Buying a USA GPS.

[Hew]

I have started looking for a hand held GPS for track logging.
The Garmin etrex vista seems to fit the bill. It is approx half the price on ebay usa.
Can I load my city navigator europe mapsource onto it for road mapping?
I only need to load maps up for small areas at a time.

Are there any other pit falls apart from tax?

Thanks

 

[John Armstrong]

If it has a base map it'll be the USA one

Import duty plus VAT is IIRC charged on the total bill which includes shipping

Don't know about if you can load the CN onto it what sort of downloadable memory capacity does it have?

 

[Hew]

If it has a base map it'll be the USA one
Don't know about if you can load the CN onto it what sort of downloadable memory capacity does it have?

Memory is a 64mb micro sd card

 

[Schtum]

Go to www.garmin.com and check the software / hardware compatibility.

It looks as if City Navigator will run on an eTrex Vista Cx. Garmin seem to recommend the NT version for it.

The only other slight drawback is that the unit supplied in the US will have an Americas basemap rather than the Atlantic basemap that would be in a UK supplied model. That would only become important if you were trying to navigate in an area for which you hadn't loaded local maps.

 

[John Armstrong]

Memory is a 64mb micro sd card

You can get 4gb ones I've ordered a 2gb one for £20 for my new phone. You'd still get a fair size of country even with your card. You might even want to put world map on as well. On the 2610 etc this acts as an unroutable base map when you zoom out further than 5 miles IIRC.

 

[Hew]

Thanks for the replies.
It is half the price of a UK version, I guess warranty difficulties and import tax are the down side. How much is the tax likely to be on a total price, including shipping, of approx £150.

 

[1Rider]

Zoom level

My experience with a SP2610 is that at a given scale/zoom level the display swithces to/from the basemap to the user loaded CN detailmap. Using my European SP2610 in US now and that means that the map display is pretty much useless if you (or auto) zoom out to basemap scale...

Except from that no problems.

Paul

 

[John Armstrong]

Using my European SP2610 in US now and that means that the map display is pretty much useless if you (or auto) zoom out to basemap scale...

Why don't you get a worldmap of ebay (not very expensive) and download the US map tiles as well as the City Nav ones = what appears to be a base map even though the unit is using the CN mapping for autorouting etc.

 

[Zambezi]

Thanks for the replies.
It is half the price of a UK version, I guess warranty difficulties and import tax are the down side. How much is the tax likely to be on a total price, including shipping, of approx £150.

If the parcel is sent as a gift item, you probably won't have to pay any duty on it. If you are unlucky enough to have to pay duty, I think it will be 17.5% (VAT) of the item value (excluding shipping), so not a whole lot. Most small things sail through without getting "taxed".

 

[BurnieM]

No, while an eTrex Vista (black and white screen) can load a small portion of City Navigator Europe, it cannot autoroute.

An eTrex Vista Cx is another story
It can only use up to a 2 GB microSD card tho

 

[Hew]

No, while an eTrex Vista (black and white screen) can load a small portion of City Navigator Europe, it cannot autoroute.

An eTrex Vista Cx is another story
It can only use up to a 2 GB microSD card tho

Yes thanks, it is the Legend or Vista CX
that I am looking at.

 

[1Rider]

Did just that

Why don't you get a worldmap of ebay (not very expensive) and download the US map tiles as well as the City Nav ones = what appears to be a base map even though the unit is using the CN mapping for autorouting etc.

Followed your advise - bought and installed/downloaded the WM on my PC/2610. It works llike a charm - Thanks!