I love paper maps too and can spend hours looking over them.
To give you an idea of how I use a GPS.
I use a Garmin Zūmo 550, mounted in a cradle and mounted to bike with a RAM mount.
What I found is I like is to be able to hear the directions from the GPS as this allows me to keep my eyes where they should be and not distracted on the GPS. I have a stereo headset with mic in the helmet to hear.
I did this last year while traversing larger cities just to get through and out to the other side and was so much more pleasurable to ride than having to watch busy traffic and watch a GPS screen.
I am techy, (read: way too techy) and what I am doing over these past weeks is to look over the OSM maps rather than the maps Garmin maps as I prefer to support open source where I can, plus the OSM maps, I find fantastic. I am downloading the latest OSM maps for the areas I will travel this year. So this year I will set it up for both, visual and audio navigation. Plus the Zūmo will be connected to the Android phone via Bluethooth.
Some people have taken to trying out using a smartphone for navigation, is this something that attracts you?
I use the smartypantsphone as a backup, not for primary navigation as the GPS electronics is not as good as what you will get in a dedicated GPS unit, though still, it does work, albeit with less speed and sensitivity.
So, in addition to what Bertrand says, have you had any experience with GPS navigation before? Would you be prepared to to spend a few hours to learn their capabilities to gain the maximum benefit out of using a GPS.
I don't know anything on TomTom, just Garmin and navigation apps on Android, which Bertrand is also playing around with I believe.
The Montana is a newer unit and I believe can store multiple maps on it, whereas the Zūmo 550 and 660 series can only store one map in their internal memory plus one additional map on the SD card. If you buy Garmin, I guess you will get the European maps pre-installed. Garmin charges a fee for map updates. A reason I have moved to using OSM maps. The map for Europe/UK from Garmin is one map.
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Paul
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I have learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.
Last edited by rockwallaby; 9 Jun 2013 at 01:17.
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