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Old 24th May 2010, 14:31   #976
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Posting for the benefit of boarders hunting for GPS solution.

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the world's GPS, or Global Positioning System, is getting a major upgrade which will enable it to pinpoint targets within an arm's length, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more now
Source: World's GPS to get faster, more accurate as US begins upgrade-Software-Infotech-The Economic Times
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Old 24th May 2010, 15:39   #977
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Originally Posted by amitoj View Post
Ok, from my recent trip to Chikmaglur, i realised that MMI has pathetic coverage of state highways. Lesser said about roads smaller than SH, the better.
On the Bangalore - Magadi route, after some time it started showing that i was not driving on a road anymore. I am not talking about it showing me driving next to the road or like that. It showed that i was in the middle of nowhere
Same story on the interior roads of Chikmaglur too.
Having studied the map data of practically every provider, i have to conclude that google's is the best. Not sure what the data sources for others are, but a fat lot of the roads they show dont exist
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Old 24th May 2010, 18:07   #978
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Originally Posted by amitoj View Post
Ok, from my recent trip to Chikmaglur, i realised that MMI has pathetic coverage of state highways. Lesser said about roads smaller than SH, the better.
On the Bangalore - Magadi route, after some time it started showing that i was not driving on a road anymore. I am not talking about it showing me driving next to the road or like that. It showed that i was in the middle of nowhere
Same story on the interior roads of Chikmaglur too.
Oh God! Even MMI is like that? I had similar experience with Satguide yesterday while driving from Manipal to Bangalore via Chikmaglur.

This was my first time with GPS on all the time. I had Garmin 260W running on Satguide maps. I had given my destination as Chikmaglur. My drive started with driving on what it called perduru road, which was in reality Karkala-udupi road or SH-25A (google thinks it is SH-65). As I turned left at Hiriadka, towards Perdur, it protested and asked me to continue straight on perdur road (or SH-25A in reality), which it wasn't. After that it decided that I was not on any known road until I hit Hebri. In fact I didn't see Perdur road when I passed through the town Perdur. At Hebri, GPS perdur road joined us back. About 3kms later, all maps vanished and the Germin said it can't navigate anymore. It didn't know any roads after that, not Agumbe, not Sringeri... It just behaved like an expensive compass, just telling me the direction and speed. While wife was continuously trashing the equipment, I wondered something could be wrong here. So I did restarted the Garmin and got the map back on. Now I was on Chikmaglur Hwy or New Hampshire 13. Confused? Well, it interpreted NH-13 as New Hampshire 13, one of the states of USA.

Incidently my history buff mind was thinking about the original 13 american colonies and NH was one of them. A GPS device with a historical sense of humour?

Thirteen Colonies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every now and then, the device used to declare I am not on the road. I was going offroad for few Kms and join back the highway. Not an easy task in the Chickmaglur terrain, even with a GV. It become more accurate in the Chikmaglur city.

It again become completely clueless on Chickmaglur-Belur road, it asked me to continue into a huge lake while the real road veered to the left. The GPS road joined me back few Kms later as the road turned back after crossing the lake.

Upon entering Hassan, it asked me to turn right into a sewage canal, when I continued striaght, it re-calculated and asked me to turn right into a shop, and then again into a house. But I only turned when I found a road.

And yes, the road from NH-48 to Magadi, was safely put a Km away from where I was travelling. It kept goading me to get back on New Hampshire 48. The GPS become accurate only after across magadi town and remained accurate all the way home.

And I kept thinking, this is the difference between Satguide and MMI. The MMI would have been accurate outside Bangalore too. That is why MMI is 8 times more expensive than Satguide map for Garmin.

But now Amitoj says MMI is equally clueless outside Bangalore. Now what?
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Old 24th May 2010, 18:30   #979
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Originally Posted by smsrini View Post
Got my Satguide maps and working with Nuvii.

For the money paid, its definitely VFM.

cheers!
Srini
Hey Srini, COngrats. I will be getting my 265 W in a couple of weeks. Read that there is a discount going on for SatNav maps (990 ??) so wanted to buy one in advance. Which one should I get for the 265W, SD card or SD card with adapter? Thanks for your help.

CHeers!
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Old 24th May 2010, 18:33   #980
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They will send you a microSD card with SD card adopter.
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Old 24th May 2010, 18:37   #981
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Originally Posted by Samurai View Post
They will send you a microSD card with SD card adopter.
Thanks Samurai. Reading the review of the maps by you and Amitoj It looks like the maps are good only for the intra-city commutes and pretty bad at inter-city connectivity. Looks like we will have to wait for a while before we get a reliable GPS provider.
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Old 24th May 2010, 19:33   #982
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bj96 View Post
Posting for the benefit of boarders hunting for GPS solution.

