I am on the verge of being lured away from being a 3+yr user of a Maggie Meridian Gold to the new Garmin 60CSx. (Don't tell my wife, hehehe) I always said that the first time a decent Garmin unit included an SD card I would be sold.

Unfortunately I can't make heads or tails out of the automobile mapping software. Garmin offers two pieces of software that are similar to Magellan's Direct Route. They are Mapsource City Select v7 and Mapsource City Navigator v7. I want a piece of software that I can highlight either a waypoint or enter an address into it and then ask it to route me there across streets (ie: automobile autorouting). Direct Route will do a turn by turn routing to where ever I ask it to go to. I was on my way to work the other day and saw fire engines, police cars and a mile of brake lights ahead. I jumped off Scott Boulevard and headed down North Decatur. I entered "office" into my Maggie and asked for a route. I avoided the mile long tie up and didn't get lost.

Which Garmin software should I look at? What is the difference and why does Garmin offer two that are so similar?

Thanks in advance.

LostNfound

I've never tried the City Navigator, but I have City Select running on my 60CS and really like it. The instance you spoke of with the fire engines would have happened the same way on my Garmin. Also, if you were routing somewhere and get detoured or see trouble ahead, as soon as you deviate from your route, it recalculates after a block or so. I'm really happy with it. Only thing I really wish it had, if I hear there's a problem on the radio, I can't tell it to take an alternate around trouble spots. I have to get to the problem, then jump off at the trouble spot, and let it recalculate. I don't know if any others can do that, but it would be really nice.

I use street and trips for my city driving and even when geocaching. and I have topo loaded on my 60C. I have my Laptop with me for streets & Trips. I use it for my daily work because of the voice prompts and to reroute plus its cheap.

With my IQue 3600 and City Select, we have a function called Detour, you push it and it asks you how far out you want to detour and still keeps you on your route to your destination. It has been worth it's weight in gold a couple of times for me

T1

Anybody know the difference between Select and Navigator? The Garmin website is about as helpful as a poke in the eye.

I have City Select which came with my GPS V. Select and Navigator must be very similar. There is a thread somewhere on groundspeak forums saying that Garmin has stated that they will quit making Select and everyone who has Select will be given a chance to upgrade to Navigator.

Late to the party here...

Get City Select, and fast. City Navigator uses *much* larger map "sections", makes it harder to load in multiple areas - say, the 3 corners area of GA/TN/AL will take up much more room than you actually want.

Then again, I have a 60CS, 56MB of usable RAM. If you're planning on getting the CSx then maybe that won't be as much of an issue. Generally speaking*, it's much more customizable with City Select.

There is one technical difference between the two: Navigator uses a slightly different calculation algorithm or something along those lines and is "slightly better."

* - The Navigator/City Select thing has been discussed, dissected, and discoursed quite extensively on the GPS Software forums on geocaching.com .

Well today was a sad day for the folks at Magellan. They lost another dedicated user today. The DHL delivery guy showed up with a box containing a new Garmin Map60CSx and Mapsource City Navigator v7. I loaded Navigator on my laptop and then zipped three regions over to my unit.

WOW,WOW,WOW. What a difference.

Magellan was the first to come out with autorouting mapping software for a handheld unit (Direct Route) but Navigator is hands down a terrific platform. On the way home I put in my home coordinates and told it "fastest route". The software picked the same route my Maggie does: North on I-85 to Indian Trail; South on Indian Trail all the way to Killian Hill; then into my subdivision; etc, etc. Unfortunately traffic was socked in on I-85 from Chamblee Tucker to all the way to Indian Trail. Instinctively I jumped off to go another way. Navigator tried three times to route me back to the original course until finally it realized that I had chosen another route. Without touching the unit it recalculated a new route and prompted me with beeps and visual clues where to turn (yeah I already knew where to go but it was fun to watch this thing think). On my Maggie I would have had to punched the menu key and selected re-route several times before I got a new route. It may not seem like a big thing but when you are in an unfamiliar area and rolling along at highway speed it takes a little concentration to hit the right buttons without rear-ending somebody.

Pretty d%$#& impressive!

This is the response I got from an e-mail sent to Garmin cartography asking for advice about which mapping platform to purchase for my 60csx. I thought it would be informative to others so here it is:

Thank you for contacting Garmin.

It is a REALLY weird time. They are phasing City Select out and going
totally to Navigator.

You could probably find City Select North America V7 (note it is DVD-so
is
Navigator v7-so check on your PC for compatibility) or City Navigator
North
America v7 stand alone now from an authorized Garmin dealer:

http://www.garmin.com/dealers/online.html

Matching versions and flavors of Navigator and Select are similar
products
with compatible Garmin units, and this one is among that number with
either
of these products...there are some differences in the guts for routing.
For
example, Navigator is more thorough in roundabout guidance. Select
will get
you through it, but it won't be as informative. It involves things
like
that. In the big picture, they are very similar products, but there
are
some differences in the guts.

Something in Select's favor at times...Select's map templates are cut
smaller than Navigator v7's. So you could customize the map set a bit
more
with Select than you could with Navigator (rather than, say, loading
all of
southern Georgia to get Atlanta as you would with Navigator with Select
you
can select just Atlanta and save memory for other areas).

I would very, very strongly recommend reading about City Navigator
North
America v7 (note again the v7 products are on DVD) and using the
MapSource
Map Viewer to see the basic detail in it (be sure to zoom tightly and
click
the "more" detail button) starting at:

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/citynav.jsp

(Basic map detail you see with it as far as the roads, streets, etc.
will be
the same as what would come in Select North America v7.)

Garmin has a "kit" with Select and mounts, etc:
http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp?sku=010%2D10458%2D00

IF by chance you got this kit and it came with City Select North
America v6,
let me know when you get it and I'll get you an Update disk and tell
you how
to unlock the v7 maps. Mapping updates usuallya re charged things, but
in
this scenario you'd fall into a coverage period and it wouldn't with
this
one this time with same unit.

If you got Navigator, you could use the unit with it...but let me say
some
of the map chunks in Nav v7 are quite big...say the one with Los
Angeles or
Dallas or Houston...you very well might find yourself wanting to buy a
bigger Micro SD card (heck, you might with Select, too). I just want
to
throw that out there about the card so it won't be a surprise.

Thank you again for your interest in Garmin GPS. Have you seen our
online
Map Viewer? Preview the basic data in many of the MapSource products
firsthand.

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/

Best regards,
(deleted at request of author)
mailto:cartography@garmin.com

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LostNfound,

Very interesting.

I had read they were very similar but that navigator had larger map sections, which would be a problem with a older model like my GPS V. But I am not sure what

quote:

Navigator is more thorough in roundabout guidance. Select will get you through it, but it won't be as informative.

means.

Thanks for posting.