Streetpilot III Deluxe Vs BMW Navigator

darren

Guest
Hi All

Hope you are enjoying the Jubilee W/end on your GS's. Took delivery of my Adventure on Wednesday and love it :D

Can anyone help me in choosing the right GPS? I think I've made the decision to buy A GPS but am having difficulty in deciding between Garmin SP III Deluxe or BMW Navigator (Also Garmin). Only difference as I can see is presumably the mount and power connectors for BMW sockets. Also, a Garmin only product would not have the extra data re. BMW dealers etc. Anyone got one of these? Found the Garmin about £200 cheaper on the net with 128mb and all regions unlocked etc, as Navigator. Other choice is to buy a GPS V and make do with only 19mb memory? Again, I am open to any suggestions.

Something that really hacks me off though is, that in US the Streetpilot III Deluxe can be bought online for $795 and that is without much searching!! Why the ridiculous difference? Rip off Britain maybe? Any help would be welcome.

Will post some stuff re. New Adventure in a few days. So far, so GOOD, GOOD, GOOD.
 
Hi Darren,
I'm opting for the Garmin 176 it has a 320X240 resolution (twice the size of my GPSIII+) and is much quicker than the StreetPilot at ‘booting’ and drawing the screens. The 64meg Data cartridge will give all of the UK and half of France down to street level.
 
GPS

go for a Garmin GPS V. I've got one & its great on bike or in the car. The oly drawback is the 19mB memory but you only need that for street level anyway and there's always the full base map.
U should be able to get it for a good price as well
 
I got a GPS V a couple of months ago and was quite impressed with it until I decided to go on a route that I didn't have the maps loaded for.

I thought it was some kind of malfunction when the unit suddenly showed 1/2 mile inaccuracy and showed my plot a distance away from the basemap, fairly consistently about 1/2 mile NNW of the position I knew myself to be in

GPSVScreenshot.jpg

Map plot showing inaccuracy

I asked all the right sort of q's before buying and considered the memory limitation and s-l-o-w upload speeds (50 mins for 19Mb) a minor inconvenience if the routing would work with the basemap.

It turns out that the basemaps have an inherent level of inaccuracy, the size and direction of which is different for each part of the basemap you happen to be on. Autorouting is only possible with the unit at 5mile res (any res that says overzoom won't work officially, although it seemed to be working at 3Mile too), and to give you an example the whole of London including the M25 shows on screen at this res so it is useless if you want to use this feature or you want to zoom into a junction for directions.

With the loaded maps it really is superb at it's job with pinpoint accuracy and is very impressive.

So the message is, dont buy it because you think you won't have to upload to use it - you will. And the GPS V is slow to upload to; if going on a trip that requires another map you would have to take a computer with you and be patient, so really anyone wanting to use this on the bike will have to consider the Street Pilot III which can upload sufficient maps to cover the whole of the UK on a 128Mb cart.
 
If you bother to read the manual properly..........you can reduce the amount of inaccuracy dependant upon the scale that you choose....
 
Hmmm. Have just got back from Hawes (Excellent meet - Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make it a success - More later) and had loan of BMW Navigator for the weekend. Quite impressed but haven't had lots of time to play with it. Found that it occasionally gave directions too late, but loved the street level for UK. Still wondering whether to go for a GPS V, but am confused. Will I wish I'd gone for the 128 mb expandability?

More please.

PS> Hangover just about gone from last night in Hawes! :beer:
 
Stuart Woods said:
If you bother to read the manual properly..........you can reduce the amount of inaccuracy dependant upon the scale that you choose....
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip.
 
Garmin StreetPilot III Deluxe

Guys/Guyesses

What's the UK target price for the StreetPilot III Deluxe with the Euro basemap and the 128MB datacard?

Oh, and where from?

Best

Greg Masters
London
 
Don't know about specific prices but "ASK Electronics" in Tottenham court road are Garmin suppliers and recon they can undercut anywhere else. Could be worth a try. Let us know.
 
Garmin StreetPilot III Deluxe

You'd think that someone was having a larf!

I've just walked down Tottenham Court Road and one Garmin dealer (Sunrise) would reduce their price from £1050 to £1020 but only if I paid cash or used a debit card!

Meanwhile, a 10 minute search of the net has found an SPIIID/L at US$774.95 (= £506) plus tax.

Question is, can I find a Euro-spec model at US prices?

I'm on it!

Best

Greg Masters
London

PS Euro-spec models not only come with Atlantic basemap, but are also multi-lingual.
 
Re: Garmin StreetPilot III Deluxe

Greg Masters said:
Question is, can I find a Euro-spec model at US prices?
Click to expand...
The US only supply with american basemaps - the pricing levels are much lower as you have found.

If a US dealer went to Garmin and asked for a european model Garmin would effectively insist on the dealer sticking to their minimum pricing policy for Europe, which is different and higher. The dealer would probably have to order through the European channel which might make the units more expensive than they are here.

If they were reported selling any Garmin product for less than their minimum Garmin would refuse to deal with them for future orders.

