Review: Garmin Mobile PC

Now this is amazing. is I think the second time in my life I won a contest!
Thank you Marvin and to all the readers and contributors to this wonderful forum. I hope everyone has a blessed and joyous holiday season.

Regards
Keith

Can routes be screened by vehicle size (height and length)?

No as the routing data does not include overheight or load limit information.

Terry

Has anyone tried this in their boat? Does it show your boat position on the lake or river?
Mortaci

Yes, it will show you your position on a map, no matter where you are, land or water. Topo maps are particularly good for giving accurate shorelines of bodies of water.

BUT, boats normally use charts, not maps, the difference being that charts show the depth of the water, navigation aids, submerged rocks, etc. while maps do not. If you don't care about hitting submerged rocks or reefs or whatever you're good to go.

Garmin no longer makes charts that can be loaded into a computer for use in Garmin nRoute or Garmin Mobile PC and when they did they would only display properly in nRoute, not in Mobile PC.

Edit: Correction: As Terry points out below, Garmin does make several different freshwater lake products, the Inland Lakes series for the US and Canada and the LakeMaster series for the American mid west. I had forgotten about these as I don't use them, living on the Atlantic coast.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=13484#mapTab

Click on "View additional maps for this product" and scroll down to the "On the Water" section.

It will show your position anywhere on earth. The difficulty is obtaining mapping data for lakes and rivers in your area. Although Garmin does sell lake map data for many North America locations, I suspect it might not be suitable for use with Mobile PC.

Terry

I take that back. Garmin Inland Lakes is compatible with Mobile PC. If you are considering Mobile PC for this use, make sure you get the version which includes a GPS (USB 20x or BT 20x). That will allow you to unlock the lake map products to it. The lake maps do cost extra though.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=1404&pvID=2691

Terry

Updated Garmin Mobile PC version 5.00.70

Discussion here: Garmin Mobile PC 5.00.70 (February 19, 2010)

The new 5.00.70 version has a know issue that is being discussed here: Garmin Mobile PC 5.00.70 randomly crashing while driving

Garmin is aware of it:

Hi,

I'm new to the forum, but have been using it to research various GPS tools for my Asus Eee PC t91mt. I currently have an older Garmin Nuvi, but want to use the PC in my RV.

Reading through this thread, I saw mention of a free trial version of Mobile PC, but can't find it on the Garmin website. Can someone direct me to it? Their is also mention of using Mapsource. I downloaded it from Garmin, but when I tried to install, it said it couldn't find an earlier version installed. I guess I downloaded an upgrade. Once again, can someone please give me some direction?

Thanks, Jerry

The download of MapSource will only install on a computer that already has MapSource on it. Fortunately, you can install Garmin BaseCamp, install MapSource, and then remove BaseCamp (or not).
BaseCamp

MapSource does not have any built in maps though and can't use the one on your Nuvi (or the Mobile PC one) so it is not valuable unless you already have maps for your area in the correct format.

Terry

Thanks Terry,

So, as I understand it, if I get Mobile PC, I can use it for navigation. But for trip planning or adding poi's I need to use MapSource. And to use MapSource I need to get maps someplace.

I currently have street atlas 2008, which I don't care for, and ms s&t 2010, which is OK for trip planning, but doesn't have a great nav interface. I was hoping to be able to use s&t for trip planning and import to mobile pc for nav. Maybe this isn't the best plan.

Btw, any lead on a trial version of Mobile PC?

Jerry

You can plan trips in Mobile PC but S&T is easier. S&T 2010 can save gpx trip files but those are not directly usable in Mobile PC. I can't see why you couldn't open them in MapSource even without a map and transfer the routes, waypoints to Mobile PC from there though.

terry

I think Basecamp can use the map on the Nuvi. It costs nothing but the download time to find out. And if you need to download it first in order to install Mapsource anyway, you might as well try it.

...ken...