Re: HELP with GPS Selection
- From: "Bob L" <bob_lloyd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 21:57:42 -0500
"Doug" <Removehilandd@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1qjgq1lrfsmico8v0fnop2bgc8k9t7b5gk@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 09:21:41 -0500, "Bob L" <bob_lloyd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> As a general GPS, it SUCKS compared to my III+. I wonder if the folks
>>> that designed it ever used a GPS receiver for anything other than
>>> navigating.
>>>
>>> Now, I'm not complaining about the hardware.
>
> Well, I have a gripe about that too. How hard would it have been to
> add or make available a lanyard attachment to the Quest? It has the
> grip-ability as a bar of soap.
>
> My two earlier Garmins had a lanyard ring. My Quest has one now also.
> All it took was a small stainless washer, a file, a drill, and a small
> ring from ACE Hardware. My Quest rarely leaves my pocket without the
> cord being around my neck. I'm not particularly clumsy and 'I've
> never dropped a camera either for the same reason.
>
>>>With a gentle facelift
>>> in the software department, it could be a real winner for both tasks.
>>>
>
>>
>>My previous GPS was a III+ too. Great unit and it has a few offroad
>>features that the Quest does not - but nothing I really miss. I thought I
>>would continue to use the III+ for hiking and geocaching but I'm using the
>>Quest exclusively now. What additional software features do you think it
>>needs?
>>
>
> I use my GPS primarily for car-camping and traveling. We are often
> traveling for a couple weeks at a time.
>
> Here's a few things missing from the Quest that would have made me
> look a lot harder at other products if I had a clue first.
>
> 1. The number of displayable fields is insufficient. Changing an
> existing field to see another is crude. The GPS III had 3 pages with
> displayable fields PLUS a trip computer.
In off-road mode the Quest has has 14 fields on 3 pages (all editable) vs.
20 fields on 4 pages (18 editable) in the G3+. The Quest lost the highway
page (which I rarely found useful) - but you can only look at one page at a
time anyway. The Quest and G3+ have similar position pages and trip
computer fields. Changing the fields on a page works pretty much the same
too.
The pages are always there on the G3+ while on the Quest the top pages
available depend on the nav mode (on-road / off-road / none) your in. This
is a good idea in the Quest but I wish they had left the sat status page on
top.
>
> 2. It is impossible to display the current date. I'd hate to guess
> how many times I used it while traveling when we lost track of the
> date.
You're right - it just has time. I never missed it.
>
> 3. Date and time are not attached to Waypoints generated. Use of a
> track log is not an acceptable means of telling when you marked a
> specific point.
I agree. That was a nice feature lost in the Quest and is my biggest gripe.
The comment field is still there so it's hard to understand why it not
auto-filled with date/time.
However, one big plus is the long waypoint names in the Quest. I always had
a hard time giving waypoints descriptive names with only 6 characters in the
G3+.
>
> 4. The number of waypoints used/remaining are not listed. Now how
> hard is that?
True but a nit I think - unless you're close to the limit. I manage my
waypoints in Mapsource.
>
> 5. While there seems to me to be an absurd number of tiny icons to
> attach to waypoints types, I could live with them if their function
> were listed as I pointed to one or selected one. You can only tell
> what the function is once you have selected one and then go to the
> Delete-By-Icon page.
Right. They should have listed the name of the symbols on the selection
page. If you find by symbol it gives you the names too.
>
> 6. The display of the current Lat/Lon are almost unusable due to the
> small font. Try navigating to a feature in an area without mapped
> roads and trying to use the lat lon display as you drive.
Yes, its very small but I never try to get to a point by looking at lat/lon.
It's much easier to create a waypoint and navigate to it. The color screen
on the Quest is usually far easier to read that the G3+.
Also you can only see lat lon on the position page on the G3+ while you can
insert it into any field on any page on the Quest (albeit small font) .
>
> 7. The menu system is clunky. The GPS III had a menu system that was
> well thought out. Often used items were accessible with a minimum of
> keystrokes. It's like the folks that designed this didn't have a
> clue why the III menus were designed the way they were.
G3+ menus were well thought out but it did not have to support all the
auto-routing stuff. I thought the Quest was clunky at first too but now
that I've had it almost a year its second nature. I have trouble when I go
back to the G3 now. Response to key presses is slow compared to the Quest.
However, it's still annoying to get to the sat status page. Also, I think
it should default to that page when turned on until you get a fix like the
G3+.
>
> 8. The GPS info page is highly usable as a compass, but the "Dumbo
> Ears" on the satellite icons make it difficult to see the useful stuff
> on the page. If they had used the same micro-font on the satellite
> numbers and replaced the satellite icons with something more
> reasonable in size, it would be a breeze to use. At least the red
> direction pointer on the circle could have been large enough so it
> wasn't obscured by the satellite icons.
Not sure what you mean here. Why not use Quest's compass page for the
compass function? The Quest has a nice aircraft style course deviation
indicator on that page (in off-road mode) that the G3 lacks.
>
> 9. I've wanted to have the moon rise and set displayed as a field
> since I found out that Magellan had it available during the era of my
> GPS II. The Quest displays the moon position on the satellite page,
> if you can see it for the Dumbo ears, but it isn't available as a
> displayable piece of data.
Quest has sunrise and sunset as fields and display both moon and sun in the
status (which G3 did not). Moon rise/set is a nit to me.
>
> There isn't anything in the above list that hasn't been available in
> earlier receivers, except possibly the moon times. There are a few
> things that survived the cut that I would have gladly traded for any
> of the items above, but I don't think tradeoffs are necessary in a
> product with a such a wide range of uses. Most of the items above
> could be added as options outside of the configuration Garmin deems
> the default, how ever simplistic they intend it to be.
Yes, there's room for improvement but I find it does everything I need for
both on-road and off-road navigation. Never felt a desire to get out my G3+.
>
> I wonder how the PC community would react if Microsoft started
> removing options from it's consumer op-systems because they didn't
> think many of it's audience needed them any more or weren't bright
> enough to make use of them?
They do it all the time. Look at all the peripherals (and entire PCs) that
were no longer an option when they went to XP.
>
> Doug
>
>
.
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