How to check which countries my GPS has ?

zagmund · 10-07-2012 05:31PM #1

May seem like a silly question, but bear with me . . .

I've borrowed a Nuvi 200w from a friend for an upcoming trip to France. My basic check involved asking it to plot a location and when it asked what country it was in entering "France". It seemed to like this and accepted the town I provided. It then blew up as it couldn't compute a route - not enough memory.

We were just checking to see what other countries were loaded and it didn't have Spain, Belgium, or Germany so it looks to be France, UK & Ireland. I'm no expert, but I don't remember seeing map sets with this particular combination before.

Anyhoo, I went into settings.map.map info and it told me it had the following maps - "City Navigator Europe NT 2008 [1] UK & Ireland"

No mention of France.

I decided to try scrolling around the map and despite not being able to select Germany as a country for an address I can see the roads around Frankfurt for example. Now I'm really confused.

So, is there a way to be sure to be sure that France is loaded up correctly ? Can I tell it to compute a route from (say) Cherbourg to Paris and if it provides it then I know it's loaded ?

My worst case scenario is to roll off the boat this weekend in Cherbourg and have the device refuse to play ball. If necessary I will buy a new one before I go, but if I could be sure this one was up to speed it would put my mind at rest.

Thanks,

z

coylemj · 10-07-2012 05:54PM

There is probably a base map for Europe on the device, this would provide major highways and names of towns but nothing else so being able to see a ring road around Frankfurt or Paris doesn't mean anything.

What you need to do is manually scroll to a town or city in France, then zoom in to the town centre and see if individual streets and symbols for ATMs, restaurants etc. start to appear. If they do then you're in business but if all you see are highways and a blank city centre, you don't have a map of France on the device.

The title of the map that you quoted suggests that you do not have France on the device and even if you do, I'd be wary about using a 2008 map, especially to navigate through a city or town because one-way streets could have changed or a junction where you could previously turn left could have changed and you can no longer do so.

zagmund · 10-07-2012 08:19PM

Thanks. I'm happy enough with 2008 maps. I wouldn't use it for detailed navigation within a town or city so that's not an issue. I'm really just looking to get from A to B and if I get totally lost to have something that can at least tell me to head North, South, East or West to get to the nearest big road.

I set it to 'simulation mode', set my location to some random place in France and told it to get me to Paris and it did, so I guess the maps are loaded.

z

zagmund · 11-07-2012 10:41AM

Weirdness. I got my Nuvi 1310 which I bought last year with "Ireland & UK" on it to swap for my friends device with the French mapping. It turns out that this one also has the French maps on it too. I put it into simulation mode and asked it to drive from Cherbourg to a town in Brittany and it did. It currently has me driving down the N174 approaching Rennes. I'm really confused now.

It's not like it just knew that Rennes was there but nothing else. When I zoomed in I could see street names. So, it knows Rennes is there, and it knows the street names too.

It's good that it has France on it, but weird that it doesn's show up in the mapping info. This device shows CN Europe NT 2011.32 [1] UK & Ireland.

Am I missing something obvious here, like all devices have mapping and the "UK & Ireland" bit just adds in points of interest in these countries ? Or does Garmin include France in "UK & Ireland" normally ?

z

Alun · 11-07-2012 10:51AM

There is a small area of overlap with a part of Northern France included in the UK and Ireland maps, and Rennes would probably be covered by that, but outside of that area you'll only get the Base Map coverage.

See the map on here ... https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8424

zagmund · 11-07-2012 11:25AM

Awesomeness.

This covers the area I'm going to be in - a line from Cherbourg down to Nantes and points west of there. Looks like I can use my existing GPS and my my friends one back. Thanks for the clarification.

When you say "base map coverage" does this mean that it will navigate on (say) motorways and N roads between major cities, or just that you can look at a map but can't get it to tell you anything about directions ?

z

Alun · 11-07-2012 11:56AM

zagmund wrote: »

Awesomeness.

This covers the area I'm going to be in - a line from Cherbourg down to Nantes and points west of there. Looks like I can use my existing GPS and my my friends one back. Thanks for the clarification.

When you say "base map coverage" does this mean that it will navigate on (say) motorways and N roads between major cities, or just that you can look at a map but can't get it to tell you anything about directions ?

z

Sounds like you're in luck then!

The basemap contains just motorways and major roads (N roads in Ireland, A roads in the UK etc.) Now, on my ancient nuvi 760 for Ireland at least it's pretty dire, no motorways at all, not even the M50!! It's entirely possible that newer models have a more up to date basemap, but I wouldn't rely on it to be honest.

EDIT: AFAIK yes, you can route using the built in base map.

zagmund · 31-07-2012 10:30PM

Just back from France. All went more or less to plan, but there were a few small surprises.

I entered grey territory somewhere around St Lo on the drive from Cherbourg to Rennes. I can't remember exactly where it faded out. It told me to take a particular exit off the E3/N174 but when I got to it the exit signs were all local and not for any major towns so I stayed on the main road.

The GPS subsequently 'crashed' to all intents and purposes. It basically ran out of maps, but didn't have any way to communicate this. I thought it might have said "insufficient data" or something but it just sat there at something like 70% recalculating. I knew the road I was on would bring me to the A84/E3 which would continue to bring me to Rennes so I wasn't worried but if I was in the middle of the countryside I would be a little concerned.

Concerns - it would be more helpful for it to show my position on a map zoomed out to relate it to whatever mapping data it did have (i.e. show me in the middle of "grey area" with real roads off in the distance to the west. At least this way I would know more or less what was happening. Additionally - from what I can tell it told me to take that exit off the E3/N174 simply because this would keep me within the scope of the mapping area it had. It might have been better to indicate that the limits of mapping were being approached and given me some notification rather than just keeping me on the mapping area at all costs.

We re-entered live mapping somewhere on the other side of St Lo and all continued to go well from there to Rennes, to Quimper, to Nantes and back up to Cherbourg.

z

How to check which countries my GPS has ?

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