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I must say that I accept it inviting that there are so many sparkling reviews about this flawless GPS. I am always skeptical of anything that sounds too pleasant! I read many of the reviews online, and after evaluating the specifications and features, opted to win the Delorme PN-40. Prior to this consume, I owned a Garmin 60CSX GPS. I believed that the Delorme was poised to be a critical improvement in both the tracking ability and the exhibit of aerial overlays.
Let me initiate by stating that I don't fill there is a perfect GPS except from the perception of the user and their application. If it meets your criteria, then it serves the intended purpose! That being said, let me try to summarize my personal observations from my point of opinion.
After purchasing the Delorme PN-40, I mercurial signed up for the $29.99 annual download service to engage advantage of this impressive feature. I have downloaded about a dozen maps at this posting and must say that Delorme has been very effective in minimizing the number of maps that can be downloaded. First, the size of the maps you can download for each diagram type (color aerial, USGS, etc..) is restricted to some size in sq Km. This isn't too noteworthy of an advise as they are titanic enough for my typical hike. Second, I have found that the download run is being slight to speeds on the order of 15-20Kb/s. This is incredibly wearisome considering the capability of cable is in excess of 700Kb/s. A typical download time for the maximum 250sq/km file is over 1.5hrs. In addition, many of the downloads conclude prematurely, and this requires you to download the entire file again (a download manager isn't able to resume the download after termination) . I have spent days trying to download a single file due to premature downloads (and no, my modem and router aren't the cause!)
The learning curve for uploading the diagram files to the PN-40 is tricky and not documented very well. It took me (I'm an electrical engineer) about 4 hours to sift through the documentation along with some trial and error. Once downloading was accomplished, I found that the note of the maps was resplendent, but lacked detail.
I then took the Delorme PN-40 and Garmin 60CSX (Sirf Star III chipset) on a 9 mile hike in Forest Park located in Portland Oregon. I customary current Powerex Medion batteries in both GPS's. The temperature outside was about 35degF and the hike took approx 5 hours. My findings are as follows:
The Delorme PN-40 took several minutes longer than the Garmin 60CSx to lock onto the satellites before a 3D concept was possible. The Delorme circle of uncertainty, accuracy of the state, varied significantly while standing in the same space on originate terrain with no obstructed opinion of the sky. The variation would be on the order of +- 15ft to +-40ft. The Garmin locked onto the signal vary consistently for this same plot with variations of only +-2ft. I found the aerial reveal on the Delorme to be difficult to view without the backlight. Label that the isobar lines aren't easily seperated from the aerial background. It may unprejudiced be me, but I'm not color blind and have favorable vision. The Garmin indicate is easier to view, I deem, because there isn't distinguished clutter on the present (the backlight helps very great in gross light also) . The Delorme tracking lines are ample! It is easy to recognize where you have gone and is nicely color contrasted to the background intention. The Garmin tracking points are almost impossible to watch (until downloaded to your PC) as they blend into the topo diagram! The last point I want to accomplish concerns the battery life, and this was the biggest impart for my personal exhaust. The Delorme battery life was barely acceptable (for my purposes) under the conditions of this hike (chilly and wet for 5 hours) . The battery indicator on the Delorme started dropping after about 2.5 hours and declined steadily for the remainder of the hike. The last hour of the hike I expected the Delorme to shut off, but the batteries did bear out for the beefy hike. The Garmin battery life remained at paunchy for the entire hike. You can argue that my test wasn't exactly lovely since the batteries weren't mark novel and don't know how often I primitive the backlight, but I didn't query the Delorme to open indicating reduced battery power so soon. A sample size of one unit is not exactly a grand indicator of all the units sold, but then I'm not being hired by anyone or trying to select sides! Obviously, you must be the decision maker for your application.
I will say that both products performed well enough for this one hike. I remove the Garmin for satellite reception, consistent locking, battery life and ease of software exercise. However I do like the note capabilities of the Delorme. Also, the Delorme mapping is far righteous to Garmin, but at the expense of a steep learning curve. I also want to mention that Delorme did a gigantic job for allowing exhaust of every battery type you might want to use; from lithium ion to alkaline. Also, I really relish Delorme giving easy access to the stout capacity of a 32Gb SDHC card (which I verified worked well), but you do need plenty of storage for the hybrid aerial maps.
In summary, let me say that in my idea I feel that Garmin has the lead on GPS hardware and that Delorme has the lead on Mapping software. I would fancy to examine a product created by the merger of these two companies to engage advantage of both of their strengths. First-rate luck on your remove decision.
Note that I am not an employee of either company, and have no personal bias towards them. I also occupy products from both companies!
I received my novel DeLorme PN-40 GPSr the other day.
First off, let me position that my previous GPSr was a basic Etrex. It was fair mature, but helped me derive lots of geocaches. Now, preserve in mind two weeks ago I had NO plan of getting a DeLorme. I was comely site on getting the Garmin Oregon, and had honest an inkling of the PN-XX's. So, I headed on over to the DeLorme forums and posted some questions. The level of attention I received from the members as well as employees of DeLorme really impressed me. Couple that with a DeLorme employee's blog post which fine mighty seemed to be a affirm reply to my questioning about Mac abet, and I was sold. I'm willing to wait a month for runt Mac attend, and know that they are working towards more attend down the road.
So, onto my first impressions. This might not have the bells and whistles aesthetically of the Oregon (by this I mean ample touch shroud, lack of buttons), but it ROCKS. I really have nothing to compare it to other than the Etrex, but it is Rapid, rapid, Snappy! I've heard the PN-20 took a while to render maps and build routes. This rendered maps real-time while I was driving. It only took a few seconds to calculate a driving route. Really fantastic. On top of that, it took quite a few minutes from a cool initiate to fetch a 3-D fix, but once it did, every restart after that had an almost instant fix. Literally, I turned it on and it acquired a fix.
