Garmin Map Update

Have seen a number of sites where you can download "unlocked" Garmin map
updates (free). 2012 North American, for example, is available on many of
these sites. Has anyone got any experience using any of these locations and
updating from any of them?
MLD

MLD wrote:
:: Have seen a number of sites where you can download "unlocked" Garmin
:: map updates (free). 2012 North American, for example, is available
:: on many of these sites. Has anyone got any experience using any of
:: these locations and updating from any of them?
:: MLD

I hope I am not reading your post wrong.

I just recently bought a new Lifetime map unit from Garmin to avoid paying
fees for their maps.

If you can afford the unit, pay Garmin the money for the maps and stop
stealing. It's situations like this that make manufacturers put in onerous
locking mechanisms that affect the vast majority of us that pay for fair
intellectual property.
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Regards -

- Andrew

wrote:


Other ways to avoidi paying fees for their maps:

* don't worry about having new maps; they're plenty good for years,
practically speaking

* buy a new unit every few years and voila! new map, PLUS new
battery/screen/feature set, PLUS new warranty--all at the cost of the
map update itself

Is anyone really so anal as to think he needs updated maps three or four
times a year? Did anyone rush out and buy new paper maps every few
months, simply because a few months had gone by?

In a way here a some paradoxes.

Not always a new device = better device. yes, usually they have faster CPU,
flashier UI. We don't use things just because of a nice interface. If you
look closer at functions, they are evaporating from generation to generation
of units. It is easier to make more complicated and faster functioning
electronics, but they do less and gain some not so necessary functions
making them slower. In a way the same things happen with photo or video
cameras and many other things. As long as I can I would like to keep my old
navigation units.

About map updating. Yes, we probably buy paper maps once in 10 years, but
electronic maps are somthing different. Simply not all possible data has
been incorporated in them, so you hope it would be in the next version. You
are aware of these cases in your own area, but you know nothing outside it.
Besides, the routing maps allow searching by address. My own house has been
located on the navigation maps perhaps 4 or 5 years after it has been built.
It's not in the middle of nowhere, but in the middle of a not so small city.

Map (and in general software) protection usually makes life more difficult,
but only for paying users. If someone knows how to circumvnet protection,
everything is vere easy.
In Garmin case the the newer 2xxx and especially 3xxx nuvis tend to download
wrong files, not the ones needed for device to function. If you put unlocked
map files, all the problems are avoided.

Besides, one more way not to pay for maps is to use OpenStreet maps. They
are open source, legal and free.

AS wrote:

Agreed, which is why I am distressed that my Garmin GPS-II+ has a monochrome
LCD that is virtually illegible now due to missing pixel rows. My yellow
eTrex is going the same way...

Mike.
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