Will a GPS PND bought from abroad work in India?

[wildon]

Originally Posted by Tushargohil

I don't know about others MHz GPS Device but mine start crying when ever i use Destinator 8 with POI option or Zoom it start pop up saying close all other apps... it seems this issue might fixed with 5xxMhz GPS device..

Thanks,
Tushar

I don't have any problems with Destinator 8 with POI options. May be you have not closed the other apps. Check the Task Manager.

[sriturl]

First apologies for the repeat. I read through the complete thread(well almost) and have these questions.

First listing my understanding, please correct me here
I am planning to buy a GPS device from US, and have some maps in India.
I understand that it needs some hack, and may not be a straight forward way to load new maps.
There are few models which can take maps (Satnav or MMI) but they are few models of Garmin and Megellan.
Windows CE based devices are good for hack.

My questions are:
Which are the best models (I saw some discussion on Mio and some chinese stuff)
Do I need to buy maps here? Are there any freeware maps which can be downloaded and used?
Can I use google maps, If I have google earth subscription, can I use it on GPS device?

thanks in advance.

[amitoj]

Okay, so i got Garmin 265WT PND from US. Got it from Amazon.com at a pretty decent price. While in US, it worked like a charm!

Brought it back to India and purchased maps from MMI. Inserted the SD card and viola, it was ready to go!

I've been playing around with it for the past few days and it is pretty reasonable. Ofcourse, there are some mismatches, biggest one being that it assumes that main roads will be faster (which anyone in Bangalore knows is not the case).

But if you are in a new city and dont know the directions, this thing will get you there without you asking for directions from anyone. It may not be the shortest route, but at least you wont get lost.

Planning to try it out in Delhi over next couple of weeks. Lets see how well it does there.

Thanks to everyone (NetFreek, Tsk, indie and everyone else who posted on this thread)

[ampere]

Originally Posted by sriturl

First apologies for the repeat. I read through the complete thread(well almost) and have these questions.

First listing my understanding, please correct me here
I am planning to buy a GPS device from US, and have some maps in India.
I understand that it needs some hack, and may not be a straight forward way to load new maps.
There are few models which can take maps (Satnav or MMI) but they are few models of Garmin and Megellan.
Windows CE based devices are good for hack.

My questions are:
Which are the best models (I saw some discussion on Mio and some chinese stuff)
Do I need to buy maps here? Are there any freeware maps which can be downloaded and used?
Can I use google maps, If I have google earth subscription, can I use it on GPS device?

thanks in advance.

If you wan to combine the best of both, Buy Garmin hardware with Satguide Maps. This gives you an effective combine of price and features. About the hack, you dont need one to install these maps into the GPS. Why you need the hack is, if you want to view these maps on a PC also; apart from GPS hardware.

Originally Posted by amitoj

Okay, so i got Garmin 265WT PND from US. Got it from Amazon.com at a pretty decent price. While in US, it worked like a charm!

Brought it back to India and purchased maps from MMI. Inserted the SD card and viola, it was ready to go!

I've been playing around with it for the past few days and it is pretty reasonable. Ofcourse, there are some mismatches, biggest one being that it assumes that main roads will be faster (which anyone in Bangalore knows is not the case).

But if you are in a new city and dont know the directions, this thing will get you there without you asking for directions from anyone. It may not be the shortest route, but at least you wont get lost.

Planning to try it out in Delhi over next couple of weeks. Lets see how well it does there.

Thanks to everyone (NetFreek, Tsk, indie and everyone else who posted on this thread)

To avoid this, you can hack the maps to browsed on a PC and plan your routes such the GPS guides through the main roads when you are in an unknown territories.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by ampere

To avoid this, you can hack the maps to browsed on a PC and plan your routes such the GPS guides through the main roads when you are in an unknown territories.

I want it to avoid the main roads of Bangalore. How do i do that?

[ampere]

Originally Posted by amitoj

I want it to avoid the main roads of Bangalore. How do i do that?

You need to perform route planning. That is the only way as far as I know.
Not sure how you can alter the route selection algorithm of the device as a default.

[bigman]

MMI had my driving though small lanes in Jalandhar which were far from suitable for an SUV. The s/w was set to route via the shortest route. In the end I stuck to tried and tested main roads as a few of the smaller roads were dug up and added to journey time rather than reduce travel times.

GPS mapping has a long way to go in India if it is to get to the level found in Europe and other areas. Hopefully we will get there soon.

[ampere]

Just to showcase the point made in the previous post, All India map by Satguide is in the size of 100-200MB. A North American Map is of size 2.5GB. Discounting the size difference between the country (India) and the continent (North America), it is still orders of magnitude larger.

[KishoreC]

Originally Posted by KishoreC

Ordered a GPS unit from DX today.
5" LCD 600MHz CPU Windows CE .NET 6.0 Core GPS Navigator. ($118)

Now I have to choose between SatGuide Maps or MMi maps. Guys what would be your recommendations ?

After waiting for almost a month, today I got the update that they are out of stock. Waiting for my refund.

[vjoy3]

Gurus,

I am contemplating ordering this DealExtreme: $119.70 5.0" LCD 372MHz CPU Windows CE 5.0 Bluetooth + GPS Navigator with 2GB Maps SD Card and FM Radio
Issue is, both my earlier orders directly from ebay.com where the sellers had sent the stuff (clothing from korea & night lamp from china) sent thru registered post and charged extra / none for international shipping but the items never reached me and am suspecting the postal / customs in Hyderbad to be the culprit.
Any pointers on how to procure in Hyderabad would be of great help. I understand there will be 2-3 weeks delay in procuring the item, but am used to it(on ebay I did wait for 2+ months before giving up).

Vijay

[NetfreakBombay]

I have this unit. Pictures are in this thread. Used for few months, working fine so far.

[vjoy3]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

I have this unit. Pictures are in this thread. Used for few months, working fine so far.

Thanks NetfreakBombay for confirming that this device works (and is hackable to add Indian maps etc?). As was expecting, you were the first guru to respond.

But my main objective of this post was to ask fellow members from the city of Nawabs if they had successfully got these shipments or also faced issues (in customs/postal)?. Coz, I never got mine from ebay.com and I see that many from B'lore/Mumbai/Delhi have procured them.

If they too had gotten the devices, wanted HowTo details.
Vijay

[manjo]

Help with which one to go.
Friends in US says TomTom, then Garmin and then Magellon.
I read that TomTom doesnt work here, Garmin doesnt support a video player,
Magellon i found one as below:
Shop in the US from India @ 20North - Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator : Electronics
But i found a one i liked a lot on Deal extreme. It has a 600MHZ processor it says..
Its 5" screen and it has video player. I dont need Bluetooth as my Punto has it.
And all this for around 5.5K..
Can anyone suggest me if this is good?
https://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.30501
or is DealExtreme: $108.49 5.0" LCD 372MHz CPU Windows CE 5.0 GPS Navigator w/FM Transmitter + 2GB Maps SD better?

[ampere]

Best combination of price and performance would be Garmin Nuvi series with India maps (Satguide/MMI). Not sure about others. At least Garmin works pretty well in India.

In the nuvi series, decide if you need all the fancy features viz. mp3 player, video player, bluetooth etc.

I guess bluetooth is a good feature to have, which you can link it to your phone. In that case I think its the 265W. If not, you can get the 205W. It comes for about $130. Also buy a good mount along with it.

I have been using 205W+Satguide maps and am very satisfied.

Also Its better to buy one legal copy of a map. Satguide costs only 2K. Its worth it.

[rajesh1868]

205w is available for $100 from bestbuy