Using i3 in Europe.

zogman · Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:51 pm Post subject:

i tend to agree skippy,but when you look at the picture on the site it shows an unmarked card (sort of a diy job) ...if it was a garmin issue it would have a garmin sticker on it..
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monsieurcanard · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2005 Posts: 40

Hello all,

Excellent forum, so I registered!! having been following the threads about the Garmin i3, in particular the info re mapping for europe (France in my case as I live there), it seems there are no maps at street level available other than the ones offered at GPS Warehouse at a cost of £90 or more.

For someone like me, this now rules out the i3 as a good buy, if I have to pay that sort of money on top of the initial purchase. Wish I had realised earlier. So it's back to the drawing board for something similar with european maps included!

I have not seen the i3 for sale here in France at anywhere near the prices in UK, plus not sure if I could change default language from French to English?

Regards,

Bob

francisc · Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 2:30 pm Post subject:

monsieurcanard · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2005 Posts: 40

Thanks for your reply francisc,

All these sites are still way more expensive than UK. A lot of UK sites will deliver to France, for instance I use Amazon UK a lot as, even with postage it still works out less expensive than Amazon France! Even taking into account the fact that if I got the i3 here in France it will be loaded with France maps, I would still have to but UK maps for the odd trip to UK.

I am now considering something like Navman ICN 510 or 520 as this comes with European mapping.

Regards,

Bob

Milkfloat · Regular Visitor Joined: Jun 15, 2005 Posts: 61

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

I have emailed them and they say "not yet but soon"

No indication of pricinh though!

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

Bit of good news.

I have a friend who has been out to Spain and took his i3 with him. Although there is no route planning available the base maps were spot on and he could use them to find out where he was.

The minor roads obviously weren't shown but as long as he stuck to faily decent ones the i3 locked on well and gave him good mapping.

bighassan · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 20, 2005 Posts: 12

Someone queried whether the cards for France, Spain etc from GPS Warehouse are genuine. I bought a French one and it most certainly is! Although the photograph of the card on the GPSW website has no Garmin logo, it comes in a Garmin branded box - and I checked with Garmin itself just to be sure!

The base maps in Spain are far from good - in many places it looks as if you are in empty terrain - and when you DO see roads, the accuracy is very poor. I have no experience of a Spanish card, but if it is anything like the French one you're on a winner!

mhb · Regular Visitor Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 155

I have just got the card for Spain, Portugal etc and in many parts of the peninsular it seems perfectly adequate.

However I am disappointed that a whole load of minor roads (tracks really) in Andalucia which do show on ViaMichelin maps online and I am assured some even show on the Tomtom sat nav mapping, are just not there on the NavTech maps used by the i3.

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

Going off to Spain next week and decided to risk buying one the unlabelled cards from GPS warehouse. Needn't have worried it came the day after and was in a sealed Garmin box.

Not tried in yet obviously but I have installed some POI that I have created using Multimap for the Lat/Long and it seems fine and very detailed for the Costa Calida area where we are going.

I'll post again on my reply to let you all know how it worked!

John

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

:D :D :D :D
Just got back. It worked absolutely brilliantly!!!

I'm sure that it's a bloke thing but I am just so impressed that when we were in Spain the little i3 knew that we needed to go the "wrong" way around roundabouts and need to "exit right" rather than the UK settings!

If you are going abroad the cards are expensive but are very good!

John

zogman · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 9:25 am Post subject:

walmac · Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:46 pm Post subject:

I have just returned from a short caravanning trip to sites at Elmpt in Germany, Amsterdam and Delft in Holland, Antwerp in Belgium and Pernes lez Boulougne in France. Prior to going I inputted as poi's various Caravan sites in those Countries onto my i3, Software v.2.90 maps V.8.

Depite just having the UK maps it worked faultlessly with the European
maps that are within albeit they are just main + A & B roads. The only difference was that the side roads were not named. Once back into
Northern France the i3 announced that newer maps were available and
I only had to press the wheel for it to change to th v.8 maps and it then began to show and name all the smaller roads and streets as I travelled within the towns of Calais and Boulougne.

The poi's were all navigated to by the existing mapware and when in Northern France the other poi's ie fuelbanks etc., were available.

Also I had inputted the European traffic cameras and they gave warning as normal.

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

Walmac

Could you navigate from your home or did you have to do it smaller "steps". If I try to plan a route from home in the north of Engand to Spain it starts to calculate and then runs out of memory. Did you have this problem?

walmac · Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 9:19 pm Post subject:

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