The driving directions were very moral, and the beep was sufficient for me to know to turn. If I had the go kit, I could maintain the backlight on in the, and have no jam finding my scheme to other addresses. Speaking of addresses, the maps that arrive with this are Big! So easy to load the pre-cut set maps that approach on the accompanying DVDs. I haven't tried to slice maps online yet, but I concept on grabbing a bunch of satellite imagery, as that is one of the key points that sold me on the PN-40.
Now, onto the main reason I wanted a fresh GPSr, geocaching. The Etrex served its purpose, but sometimes I would be walking around an set for over an hour, with the GPSr jumping all over the dwelling. With the PN-40, it took me just to the cache. I had already read the hint, so I view I knew where it was. The GPSr showed that I was only 2 feet from where I notion it was!!! Unfortunately, I couldn't net it at first, so I preserve looking, and finally I accept it a couple of feet from where I was first looking. I gape at the PN-40, and distinct enough it was registering 0 feet. Maybe this was beginner's luck, but I was impressed.
I am simply AMAZED. This was the greatest geocaching experience I have ever had. I loaded Color Aerial Imagery onto my PN, and it was literally like i had Google Earth as GPSr. I viewed all my caches on the blueprint, scrolled to one I wanted to hit, and routed to it. It was so apt it was scary! I was in heavy foliage at times, and it never lost a 3-D connection. It wasn't jumping all over the situation like my stale GPS did. This was valid! In fact, I reflect the biggest quandary is that the people who placed the caches had a less factual GPS, thus throwing off the coords slightly.
I had the PN auto-routing for roads to each cache. Once I got to the plot, I unbiased let the GPS lead me to cache. Some of the caches I didn't even read, I fair made my intention to the place and found it.
I'm already having a lot of fun with this. It's a substantial change from my Etrex. My biggest pains was that I would have buyers regret and wished I bought the Oregon. So far that is not the case. Once I commence loading all kinds of different maps, which reach with the GPSr (and for $29.99, I can win a year subscription of unlimited design downloads of their online maps), I don't glance how the Oregon can even compare.
I could not be happier with my win of this fancy! I am really amazed how the PN does everything! I can't wait for the next firmware update to accumulate the enhanced geocaching features. The PN-40 can only acquire better.
BTW, 7 for 8 caches today, and the one I couldn't obtain was definitely gone.
Great job DeLorme!
I had a chance to try the PN-40 extensively on a unusual off-trail desert hiking go. The unit performed flawlessly, and though I'm beautiful picky about features, at the extinguish of the week, I detached didn't have a wish list.
Delorme's recent high resolution color aerial imaging is a actual upgrade from it's previous topo and "satellite" imagery. Comparing side by side with Google Earth, Google has a microscopic edge on resolution, but it's magnificent discontinuance. And for a mobile GPS, the resolution is more than you need, and you can zoom up on details that provide more than enough detail. Delorme's unique subscription pricing option of $30 for a year's worth of unlimited plan downloading is a powerful better pricing model than the venerable "pay as you go", which got expensive hasty.
The PN-40 is mercurial, both in GPS acquisition and way re-drawing. The GPS continued to track while in my pocket. It acquires a fix after being turned on often within 30 seconds. The plan re-draws are not silky still if you site it to always orient "heading up" as it constantly tries to adjust to your varying direction. But in "north up" and "course up" mode, where the scheme is static and your arrow is fascinating, the unit is very easy to employ. And zooming in and out is almost instantaneous, which is great faster than older handheld GPS models with high resolution aerial maps.
Planning routes and waypoints on the included Topo software is an easy device to belief hikes, though you can also engage points on the petite shroud on the unit if you don't have a computer nearby. That's a slower process as you have to utilize the four-direction round button, which is not that easy to nagivate around extensively.
The unit is rugged, with high impact, tough plastic on the outside, and a battery case the screws tight with finger screws to build it water resistant.
The unit is easy to expend but has a whole lot of layers of complexity if you want to do more. It took me several days of heavy employ before I felt I knew all the menu options. There are a lot of ways to customize the unit, which is probably why I didn't feel I wished for noteworthy at the waste of the hiking week.
Though you could expend this for auto routing, I acquire my regular auto GPS a lot easier to expend for that. But for anything off roads, such as hiking or jeep riding, this unit is really ample.
Here's a few tips I learned using it:
1) Sometimes the unit will not be recognized by my computer when I first hook up the USB cord and turn it on. For some reason, if I objective turn the unit off, wait a bit and then abet on, the computer recognizes it on the second try.
2) Don't be shy to turn up the indicate brightness to corpulent brightness. It's a lot easier to scrutinize in the day, and since the unit runs on two AA batteries, it's no quandary if you need to switch them out. I found that two AA batteries lasted a day and a half at fat brightness with the demonstrate region to automatically turn off after 30 seconds of no spend.
3) I scratched the camouflage with my car keys in the same pocket, so perceive out for the mask and curious or metal objects.
Portable high resolution GPS has finally become reality. I really enjoyed my hiking high-tail, being able to concept complex routes in come, and contemplate exactly where I was when out in the backcountry or on trails. I was able to execute some colorful decisions while hiking when it was getting leisurely and I needed to figure out a modern plan succor out. It took years for my dream of a hand held GPS with high resolution maps to finally happen. I highly recommend the PN-40.
