256 MB data cards for Garmin

Schtum

Schtum

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Adventure Motorcycling are selling 256 mb Garmin compatible data cards for £209.

I'm currently negotiating with a guy from whom I've previously bought GPS hardware to see if these can be obtained more cheaply. He hasn't been able to firm up supply or price details yet, but reckons that he should be able to supply them for c. 20% cheaper than that. So that would be somewhere around £170. The more orders he gets, the cheaper they'd be.

Perhaps anyone who's interested could indicate this here.

I don't know if there's an approved protocol for group buys on the site. If there is, no doubt someone will let me know. If not, might we consider this as a group buy?
 
Schtum, are you talking about cards which will fit the SPIII - ie Garmin specific? If so, it's the first time I've heard of a 256Mb card being available...(128Mb was the biggest you could get)

Mike:)
 
I'd be interested.......if I could get one by just before the end of this month....

Mike....last time this was mooted here, Dave Hall posted a link to a site that was developing them....those ones were going to be Garmin spIII specific so i presume these are the same.
 
I`ve found a company here that sell the 256m card for $100 but if you check the SPIII accesories page they quote up to 128Meg only. You have to look at the 2610 page to find the 256 Meg.

Does the SPIII take a max card size of 128 meg?
 
The Garmin one doesn't specifically say what it's for (not on that page anyway) and the adventure -motorcycling page says it's 'due soon'...like the link you posted a few months ago Dave...

I've been looking at sub-notebook laptops for the last few days...i think that's the way I'm going to go....a dinky little laptop that'll fit in topbox or panniers easily, with wi-fi for sitting outside a cafe and winding up the bubbles from anywere in europe, plus 40 gig HD so I can take copies of the entire mapsource disk, all my MP3's and a load of porn-to-go as well.

I know if i spend 150 quid on a 256 meg garmin card i'll only upgrade to a 2610 in a year anyway.......and i like the idea of being able to dump all my photos on the move and do all the rest of the stuff with a laptop.

*edit*...apologies, going through from the SPIII accessories page does link to that 256 meg chip.......
 
It appears that the new 256MB Garmin format data cards will work in the SPIII, GPSmap 276C and GPSmap 296 but not other units.

A bit annoying as this is obviously just a firmware change; what are us GPSmap 176 and GPSmap 196 owners supposed to do ?
 
Burnie:

It's not "obviously just a firmware change" for some of the older production units. Many of these GPSR's have hard limits on the number of map segments they can address, or the amount of map data they can handle at one time, and these limits cannot be overcome with system software changes.

If these limits could be overcome with system software changes, the original StreetPilot system software would have been upgraded 3 years ago to handle cards larger than 32 megs. My guess, concerning the 176 and 196, is that the GPSR's could probably read the 256 meg card if you stuck it in them, but they could not make use of the full capacity of the card, as a result Garmin is taking the safest route and only stating that the card is suitable for the models they specify.

It is also possible that the 176 and 196 could handle the bigger card with a firmware change, but because these two units are primarily marine units, there is not much of a demand for the additional capacity - the BlueChart data does not require a lot of storage space, for example, you can fit the whole of the USA coastal waters on a 128 meg chip. If this is the case, then Garmin will implement support for the larger chip the next time a service release of the 176 or 196 system software is needed.

If you are so inclined, borrow a 256 meg card from your dealer for a few days, and experiment with it. My guess is that the card itself will work just fine if you load 128 megs of data on it. Beyond that, you become a 'test pilot'.

PanEuropean
 
It is the Garmin dealers (TVnav/GPScity etc) who are saying this so I assume this is what Garmin are telling them. I don't believe that anybody has stock of them yet.

I always understood that both the SPIII and the GPSmap 176/176C had a 525 segment limit
 
Fanum said:


I've been looking at sub-notebook laptops for the last few days...i think that's the way I'm going to go....
Click to expand...

That's what I've been doing for a couple of years now. I've got a Dell Latitude LS500 with a 12GB HD. The mapping for City Navigator V5 Europe and lots of other R&R mapping takes under 2GB and so leaves plenty of memory for other uses such as photo storage.
 
Interesting

How Garmin seem to be selling a 256MB card at $189 BUT the UK suppliers want £209 for their version. RIP OFF UK!!!

At the current (good) exchange rate they should be charging around £110.
Bloody sharks.
 
The 256 card has been quoted on US forums as being available for around $125. Given the small packaging means it can be sent in 4-6 days by USPS Global Priority for $9, seems better to buy Stateside and don't even worry about having to pay Duty & VAT. Would still com in at under £100 at current exchange rates with full duty & vat!!!
 
If only....

This thread is about Garmin format data cards not CompactFlash


GPScity has 256MB Garmin format cards listed at US$135 (but no stock).
 
Re: Cheap UK Memory

RickA said:
£38 + VAT for a 256Mb card.
Click to expand...

That's not particularly cheap.

Over £12 cheaper here!

Also try Costco - they now stock 256Mb CF cards.

Dunno where to buy cheap Garmin Datacards though!

Greg
 
Fanum:

Very sharp idea you have, getting a ultraportable notebook and bringing it along with you.

I carry an IBM ThinkPad 240 in my saddlebag - it's a fairly old machine (2001), has a 233Mhz Celeron in it, but it's more than good enough for holding all the cartography and running Mapsource, and it's tiny - smaller than a sheet of A4 paper and only about 3/4 of an inch thick. I've seen lots of them on eBay for about USD 300 or so. Plan on getting an 802.11b wireless card, and you will also have email and internet on the road as well.

The only thing you have to be cautious about when buying an older notebook (ca. 3 years old or so) is that the battery in it will probably be time-ex, and new batteries are awfully expensive from IBM - I just bought one this week for CAD 260 (about USD 200). There is an eBay retailer in the US that sells them for USD 70, but they won't ship outside of the US (batteries are DG's).

PanEuropean
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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