On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 06:48:52 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

T i m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

and I did try what the mobile homers I know had
before I got one myself. None of them ever had
a Garmin and almost all of them had something,
normally a tomtom or a navman.

I wonder how much of that was down to marketing?

I don't believe it has anything to do with marketing,
just that garmin was never that common with satnavs
for cars and other road vehicles.

Maybe where you live but it was about the only offering when I bought
mine?

I've seen people go for something because the
marketing suggested it was 'easy', even when
the competitors offering were equally easy.

Sure, but with the mobile homers its much more about
word of mouth.

Yes, but they don't make up the vast majority of the population do
they?

They are much more social than most
and sit around comparing notes on the hardware they
use like the mobile homes, satnavs, solar panels,
generators, dunny dump sites, places to visit etc
in the evenings particularly.

I'm sure they do, like caravanners or people living on boats ... still
not yer average Joe though eh? FWIW, the GPS's I bought were very much
used / recommended by the motorcycle community so not dissimilar to
your concept.

Some of my mates used to routinely migrate to where
its warm every winter and spend the entire winter sitting
around in a mobile home park playing gin rummy,
getting ****ed and furiously swatting the midges.

;-)

They also have meets a few times a year when hundreds
of them all show up at some place by prior arrangement
and spend days there doing all sorts of IMO silly stuff.

Ok.

I went for the tomtom myself basically because the
navman still had discrete buttons and the tomtom
was entirely touch screen and I could see that that was
the way to go. Navman did eventually go that way too.

With (protective) gloves on discrete buttons are still the best way to go.

Voice commands and a proper headset leave that for dead.

So you keep saying. Loads more stuff to go wrong / charge / connect
and far less flexible. And my GPS (this is more waterproof than your
phone) doesn't have voice recognition.

Touch screens can be ok when the buttons are big enough but aren't
so good to use on the move as there is nothing to 'centre' the finger
or keep it in place (so you end up swiping rather than pressing). I know
this to be true from using the (touch screen) Nuvi on my bicycle / tandem.

But you havent tried the much better approach
of voice commands and a proper headset.

Of course I have, on my phone (didn't need the headset as it was in
the car) but you are forgetting I don't want to have my phone tied up
doing something I have something better available to do. The sooner
get that ... ;-)

Some else I talk to on usenet also loves his Garmins,
also a pom, but an immigrant one to here in his case.
He migrated using the £10 pom system back in the
60s, long before anyone had any GPSs.

He's also into small boats.

I was watching a program about Plymouth earlier. The only electronic
device they showed a close up of was a Garmin (it could have been a
GPS or echo sounder etc).

Well, I think there are country by country differences that can make
the need for owning a GPS more relevant. Like I live on top of one
of the biggest city's in the world and because most of it is 'old', it
has loads of small / complicated roads and back streets (and no old
towns with the American 'grid system'). My GPS sometimes sounds
like a rapper, trying to get all the turn instructions out quick enough!

Yeah, the Garmins can be late with the turn instructions too.

I've only had that after just switching it on. The timings of the
instructions are linked to the speed so *always* earlier than you
need.

Compare that with somewhere like The States or Aus where
I could imagine hearing 'In 2000 miles, turn right'. ;-) [1]

There are only a few places like that.

Including where you live though.

I think they were also the first to make the waterproof
models (boats, motorcycling and hiking).

Likely.

And again, it's ok for alternative manufacturers coming up with
this stuff 'now', but the likes of Garmin were the only people out
there for some time and often were the first to offer suitable and
specialised products (like waterproof units for walking and
glove friendly_waterproof units for motorcycling).

But the others did the much better approach of voice
commands and bluetooth headsets well before Garmin.

I'll have to take your word for that as it's not been something I've
ever been interested in.

It's like the Linux fanboys getting all excited about the Steam game
platform being available on Linux, only 10 years behind Windows. ;-)

In your case with voice commands.

Yers, *my case* according to you, not the equipment. However, it's *my
choice* and I'll use what suits *me* and my roll best (thanks).

I guess, although even pre 'Free Map updates for life (of that unit
g), many of the Garmin units allowed you to update the map to
the current map for free, if one had been released reasonably recently.

They all have that now.

Well, I've seen 'many', I'm not sure I'd go as far as all. ;-)

Yeah, I did go a bit far there. The very cheap no name stuff
doesn't have any map updates at all, you just buy another.

We bought one. ;-(

Not clear how many of those sell anymore tho now that
even the cheapest smartphones do a lot better so for the
same price you get a phone and a camera and a browser
as well as the satnav and always up to date maps.

'Updated', not 'up_to_date'. There is no guarantee your maps are any
more up to date than any other 'connected' GPS system. To be
'connected' costs, either in the initial purchase price or in other
connection charges.

But still plenty of them have utterly silly prices for their
software only version for smartphones. Like $80 or more.

Yeah.

It would have to offer a hell of a lot more over
google.maps to be worth paying anything like
that for it and they in fact offer a lot less,

So, say I was going on a motorcycle tour of the UK and wasn't going
to have any data connection on the trip. Could I download all the maps
required to the same level of detail as most GPS's before I set off?

Makes more sense to get what you need when you pass a wifi.

That isn't an answer to my question. I'm giving you a real world
example of the situation (as I don't have WiFi accounts with any
external service).

nothing like as good real time traffic

Again, I'm not sure of the value of that (in the UK).

I am. Traffic congestion is a real problem in quite a bit of that.

