![]() For 3 days last year I got to pretend to be a Baja race car driver: Whether exploring someplace I have never been or leading a dozen other Jeeps through a trail I am not completely familiar with, my GPS needs to quickly and clearly tell me which way I need to go to get where I want to go. Off road racing is a completely different world than the jeeping that I use a GPS for. Its used by every, and i mean EVERY race vehicle in off road racing like SCORE and MDR. I am not sure what "kind" of GPS the 540c is but this claim is also made by Garmin for all of it's outdoors GPS's, including the Zumo, which I have used in the rain on my motorcycle in addition to in my Cherokee. Its the only completely ruggidized, weather proof, shock proof gps of its kind on the market. Please forgive me for the comments I am about to make: Your enthusiastic endorsement sounds like it came from more from Lowrance ad copy than personal experience. Some of them are quite capable of helping a jeeper find his way around while off road, but many others are not. The market is saturated with GPS units, even my grocery store sells them now. Please put your flame suit on, but realize that I am not picking on you, just trying to learn from actual users which GPS units serve their needs. Not true, as per garmins website and multiple reviews online, you can add topo maps to the nuvi 350 or higher. Remi, why not join the 20th century and get a computer that has a USB port? That will open up your options considerably. It is really easy to see the display while moving no matter what the light conditions are. I have sucessfully lead several trail runs using this unit, including at night and on trails I have never been on before. ![]() After getting it in my hands I discovered what a great unit it is for jeeping. Garmin markets this one to motorcyclists, I only stumbled accross it because I was looking for a GPS for my BMW. The unit has a 4 hour battery life and a slippery, rounded case that would be tough to carry. You don't want to use this one for hiking though. Large color touch screen display, small unit size. If Garmin had a suitable competing unit it would be. I have no personal experience with Magellan products, though. That one might be worth a look, especially for the price. This is the unit that Magellan's Crossover competes against. Expect this one to be discontinued soon, you might find a new unit for cheap when that happens. Disadvantages: it offers the same small display as the 60 and 76 series, you are limited to the internal memory and it is the only series that Garmin has not seen fit to update with the high-sensitivity SiRF III reciever. Toyota dealers even sell this unit to intall in the FJ Cruiser. The unit is sized to fit on a dashboard and has a color screen, it works equally well for hiking. Quest and Quest 2- These do auto-routing and accept multiple maps, including topo. ![]() They work great for hiking but the display is small considering the amount of room they take on your dashboard. The top of the line versions of them do auto-routing and accept memory cards, allowing you to store several map series of maps in the unit. ![]() Handheld units- eTrex, GPSMAP 60 and GPSMAP 76. They have a huge display but also take up a lot of room in a Jeep. You can do everything with them, even hook up an XM reciever and get realtime weather and doppler radar for anywhere in the US. From Garmin, your options for topo and auto-routing capability are: Same with the Streetpilot i, c and 7xxx series. The Nuvi series are strictly urban navigators.
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