what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

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hi guys I have a navman not sure the model but its a basic one now its going to cost me $100 to upgrade the maps, So I am thinking about buying a new one. Dont want to spend a fortune though. I want one with 4wd tracks on it. Now I dont have any real knowledge about them so some hint and tips before I get the salemens bull Sh*t would be great thanks

[Rainman Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rainman]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

Buy one of the cheap Chinese ones off Ebay - they are generally unlocked so all you need to do is purchase OziCE ($40?) and an SD card. Then load Ozi onto the card along with some digital maps - Geoscience Australia 1:250,000 series is the best all rounder at the moment and your set.

There are a few threads about how to do it on here, do a search for Navlink, that should give you some of the finer details. Navlinks are no longer available on Ebay (I think?), but the concept remains the same with other Chinese brands.

Getting hold of the maps shouldnt be too hard, once again there use to be a link on here somewhere were you could download all the GA maps for free.

Heres a pic of what the GA maps look like showing a trip I did recently to Ninghan Station here in WA, all done on a Navlink bought off Ebay.

[ozwapet2 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close ozwapet2]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

If you want something that does both city street navigation ( ie turn this way ,that way ) plus do offroad tracks, the options are limited. Garmin is probably the best, Nuvi for example, I think you can get topographical maps on an SD card. If you're not tech savvy, it would be the easiest way to go. The Hema Navigator is another "out of the box" option that does street nav and also runs topo maps, although I've heard mixed reviews about that.

I think it's always going to be a compromise, as you can't really get something that does both well ( imho ).
I find TomTom is one of the best as a street navigator, and Oziexplorer as an off road navigator.

So now I run both a Windows CE device with Oziexplorer, plus a Tom Tom side by side. ( two screens ).

Ozi however, does not come with any maps itself, so you need to either buy, beg or borrow the maps. A lot of the map makers put out maps in Ozi format, or you can see what you mates have.

[mcsumway Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcsumway]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

Two questions

What model Navman and how computer savvy are you??

If it runs windows ce they can be cracked and have ozi run on them exactly like the Hema Navigator.

I have done a few of these now and it is actually very simple. You do however have to buy the maps and software.

Save the money on the new GPS and send it on the maps and software.

If you do a search on cracking navman you will see the links.

Warren

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Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

yeah i can use a computer pretty well navman is a s30

[mcsumway Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcsumway]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

It will work on a S30 but the screen is small

Have a look here

http://navmanunlocked.wikispaces.com/Unlock

It is quite straightforward.

Then head to Hema for maps and Oziexplorer for CE software.

Warren

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Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

awesome just did it now just have to find the maps so I can buy maps off hema. I just had a look at hema not sure how to go about getting the maps can you download maps online ? what does Oziexplorer do . is that the program to plot markers ?

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Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

the more i read in this forum the more i am getting confused on what maps and where to buy them :S

[Schaffer Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Schaffer]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

the more i read in this forum the more i am getting confused on what maps and where to buy them :S

It's not that hard. You will need OziExplorerCE not OziExplorer. The later is for on PC only. This allows you to display raster based maps that come in the format of ECW or OZXF3 (actually there are others but these are the most common). The application will display the map with a pointer that shows your direction and can log a track file of where you have been. This is useful for determining a trip distance later on and reliving the good times.

There are plenty of maps available for Ozi. Hema have a DVD which is about $179 from memory and covers all of their national parks maps for touring as well as large strip maps for australia at 1:250k. The 1:250k maps can be downloaded for free from www.ga.gov.au but require .map files to be created which requires OziExplorer. You can use a shareware version of Ozi to create the files (I believe) but can not view them in the shareware version. Following that they will be usable as ECW files with the approriate MAP file OR can be converted to the OZFX3 format and a new MAP file. The OZFX3 format works better for screen refresh but you can loose some quality during the conversion as the ECW files seems to probably support 16.6 million colours while the OZFX3 only supports 256 like a GIF image.

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Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

hmmm the 179 bucks probably cheaper then spending all that time to convert maps. Mind you I have a cousin who is computer switched on , I wonder haha

[Schaffer Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Schaffer]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

hmmm the 179 bucks probably cheaper then spending all that time to convert maps. Mind you I have a cousin who is computer switched on , I wonder haha

You can only download the 1:250k maps from GA and they are not the strip maps but smaller tiles which are perfect for OziCE but for $179 you get a reasonably good collection of maps for the whole of Australia.

[rich Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close rich]

Re: what gps is best and a resonable price that has 4wd tracks

The A-sure unit I posted a thread about below, comes with both street navigation and Ozi explorer demo loaded. All you need is the $40 key and some maps.
Plus it has DVD, Digital TV, Reverse camera, 2 SD card slots, IPOD, USB, etc etc etc etc....
As far as after market chinese models go, this is the best around at the moment....read about it on the Hilux link in the thread.