping software. The DVD features digital topographical maps for the entire U.S., including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, with a host of valuable details. lt's also easy and convenient to load data to your compatible Garmin device. Just pop the DVD in your PC, then connect your Garmin GPS receiver via its USB port. 0nce connected, you'll have access to topographical mapping detail no matter where your adventures take you. Details include:

• Digital topographic maps, comparable to 1:100,000 scale USGS maps
• Terrain contours and topo elevations
• Summit locations with elevations
• Trails and rural roads; city neighborhood roads
• lnterstates and major highways
• National, state, and local parks, forests, and wilderness areas
• Coastline, lake and river shoreline; wetlands; perennial and seasonal streams
• Searchable database of cities, geographic names, summits, lakes, and more
• Elevation profile on PC and compatible units; estimate terrain difficulty
• Allows you to plan your next outdoor adventure on your PC and download routes, waypoints, and map detail to your compatible Garmin GPS
• Lakes, reservoirs, waterways, rivers, and streams with icons to represent boat ramps, dams, campgrounds, and trails

Piece Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

---

---

Buyer's feedback: - * Happy with my etrex Vista ...
Garmin eTrex Vista HCx Color High-Sensitivity Mapping Handheld GPS

My third hand-held Garmin, the etrex Vista HCx is the best one yet. I use it for hiking, driving, trip data logging and geochaching. A real man-toy. Very sensitive, keeps accurate track under the heaviest of tree cover and even when it is carried in an inside parka pocket. So sensitive, in fact, that it can geo-locate itself when turned on inside my home. With its optional, 1 GB, microSD card installed I can store nearly the world of available Topo maps. Ready to use just moments after turn on, gets good battery life and interfaces with my three different PCs without a single problem. Besides the four main pages there are nearly 20 other pages that can be utilized making it a real Techno-geek's must have personal navigator.

---

Buyer's feedback: - Great update
This update takes care of a lot of newer things, but it still is not up to date. There are a number of major businesses (Costco for example) that are not included even if they have been open for a year. Otherwise easy to follow and use.

---

Buyer's feedback: - * Pretty much what I was looking for ...
I bought my etrex over Thanksgiving and while I was really pleased with it, I discovered that I needed both the memory card and the maps to make it worthwhile. The documentation on the etrex is abysmal, IMO, so I only found out after trying to download waypoints into my computer to find out that I needed the card. Another story. So, I wasn't too surprised when the documentation on the Garmin software wasn't much better.

That being said, after having some problems with uploading the maps, I eventually retried it all and got the maps to work. I was pretty impressed with the maps. It gives me a nice topographical map of the area. Even so, I have thoughts on how the maps could be better:

1. Private property lines. I really need to know where state versus Plum Creek Timber versus other ownership is. It would be really helpful to have that.

2. GMU lines -- would be very nice.

3. Roads and trails need to have a better contrast on the moving map. It's almost impossible to see them.

4. You have to turn off the main map to get the topo -- what's up with that?

Even with all these downsides, I still really think it's a good mapping software. Downloading it is a breeze and you can plot your course on the computer and move it to your map. If they fix the problems I see with this, I'd give it a 5 star rating.

---

Buyer's feedback: - Garmin Topo U.S. 2008
We are relative newbies to GPS. We purchase a Garmin Nuvi 650 for the numerous road trips we go on 4 wheel drive adventures at and on the way to the destinations. This product fills in the blank screen when we off road with useful information that we previously lacked. For the money it is a great product that we welcome into our Jeeping experience.

---

Buyer's feedback: - * Wildly off track ...
In my local area (San Francisco Peninsula) the correspondence between the Topo U.S. 2008 maps and physical reality are off by from 200 to 500 feet! When I play my tracks against Google Earth (a nice Mapsource feature, BTW) they are bang on, but way off on the Mapsource depiction. I'm very reluctant to trust my life to this inaccurate mapping product, even more so in sparsely populated and back country areas where the location of streams and cliffs would be important to know accurately.
I'm using the new eTrex Vista HCx unit which I like very much.
Compiling map sets to upload to the GPS can take hours if a lot of segments are involved, and there are limitations to the number of map segment and file sizes the unit will accept. So I bought three 1GB micro SD cards and can fit the entire US (lower 48 states) mapset in three chunks (West, Midwest and East), each with less than 2000 map segments and file size less than 1GB.