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September 04, 2007

Garmin Sucks!

Good job, Garmin. You people are a bunch of freaking nimrods. I paid close to $500 for a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx. Then, I paid $300 more to get the topo maps and city maps. It has a little memory card inside of it called a Micro SD card. You can get a Micro SD card that holds 8 gig of data. So, I'm thinking I'm in business, right? Wrong!

If you're unlucky enough to find yourself stuck with a Garmin GPS, you've probably already discovered their dirty little secret. Namely, when you save your GPS tracks, Garmin drops all the date/time stamps and truncates the map down to 500 trackpoints. Tada!

They throw away most of your data when they save the tracklog. Idiots! Like...it's a stinking text file, for god's sake. I have billions and billions of bytes of storage space to use for essentially zero cost, and they don't even allow me the option of not wiping out all of my data?

For instance, on Saturday, I rode 220 miles. At the end of the day, I had about 5,567 active waypoints. It shows the track log as 55% full. The entire file takes up a grand total of (wait for it....) 758K. That's three-quarters of a Meg. The Micro SD card holds a total of 128 Megs of data. So, at this rate, I drive 220 miles a day, and save the entire, unabridged track logs for half a year and not run out of space. This, without changing out the Micro SD memory card or buying a larger one. (Did I mention you can get an 8 gig Micro SD memory card)?

But, when I save the track log, the file is truncated to a 500 point track log with no date-time stamps. Granted, it only takes up 50K now instead of 758K, but that's not what I wanted. They threw away 708K worth of relevant, signiticant data. I have plenty of storage space you idiots! Just save the track log without deleting 93% of my data. Argh!

I'm going to eBay this piece of trash. God I hate Garmin. Good job, morons!

Update:
I called Garmin to ask them for clarification. I was like...'you have to be kidding me. You're not that stupid, are you?'

Well, 'yes' and 'no', as it turns out. After holding for about 20 minutes, I talked to a guy who explained things to me a little better. As it turns out, when you "Save" a tracklog, it isn't saving it to the Micro SD card. It's saving it in internal memory, and it does truncate it down to 500 points and throw away the datetime stamps. This is inexcusable, but they're convinced that it's the right thing to do, and cannot be disuaded on this point.

However, you can change the Garmin GPS unit to save the tracks to the MIcro SD card. The way to do this is to go to Main Menu - Tracks - Setup - Data Card Setup, and check the little "Log Track To Data Card" box. This will log the tracks to the Micro SD card. So, in theory, this is probably the best way to go. My understanding is that the GPS unit can't read the logs on this Micro SD card at all, but it does at least save them for posterity's sake.

Oh, and as for the 8 gig Micro SD cards? Scratch that. The Garmin GPSmap 60CSx will only support up to a 2 gig Micro SD card. (You won't find this in the owners manual, however.)

Then, they clued me into another little gem. They have deliberately hamstrung the Garmin GPmap 60CSx. Although it will support up to 10,000 GPS points, for some reason, they ship it configured to support only 3,000. So, go to Main Menu - Setup - Map, then Map SetUp - Tracks (the little squiggly line) and change "Track Points" to 10,000 instead of 3,000.

Finally, I asked them if it would be possible for me to install the Topo maps on my home server so that it wouldn't forever ask me for the CD's, and they explained how to do the "Alternate Install". Basically, what you do is create a folder like say, "Garmin". Then, copy all of the files from all 3 CD's into this folder(preserving the folder structer of the CD's). Then, run the install from this folder.

I tried this, and it was working about halfway right, so I did a system restore to Monday morning, before I tried the first install, then I re-installed using the “Alternate Install” method, and it worked.

So, I probably won't eBay this miserable thing just yet. That was a close one, Garmin. Reallll close.

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Posted by Rob Kiser on September 04, 2007 at 08:59 PM

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Comments

Garmin products are truly crap. Hope they go out of business soon!

Posted by: Jesse on September 06, 2007 at 10:15 PM

Garmin is an absolute nightmare. I have wasted countless hours trying to get their map software to work. It is not worth the frustration, GPS is cool but the Garmin experiencs is not worth it. I will buy paper maps over another Garmin. My advise to everyone out there is to buy something other than a Garmin or buy paper maps!

Posted by: Jeffry on July 03, 2008 at 08:27 PM

Actually, the only idiot involved in this story is Jeffry. I imagine he has had kneejerk reactions and goes off half-cocked all his miserable life. It must be a struggle when the whole world is stupid except for you and your self-centered ignoramous ass.

Posted by: Tom Jackson on August 07, 2008 at 09:25 AM

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