Am thinking of buying a satnav system for MTB, road cycling and hill walking. Until now, I’ve always been a map & compass man but could be tempted by technology.

Question is – do I opt for SatMap or Garmin. I’ve never used either of them, but my understanding is that Garmin may be slightly faster in identifying your location. If this is the case, does anyone know if it’s a noticebale difference.

Likewise, I think Garmin may have the capacity to offer more around personal performance data (i.e. heart rate, cadence, etc). However this type of stuff doesn’t really interest me.

Therefore STW compadres, which would you recommend (and why) ? please

Garmin Oregon 450 here. Once the gps is on it finds your location almost immediately. Its on all the time when your using so not sure what the delay you mean.

Depends what you want from your gps. Mapping is important. I use 1:50K off and on road here and in europe. Sure satmap is good to.

I choose the garmin because it is robust and has a large viewing area and good OS map coverage area plus good functionality. Dont dismiss functionality until you have tried it. I have thought Points Of Interest was a waste until I went on holiday to Pisa. Whipped out GPS – open POI and it takes me on foot direct to the leaning tower and the rest of the attractions and your hotel 🙂 handy in strange countries believe me.

The Satmap is very good, doesn’t take long to lock on and then you just leave the thing on all day so it has an instantaneous fix on your position. With the unit in a good power saving mode I can use it for a long (6 hr ish) ride and the LiPol battery meter is still showing full juice!

Personally, as a pure navigational device, I prefer the Satmap – bigger screen, more intuitive interface, very easy to use. The Garmin has more bells and whistles, you can use it as a sat-nav in your car for example and the top-end Oregon has a built-in camera, which seems a bit excessive, but anyway. I think the Garmin has a more sophisticated initial position location finder, but it only really only matters for a couple of minutes at the start of the day.

I guess, with time you’d get used to the Garmin interface – people adjust to pretty much anything given time – but for me the OS mapping reproduction on the Garmin units isn’t as good as the Satmap by some distance and the screen is quite a lot smaller.

The other units worth looking at are the Lowrance Endura ones with Mapyx Quo software now coming with them. Smaller screen again, but very clear and relatively easy to use. Oh, and not sure how well the Oregon would cope with gloved use, being a touch screen unit, though they do a similarly functional one with buttons instead.

BWD touch screen one finger WSIWYG use so very easy to use in gloves. Easy to change settings on the fly with one touch. I think its pretty well set out and very customizable. If you are thinking of using on road the garmin does a great routing option like BWD says. You can use this in the car as well. Works like any car satnav showing you turn markers like a car satnav. Also auto recalculates your route if you miss the turn. Great for on road. You might like to consider how robust your unit needs to be. Mine takes a fair amount of abuse LOL and I think its heavier than satmap but is pretty much indestructible.

If you want OS mapping I’d go satmap for the prity much the same reasons as BWD. There have been some good bundle deals over the summer.
For biking I use a garmin geko, cheap and chearful, dont like the idea of crahing with a couple of hundred quid of easily breakable gps on the bike.

My point OAP. I think satmap is a little less robust. OS maps are OS maps but satmap has larger screen true. Garmin you can add HR, power meters etc if you need.

Look at all the options and maybe try before you buy.

I can’t say I’d really want to crash test any of the top-end GPS units. I suspect, the way the Satmap Active 10’s constructed, that if you were to crater with it on the Satmap bar mount, the back would rip off the unit. There’s a new case coming out for the Satmap btw, waterproof, but I’m not sure whether it would increase crash protection. The Oregon and the Lowrance both feel pretty solid to be honest.

On the glove side of things, the OP was talking about walking use and I was thinking more of fat-fingered winter mountaineering gloves than bike ones.

+1 for Garmin Oregon especially if you have any interest in geocaching.

Further Garmin geocaching info which has just been released – going to make Garmin more and more the standard for geocaching.

QUOTE

Garmin has just lifted geocaching further into the tech geek real with the new Chirp. The Chirp is a small wireless beacon that can be programmed with loads of data to help geocachers on their quest to find a particular cache or set of caches. 

Tiny, durable and waterproof, the Garmin Chirp wireless beacon can be programmed by and communicate with any compatible wireless enabled Garmin handheld GPS ( Oregon, Dakota, GPSMAP series). The Chirp stores data such as cache hints, multi-cache coordinates, and the number of visitors to the cache.

Next time you are out geocaching and you get within 10m of a cache housing the wireless beacon, you will get a message that the cache is nearby and that a Chirp has been detected. You can instantly download the Chirp data which will include the coordinates of the owner’s next cache in a multi-cache situation. 

The Garmin Chirp is password protected so only the cache or Chirp owner can load or edit information onto the wireless beacon. The CR2032 lithium coin cell battery will last for up to one year of continuous use and can be easily replaced.  

Since Chirp is exclusive to Garmin, there has been some debate over whether or not Geocaching.com will accept the Chirp as legit. As of yesterday however, Geocaching.com now shows a wireless beacon option under the Equipment (Required/Not Required) cache information column.  

I would love to eventually see wireless beacons work with more than just the Garmin handheld GPS. Your own handheld GPS could log you in to a cache with your identifier as well as check in or out different trackables. No more water soaked logs or forgetting to bring a pen with you! 

The Garmin Chirp retails for $22.99 from the Garmin website or a bargain $19.95 from REI. 

Ok I have to admit in the summer we want geo caching with kids. Was fun, but any gps can do it. garmin just has it built in. Garmin is wireless enabled to share info.

I use my Orgegon all the time with my gloves on. Black mountain classic, Sarn Helen, gap etc etc Not like IPOD which is a bit of a pain. But top tip – use enduro single track gloves and the finger bits are brilliant for IPOD.

Anyone managed to find one of the new Memory Map units (the 3500) to play with yet?

http://www.memory-map.co.uk/adventurergps/

IPx7 rated, so properly waterproof

The MM 3500 isn’t out yet. I’ve seen it, but not used it. Bigger screen and waterproof, as you say, and good value, particularly if you already own Memory Map mapping. I’ve used the 2800 and while the OS mapping is clear, the software is very clunky, lots of Windows-style drop-down menus in tiny, near unreadable text and window closing ‘x’s that are buried in the corner of the screen and near impossible to press with a finger. And not very intuitive. Probably less of an issue if you’re an existing Memory Map user, but it really did my head in working out how quite basic functions were accessed.

ViewRanger on a smartphone is very good btw.

Oh, and I did some geocaching last year as well, I was forced to do it, but it was actually quite entertaining on bikes…

BWD you tried garmin then? Just tap and go with the setup. Its very easy no drop downs etc. I quite like the ability to arrange a profile and you swap from one profile to another with one touch. All the screens are customizable – touch the one you want to change and you get a further option to select and your done. Two taps.