Damn Garmin nickels and dimes a person to death!!!

[ChrisInSeattle]

Marine charts are expensive, no matter what form you buy them in.

[egecko]

I know what you mean with the GPS units. I have an older Garmin GPSMAPS60CS, no memory slot. Detailed turn by turn, POIs, gas, food and other information that's very useful is on a separate disc that you have to purchase. You can usually find the units and or software cheaper than MSRP, if you take the time to look around. I purchased the additional software for just over $100 from amazon. As for the mount, I went with the Ram mount because it's cradle is specific to your unit and holds it firmly and not a universal type mount. Check out ram mounts and you'll like the options that are available. Oh and yes, the u-bolt will fit on the grab handle as I have the same mount with a different cradle.


Also I fount out the hard way that Garmin mounts are somewhat useless. Buy a real mount, like the one below. If you decide to use it on your boat, buy a base unit and move the rest of it around and no need to buy a separate mount for both.

*click on link for website

[Tony5150RN]

egecko previously said:

Also I fount out the hard way that Garmin mounts are somewhat useless. Buy a real mount, like the one below. If you decide to use it on your boat, buy a base unit and move the rest of it around and no need to buy a separate mount for both.

*click on link for website

Thanks for the link, I spent a little time goofing around yesterday trying to find the best place for the unit. I tried placing that little black plastic adhesive disk, that comes with the car kit, on the dash. The only place it would work is where the driver's side speaker is. So that's not an option because upgrading the cheap speakers is on my list and you're not supposed to place the unit on a magnetic field. The more I look at it, I think that the grab handle mount would be too "in your face" and could obstruct vision. At least with the GPS Unit that I'm using. So, I'm now considering the passengers side of the center console, to the right of the stereo, on a mount I have yet to find. This way the driver and passenger could read it and I wouldn't have to install a second lighter socket. Till then, I'm using the bean bag mount thrown on the dash.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

[FJCameron]

Also any GPS brands I have looked at all have lots of "optional" upgrades that most people actually need.

With the maps and stuff they usually pay licensing fees to the companies who make the maps, but still - a memory card isn't expensive these days and what they charge is a really fat profit. It shouldn't take 40%++ more to get the system to a good level of functionality.