Garmin 705...........a few questions

cheehee

I may be getting one of these bad boys for my upcoming birthday. I have a couple of questions regarding the sat nav aspect of it.

If you would be so kind..............

Can it be used on the MTB as well as the Road bike ? ie. Does it have the capacity to store OS maps as well as road maps?

Can it also be used in a car as a Sat nav?

Errr that's all I think.

Thanks in advance

Cheehee

themightyw

cheehee wrote:

Can it also be used in a car as a Sat nav?

Hrrm, on balance I think I'd have to say 'no' to this, though it kind of depends what you're looking for. Can you use it to plan routes and see exactly where you are on the road? Yes.

However it doesn't have much of the 'up front' functionality that a conventional car sat nav has (e.g. voice activation, more sophisticated planning services, extensive POI archives, spoken instructions). It's also not really large enough to see exactly where you are at a glance.

Great bit of kit that you can use in the car at a push but it's no replacement.

amaferanga

No OS maps. There are Garmin topographic maps, but they are apparently pretty poor. If you want OS maps you'll need a Satmap

cheehee

Cheers for your replies. I don't really need the 705 as a car Sat Nav. It will be bought for it's designed purpose ie. for use on my bike/s. I just wondered if it would be ok for occasional use in the car. From what your saying it probaly would.

I have seen these two bundles at Wiggle.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Garmi ... 360035898/

and

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/cycle/7/Garmi ... 360035897/

From what I can make out the only difference between the two is the mapping supplied. I ride MTB and on Road, so I would like the unit do be suitable/interchangeable for both.

I've searched on here for info, but so much comes up my mind is truely boggled.......

If you know of a thread where this has been discussed already, could someone point me to it please?

Cheers

Chee 'technophobe 'hee

HonestAl

The Garmin TOPO maps are based on OS maps, but they're nothing like as detailed. You do get contour information but they're not TOO easy to see in the display. Having said that I've used mine a lot (loaded with the TOPO maps but pretty much exclusively on road)

I don't know satmap but from the looks of it it's a GPS rather than a bike computer which has GP built into it. So I presume you lose the cadence measuring, heart rate monitoring etc. Reckon you pays your money and ...

Bronzie

I've got a 705 and bought the NT Europe 2009 road mapping on a DVD and added it to the unit at a later date.

I don't do a lot of off-roading with mine, but you can create a route (using www.bikehike.co.uk for instance) along bridleways and download this to the Garmin and then follow on the ground. You can do this even if you have just the basemap, but of course you can't ask the unit to navigate for you. It is a bit fiddly and time consuming creating off-road routes this way though to be fair, but it gets you to new trails.

No experience of the TOPO maps myself. Have a look on the MotionBased forums for more info (although these are a bit US-centric).

Wouldn't make a great car satnav - the screen is too small to view if dashboard mounted somehow and I think it would be unsafe to be squinting at that rather than watching the road.

a_n_t

its not great in the car but it will get you to a destination, i use it quite abit off the bike.