Garmin 12 Map GPS

I don't go anywhere without this unit.... it is awesome!

Rating: 5 - Excellent value and features
I have owned this GPS for a year now. It is with me every time I travel. I recommend the 12V car power adapter, especially if you plan on using it for night driving with the display lighted. This unit has helped me locate many rental car return lots in unfamiliar cities, and has prevented me from getting lost while hiking. The Trackback feature is particularly useful to find your way back to where you started. Battery life has been about what I expected, around 12-14 hours continuous use without any backlight. The unit even works moderately well in airplanes (some don't allow GPS in flight, some do) so long as you have a window seat, put it right up to the window, and have at least four satellites in the sky on your side of the plane. The included North American map data is adequate for most travel, but if you need street level detail, get one of the map CD's and the computer cable. For the size, weight, and battery life, I don't think there is a better unit out there. I am very pleased and I recommend this unit to family and friends interested in GPS.

Rating: 4 - Coastal marine navigation with the Garmin 12 Map
I just returned from 3 weeks sailing in the San Juan and Gulf Islands in the Pacific Northwest. Navigation was ultimately derived from marine charts (NAD27) but also from daily tracking with my newly acquired Garmin 12 Map. I supplemented the charts with GPS coordinates (NAD83) for harbor entrances, moorings, and anchorages given in a regional marine guide book (Douglass and Douglass).

Good: The GPS 12 Map is easy to use for marine navigation. It's waterproof. It has a non-slip rubber bottom. The size of the GPS and its display is just about right for use in small craft like a 30-ft sailboat. Button size and separation is good even for cold, wet hands. The overlay of the land maps proved quite helpful for generally locating the boat position with respect to nearby land masses like islands and continental coasts. I found the overlays more useful than the traditional "highway" views. Creating, entering, and modifying waypoints is easy. The wide choice of waypoints symbols proved quite useful. Battery life is adequate. Sailing only during the day, I changed batteries every 5 or 6 days with periodic connections to a 12VDC outlet on the boat's electrical panel. I could have used the external DC power exclusively if I had brought a 10 ft extension with me.

Bad: Believe the warning on startup. The land mass overlays are approximate. Even with care as to the correct datum, several anchorages in small coves were shown to be on land even at maximum zoom. The data included for positions of marine buoys and lights were not always correct. Some buoys were shown in incorrect locations or absent altogether. The US Waterways MapSource may fix this for US waters but will exclude the contiguous Canadian waters (Gulf Islands).

Conclusion: A good product for coastal navigation but the pre-loaded land mass and navigation data are not always accurate. I suspect loading ad hoc navigational databases would greatly improve the unit's usefulness.

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Garmin 12 Map GPS