Are Garmin Discoverer OS maps worth it?

ben@31

Does anyone have Garmin OS maps for their Garmin?

I currently have a Garmin 800 but only with road maps. I've considered getting OS maps for MTB'ing but the price Garmin is asking must be the most expensive download known to mankind.

I've read some people have download open source maps instead. (talky toaster and velomap) I haven't seen these maps in real life, are they good quality?

I just wondered what others use for mtb'ing?

Thanks.

njee20

I've got the OS maps on my 1000, purchased for £25 via iOffer. They're worse than the free OSM maps I think. Not that accurate (you're regularly riding off the side of a road/trail), the resolution isn't great and all the text is always so north is up, so if you're heading south everything is upside down. Not the end of the world, but it annoys me.

Depends a bit how detailed the OSM maps are for your area, and how much you value the additional POIs that OS maps can give you. I'd not bother though.

kinioo

Also was thinking of Garmin stuff etc., but finally got myself an android phone - using it with ViewRanger and OS maps - I think they are great and you can buy selected tiles as part of the map you are after.

Chris.

diy

Free ones are pretty good:
http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm

Its all I use for on and off road.

freezing77

njee20 wrote:

I've got the OS maps on my 1000, purchased for £25 via iOffer. They're worse than the free OSM maps I think. Not that accurate (you're regularly riding off the side of a road/trail), the resolution isn't great and all the text is always so north is up, so if you're heading south everything is upside down. Not the end of the world, but it annoys me.

Depends a bit how detailed the OSM maps are for your area, and how much you value the additional POIs that OS maps can give you. I'd not bother though.

The north up setting of your maps can be changed to track up in the settings. Probably under activity profile, navigation settings.

Changing the Map Orientation
1 Select Activity Profiles
2 Select a profile.
3 Select Navigation Map Orientation
4 Select an option:
Select
North Up to show north at the top of the page.
•
Select Track Up to show your current direction of travel at the top of the page.
•
Select 3D Mode to display the map in three dimensions.

njee20

You misunderstand, you can orientate the maps however you want, but with the OS maps, because they're effectively just a scan of the paper maps they're always north up. With OSM maps all the labels and things rotate (and move, so you're never 'under' a label) - so if you're heading south, it's south up, and all the labels on road/place names etc are legible. With the OS maps south is up, but all the text remains upside down. Small point, but it irks me.

OS can't do 3D either - if you change to that it over rides the OS maps and uses the base maps.

freezing77

Thanks for that, I have the OS maps but much prefer the OSM maps for many reasons. As you indicate the OS maps are raster images and pixellate at high zoom levels. The text thing would irk me too, one more reason to stick with openstreetmap.

ben@31

njee20 wrote:

... but with the OS maps, because they're effectively just a scan of the paper maps ...

Before I buy anything I've been doing a fair bit of reading on them.

Sounds like when you zoom in Garmin OS maps, it's stays the same 1 to 50k scale. Only your eyes move closer to the PDF paper map. Some reviews said it gets to the point where the Garmin OS map becomes blurred / unusable. While open source maps (like the Talky Toaster) are an infinite scale, so when you zoom in the scale of the map correspondingly changes 1:50k to 1:25k to 1:10k etc and the map redraws to show more detail.

For getting a map to use on forrest trails, I think this issue could be the decider.

I saw on one youtube video people can also add points of interest to open source maps. So they're always upto date with route, car parking and cafes ( can't be too far away from a nice warm cafe

njee20

Spot on with the zooming thing, that's exactly what happens. The resolution is more than adequate, but they look terrible when you zoom right in.

ben@31

Upto £299 a bit of a rip-off then. When you press the + to zoom in... it doesn't really zoom in. Considering the Garmin maps are in the £100's, you'd expect the technology to be better. Looks like if you buy the 1:50k OS maps it doesn't zoom into the 1:25k OS maps they also sell.

njee20

Nope, not at all. I expected the lines to get sharper at least, rather than just getting illegible because they're so pixelated.

ben16v

i find them fine - able to navigate fire roads etc pretty. i got the national parks OS for £20 from cotswold outdoor - worth it for that