Not been a problem yet?

I have it (free for life) on my Garmin Nuvi

Nothing like the real time measured traffic that google does.

It's real time measured traffic over the RDS service and possibly
using the same sources?

and it works but I'm not sure how often I see the
suggestion of traffic and then do anything about it?

You only need to use it a few times for it to be useful.

I've used it loads of times and it's not yet been anything like
'useful'. I have avoided more traffic issues by looking at the
motorway as I drive over it or avoiding known trouble spots at the
wrong time of day than I have with *any* traffic service.

Or how often you can do anything about it (like when something
happens on a motorway and you are right behind it).

Much more often by definition you won't actually be involved.

Quite.

Coming back from a 100 mile trip the other day it was indicating
traffic (red line on our route) but gave the estimated delays as
being no greater than 5 minutes. It really wasn't worth trying
to avoid it as it would have probably taken longer.

And on the long run into Sydney running very late, it was clear
from the google ETA that I needed to hoon in at a hell of a rate
to have any hope of catching the train, with the Nokia telling me
that I would arrive in plenty of time keeping to the speed limit.
Google was right, Nokia was wrong.

Then Nokia solution is cr*p? Not all systems are created equal. Not
everyone has data or wants to use a smartphone as a GPS.

and no street view at all

I've never used street view when out and
about because I can see that with my eyes. ;-)

You use it when setting up the nav so that when
you arrive there you have a pretty good idea of
where to go and where to park etc before you
get there.

Like I said, I can use my eyes (and brain). ;-)

I used it to see where I needed to go on foot
once I had been dropped outside the main
train station in central Sydney because I had
never actually used it because I normally fly.

Sure, I've also used Street View on my PC to check things out,
including places I'm driving to and I could do so on my phone if I
wanted when out and about. I haven't needed to yet?

Couldn't make much sense of the internal map
of the very big station that has all of the country
lines and all of the suburban lines and light rail
and buses.

Yup, some people don't find them straightforward.

Didn't worry about it because we were
supposed to arrive there with an hour in hand and
I assumed that I would have plenty of time to
wander around and see what was what when
I got there. I didn't even know if you were
supposed to check in for the country trains
like you do with the airlines or not. You do
book in advance and get an electronic ticket.

Ok.

When I jumped out of the car at the lights
right at the time the train was due to leave,
I was a hell of a long way from the platform,
didn't have a ****ing clue where to go,
managed to come across one of those
loonys who we used to keep in locked
wards when I asked people which was
the way to the country platforms, with
her quite literally screaming at me at
the top of her voice.

Ok?

Eventually ended up on the right platform
5 mins after the train had left.

Not good.

and no satellite view at all either.

I'm generally in a car, not a hot air balloon g so I'm
not sure what advantage that would be either (to me)?

It is when you are camping/walking when you want to
see where is a good place to camp which isnt one of the
nice and tidy places where someone mows the grass etc.

That's where we camp thanks. We are just looking for a change, not to
go back in time 10,000 years.

snip

[1] The furthest ahead I've heard our GPS announce as about 75 miles.

I don't recall google maps ever doing that but I don't normally have
it on all the time, usually turn it off and just turn it on again when
I am coming up to somewhere which can get a bit hard to remember
the detail,

Helps to keep the phone battery good eh? ;-)

like when the highway goes thru a particular town in a
complicated way or there is a turn off from one of the national
highways that has been shifted a lot recently so isnt engraved
in my mind yet because I haven't used the new one much yet.

Ok.

And the major national highway which has been completely
redone so it doesn't have any of the towns on it at all now
tho that is just for the exits you need to use to get petrol etc.

Oooerr.

We (daughter pillion) broke down on the motorbike whilst
on a motorcycling trip (clutch splines stripped) and had to
be relayed the 175 miles home. We sat my Garmin portable
GPS next to the Garmin GPS that was built into the AA truck
and the driver gave the remote for his GPS to our daughter
to see if she could setup out home as the destination.

Must be pretty thick if he needs a course
to use a GPS and still can't use it.

I'm not sure about thick, just some people have an aptitude for things
that others don't. Plus I think he was just being kind to our
daughter.

She had input the destination before he had started telling
her how (he was laughing how they were sent on a course to
learn how to use the GPS's g) and it was interesting to see
the two devices mirroring each other exactly (speed, ETA etc).

It would be more surprising if they didn't IMO being the same brand.

Well quite but different models, chips and software possibly though.
It's the same as seeing your car speedo is fairly accurate when
compared against the GPS. It *should* be good, just nice to prove it.

It was interesting to watch the difference between the satnav
that comes with Nokia Lumias that doesn't have its own name
and google maps. Google left it for dead on ETA because of its
much better live measured traffic data.

So you said.

Once on the motorway both GPS's went quiet and
then after some time, his closely followed by mine
said 'Straight ahead for 75 miles' (or some such). ;-)

Didn't get that in the run in to Sydney on the Hume with
google or the nokia. I did comment that a few more 'you're
still on the right route' would have been better, but presumably
it would have started howling if I had gone where I shouldn't
have even if just to get petrol.

Potentially, yes.

We did stop for petrol but I
cant remember if we asked it to tell us which exit to use for
that, we probably did.

He was a good driver and recovery guy, ex Army Royal Engineers.

But clearly a tecknostupid if he needed a course
to use a GPS like the Garmin and still couldn't use it.

See above. The AA would have sent him on the same course they send all
their people, probably have to legally.

Cheers, T i m