Garmin US TOPO 24k vs. Garmin TOPO

[this_is_nascar]

I want to purchase a Topo mapset for my Garmin GPSMAP 60cs and I see that Garmin has (2) different products.

1- United States Topo.
2- US Topo 24k.

I want to use the software as an aid while off-roading in the NJ area. I really can't tell what the differences are between the products. Any suggestions?

 

[Boyd]

I want to use the software as an aid while off-roading in the NJ area. I really can't tell what the differences are between the products.

The 24K series looks very nice, but it's worthless for your use. Only covers selected National Parks in the East with nothing in NJ. See the following:

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/topo24knpeast.jsp#

Also, big price difference - you need to buy 3 packages (East, Central, West) to get full US coverage which would cost about $350 list. The US Topo is $116 for the whole country. And the National Parks 24k only covers selected parks, not the whole region whereas the US Topo includes everything (although the roads are getting pretty out of date).

Also realize that none of the Topo maps are "routable". In other words, you can't ask it to compute the best route between two locations; you need the City maps for that.

I have the US Topo maps on my StreetPilot and also my Legend C and I like them a lot personally. But don't expect them to look like a USGS Topo quad...

 

[this_is_nascar]

Thanks Boyd. I appreciate the feedback. I'll go with the US Topo. It looks like Amazon has it for much less than Garmin direct.

 

[kingofthepines]

Boyd, I also have the street pilot III with the city navigator maps and have found virtually every road in the pines is on there (like lost lane for instance). Do you find the topo maps to be indispensible or does city suffice?

 

[this_is_nascar]

I've just finished reading the reviews from some folks who purchased this from Amazon. It doesn't sound too favorable. I think I'm going to hold off for now and just use TopoZone when needed. I do have City Navigator v7.x for the GPSMAP 60CS, so it's not like I'm totally with navigation while wheeling.

 

[Teegate]

I have the US Topo maps on my StreetPilot and also my Legend C and I like them a lot personally. But don't expect them to look like a USGS Topo quad...

I found the Topo to not have many road names. When traveling with Steve in the pines he rattles off names and they are never on my Topo. I switched to an old software I was given by a member of this site and found it much better.

I would agree Nascar. Hold off.

Guy

 

[Boyd]

Yes, most of the little roads are un-named in the Garmin Topo. But on my StreetPilot 2620 I have both the City and Topo maps loaded, so I can switch between them depending on what I'm interested in. The street maps are missing quite a few bodies of water, and the ones which are shown are not very accurate (since the software is designed for driving on roads ). The topo maps also have a lot of geographical points of interest which aren't on the City maps, like dams, old place names, parks/state forests, and "mountains" (using the term loosely here..) such as FRM, Spring Hill, Apple Pie Hill. They topo's also show swamps/wetlands and countour lines, both of which I find very handy.

But if you just want to see the names of roads, or if you want the GPS to calculate the best route between two points, then the City maps are your best choice. However without the Topo's you are missing a lot of detail when you get out into the woods. The Garmin GPS's have the ability to load both kinds of maps and switch between them, but of course you're limited by the amount of memory in your unit. Heh, since I have 2GB in my StreetPilot that isn't much of a problem but on my Legend C I only load the topos for NJ because space is limited.

So I don't know what people didn't like when they reviewed the topo's at Amazon. Maybe they were expecting something which wasn't there, or a "one size fits all" solution. I used to have a Magellan Meridian Gold with their City and Topo maps. Their topo maps do include most of the little road names, but other than that I found them really inferior to Garmin's maps in terms of the other features mentioned above. I sold that unit to another member here and got the Garmin, which I have never regretted. But if your main priority is seeing road names out in the pines and you are on a tight budget then one of the Magellan units with their Topo maps might be a better choice.

In the end, everyone has their own likes and dislikes. So choose the product which meets your needs best; there is not "best" solution for everyone.

 

[kingofthepines]

good answer. thanks

 

[this_is_nascar]

Well, despite my concerns, I purchased a copy of United States Topo from Amazon. It was heavily discounted from the price listed on the Garmin site. After playing with it for an hour or so, I'm really glad I made the purchase. Even though it may not be currently up-to-date, there's really a wealth of information that otherwise would not be noticed in the City Navigator software.