Source: World's GPS to get faster, more accurate as US begins upgrade-Software-Infotech-The Economic Times
When the maps are made that accurate, then that will actually count for something!

One of the early results of Satnav (as it was then) becoming popular at sea, was accidents caused by people trusting its accuracy. Actually, there was nothing wrong with its accuracy: what they forgot was that the sea charts had been surveyed long, long ago with compasses and sextants.
"Don't worry about that the rock: the Satnav says we are 200 meters away"... bang... glug, glug, glug... Help!

Last edited by Thad E Ginathom : 24th May 2010 at 19:34.
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Old 24th May 2010, 21:48   #983
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Originally Posted by PlaneMad View Post
Having studied the map data of practically every provider, i have to conclude that google's is the best. Not sure what the data sources for others are, but a fat lot of the roads they show dont exist
yup, "Europa" currently has the best road coverage in india, which is the map provider for Google.
Second best provider is "CE Info", used by yahoo india and MyMapIndia.

There are other less detailed map providers like "NavTeq"(for Nokia Maps) and "RoadsOfIndia" for SatNav.

Do anyone knows any symbian gps software which uses "Europa" maps?,if there is one it would be a killer app....till then Mgmaps all the way.
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Old 25th May 2010, 16:25   #984
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Ok so I just tried to buy the maps for the Garmin online and the transaction failed for some reason. Before I could figure it out, I get a call from the SatNav guys asking me if I needed assistance. Then they gave me an account number I should transfer the amount to and they will courier the card to me. They had the address I had filled as well as my email address from the form.
I am impressed.
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Old 25th May 2010, 19:06   #985
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All the gps maps are equally pathetic.

recently i went to a theme park called mayajaal just on the outskirts of chennai and my satnav showed me driving on the sea ( bay of bengal)!!.

It is not enough to make the satellites more accurate. Making a good map is always a good option. And MMI and SATNAV must keep updating it properly every now and then

Quote:
Do anyone knows any symbian gps software which uses "Europa" maps?,if there is one it would be a killer app....till then Mgmaps all the way
tjere is a symbian software which uses google map but google maps dont have navigation features on symbian

Last edited by geeash : 25th May 2010 at 19:10.
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Old 25th May 2010, 20:19   #986
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Folks,

The real value of maps, I saw is in places which are alien. No point saying the map does not work,
on a place that you know. I do agree that they work everywhere. I have had good experience
with Satguide especially in by-passing places, on long drives.

At least they have not let me down till now! Also Satguide is good VFM.
But yes, VFM does NOT mean non-reliable. I am OK if it does not show a route.
But if it shows wrong data, then I am not OK.

Last edited by ampere : 25th May 2010 at 20:22.
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Old 25th May 2010, 20:59   #987
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Originally Posted by geeash View Post
All the gps maps are equally pathetic.
I fully agree. In Australia, when we drove to Great Ocean Road Drive/Phillip Island/Balarat last year, my son-in-law's Tom Tom GPS got confused and misguided us many a times.

Last edited by J.Ravi : 25th May 2010 at 21:02.
 
Old 26th May 2010, 12:16   #988
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i just got a garmin 255W device. (yet to come to BLR.. he paid some 140$ for that)
i called up satguide and they told me 999 for 650+ cities map on 1 GB SD card.
the mapmy india price is 7000 for the maps for 620 cities !!
difference is 7 times :-)

so most probably will order for the satguide maps. i will be using for the leh trip this august !!!

also has anyone used one GPS device from LACS ?? it is a bangalore based company. it costs about 11K for the device(with bluetooth) and maps
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Old 26th May 2010, 12:20   #989
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Hi everybody,

Am contemplating on procuring a PND for my car before my upcoming family trip to Sikkim. Would be grateful if I could get some guidance from users' experience about the following:

a) Which is the most recommended device (have short listed the MMI Roadpilot and LX 130)?

b) Comments on accuracy (especially from Kolkata to Sikkim, if anyone has used it on this route)

c) Updates issues

d) Any other helpful information

Thanks
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Old 26th May 2010, 14:40   #990
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@aparnesh
Not sure about the MMI Roadpilot. But the LX130 is pathetic. I had a look at it 5 - 6 months back and it looked like a cheap chinese device which kept hunting for the satellites for some time from a cold start.

Major highways are no problem for both MMI as well as Satnav maps. Problem comes only inside cities and some rural roads. So Kolkata to Gangtok shouldn't be a problem.
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