As with the Levis Jeans case, manufacturers are free to impose this kind of restraint however unfair it may be to the consumer.

Another reason to dislike Garmin, but you gotta agree that they do make the best handheld kit out there at the moment.

Anyone mounted an in-car nav system yet?
 
Yep, City Slicker, you are, unfortunately, absolutely correct. The single phone call that I just made to a dealer in Toronto (where I will be next month) confirms that they can't get Euro-spec Garmins and you can't change the basemap on US models!

Ho-hum!
 
BMW Navigator Spec Sheet

This is the internal info sent to dealers:
 

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BMW Navigator Spec Sheet

The main difference is that the Navigator has a non shiny screen to cut down glare - the SPIII has a clear polished screen with an anti-glare coating similar to that found on monitor screens.

As long as the SPIII screen is angled towards your body it won't cause the glare that the Nav screen is attempting to avoid. You will probably have to buy/fabricate a cowl for the unit anyway as I have seen a few posts from the US complaining of visibility in direct sunlight on both versions of this unit.

The one other Nav addition is BMW dealers listed in the CD data (useful if you need to take your bike into someone while in Europe) but I guess a quick phone call to BMW UK would be a good workaround if you had the SPIII.

All the other stuff is absolute crap from the marketing dept.

They are comparing the Nav to the basic SPIII package retailing for £840 and NOT the Deluxe package at £1050. There is in fact more kit (the in-car speaker and bean bag mount) in the SPIII Deluxe package.

The Navigator does not include a specific wiring harness either for power or for voice, just the standard Garmin lead with a BMW power plug on the end. Nor does it include the bracket mounting specifically for the GS LT or RT models.

All in all save yourself the £200 extra for the BMW kit. Youll get a couple of extra goodies, and for this saving you'll have to re-wire the plug if you want to plug into the accessory socket on the bike (you'll probably hard-wire it and save yourself some trouble with loose cables anyway!)

I just got my SPIII today. Had an old speaker from an in-car kit and plugged that into the back of the unit, fitting nicely under the dash behingd the main beam. Sounds great. Fooking hansum!

I'm going on a little trip tonight so expect a better report tomorrow.
 
Like City Slicker, I too waded in and bought a SP III Deluxe. I gave up on trying to get one at US prices, but got a better deal than they would like me to mention at GPS Warehouse (www.gpsw.co.uk).

All I have to do now is figure how to work it!

Greg:D
 
I bought a US emap, as at the time, it was $200 compared to 300gpb.

It's never really affected me at all, as the base maps are crap, so you almost always load on the mapsource ones.

If I go got a SP3, it will be a US one, with the UK maps loaded.

These are the cheapest prices I could find.

http://www.globalpositioningsystems...d=&PHPSESSID=285a6e44dedbf02a30e90f7523895be9

1000 inc,

http://www.thegpsstore.com/cgi-bin/...lot3DLX.htm?L+thegpsstore+ywyt7100+1031016291

$999

So $999 = £645.10 plus VAT = 757.

Still a hefty saving assuming you don't go over to the states and buy it yourself.

So, who'd be up for US units at £700?

Or get together and bulk buy from the UK?
 
The StreetPilot III now comes as standard with an anti-reflective screen.
The US versions come with a basemap, and detailed CD of one country. Map copyright costs an absolute fortune, so the price for the European data is more than the US data. I don't doubt that the price is inflated for us, but it isn't just corporate greed.
 
Ian,

The StreetPilot has it's own version of MapSource to support the routing functions. Guess what, you can't buy it separately. It's supplied with the unit, and covers the same region as the unit. You can get some of the features working with the latest MetroGuide CDs, but not enough to get your money's worth from a US spec unit.
 
You can buy the maps

I throught of importing from the US for a while, but decided against after speaking to URL=http://www.adventure-motorcycling.co.uk]adventure-motorcycling.co.uk[/URL]. I had a long discussion with them about the pros and cons of a US import and they were open and honest about the whole thing and were very competitive, I think the best price (certainly best value) in the UK at the time. They will will deal price wise on the phone on a 1-2-1 basis.

There were 3 things that put me off going the US route.
1. After Sales Support/Warranty, the product carries a 12 month warranty but I have heard several reports that Garmin Europe have replaced products up to 3-years after purchase.
2. The saving wasn't that great after adding the European CD ROM maps and VAT.
3. You can fit the whole of the UK on the 128MB card but can't fit Europe. So as soon as you leave a detailed map block in Europe you loose the maps and navigation, whereas the European version will revert to the base map for the routing.

BTW You can buy the European Maps CD ROM for the StreetPilot III, but not from a UK dealer you'd have to get them from outside the UK. And yes Garmin have the price set at around $500 I suppose to deter European buyers going to the USA for the product.

Personally I valued the support offered by Adventure Motorcycling, they spent 3 hours on the phone sorting a problem out for me. I wouldn't have got this support from Tottenham Court road or a discount dealer in the US. I guess you get what you pay for, buy from the US, but if it goes wrong you could kscking yourself for going for the cheapest route to save £100.
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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