My only issue was installing it. I still have an issue, but got far enough along to use the software. For some reason, the installation is not giving me the option to make everything local to my laptop, thus requiring me to keep the East Region CD in my CD reader.

Additonally, I've read that folks have been able to overlay the City Navigator maps with the Topo maps. I "think" I have that working on the GPS device, but not on the laptop in MapSource. I have to either work with City Navigator or Topo maps and switch between the two. I can't get them to overlay.

 

[onehand]

yes, you have to keep the cd in to read it on your comp, us roads and recreation loads completly and does not required the cd for reading on comp, roads and rec is no longer available, i find it much more useable in the woods than topo

 

[Boyd]

I'm pretty sure you can copy everything off the CD's onto your computer - I recall doing that. Somewhere there's an option. Sorry, my old PC is still boxed up after moving so I can't check.

You can overlay the maps on your GPS, but as you noticed, not on the PC. However the overlay is of limited use. Wherever you have both the city and topo maps loaded, the city maps take priority and completely hide the topos. But if you load a larger area of topos than cities, you'll see the topos in areas where the city maps are missing. But the real value of this feature is the ability to choose EITHER the topo or city maps on your GPS.

 

[bobpbx]

Nascar, once I loaded the topo on my GPS, I never once needed to use it on the computer. I use USAPhotomaps, the free software. It has both topo and photo, it is simple to use, very quick, not loaded with uneeded featurses, and you can transfer waypoints to your GPS.

 

[this_is_nascar]

Thanks. I've never heard of that, so I'll have to check it out.

 

[this_is_nascar]

I've read the owner's manual a couple times over and still can't figure out how to switch/swap between the City Select and Topo maps on my GPSMap 60cs. I have both sets of maps loaded from NJ, but can't find how to toggle between on the device. Any hints please?

 

[Boyd]

I don't know anything about the 60 CS, but on my Legend C you hit the menu button and select Map Setup. Then you scroll across the row of icons on the top to the Information menu (the letter "i" in a circle). You should see a list of all the maps which are loaded, and the active ones should have a check in the box.

On my StreetPilot 2620 it's a little different, but similar. Press the menu key twice and choose Map Info. Then you select the maps you want from the list.

On both units, pressing the menu button again while in the Map Setup screen will give you some other options, showing/hiding the basemap or different components of the other maps.

See your instruction manual for more details. If you don't have the manual, they are available online at garmin.com

 

[this_is_nascar]

Thanks. I'll give that a try tonight.

 

[this_is_nascar]

Thanks for your help Boyd. That worked perfectly. Apparently, City Select always take perference for being shown. You're not permitted to have both CS and Topo overlayed and shown at the same time. You can, however, toggle them just like you mentioned. It brings a whole new meaning to my GPS unit now. Thanks again.

 

[Boyd]

Apparently, City Select always take perference for being shown. You're not permitted to have both CS and Topo overlayed and shown at the same time.

That is only partly true. Think of the different maps as "layers" like you would have in Photoshop. Or think of them as paper maps in a stack. The city maps will always be on the top of the stack and the basemap will always be on the bottom of the stack. However the pieces of paper are not necessarily the same size. The basemap is big, because it covers the whole country. But the size of the other maps is related to how large an area you loaded into the GPS with Mapsource.

So, using a simplified example, let's say you loaded city maps for Burlington and Ocean Counties, and topo maps for Burlington, Camden, Ocean and Atlantic Counties. If you enabled all the maps you would see the following:

Burlington - city
Camden - topo
Ocean - city
Atlantic -topo
Cape May - basemap

In this case, if you wanted to see the topo map for Ocean County you would need to disable the city maps. Like I said, this is just an example. In reality you don't load maps by counties, but by selecting rectangular areas in Mapsource.

But yeah, it's really nice to be able to switch between maps depending on what you want to do and where you're going. Also be aware that the topo maps aren't "routable". In other words, they aren't capable of calculating the best roads to take between points A and B.