Garmin chart question

Courageous

Courageous

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www.courageous.it
Hi chaps - have just purchased a Garmin 451 from the bay of fleas. I need charts for the med and wondered whether I am now tied to Garmin ones or can I load cmap or another option.

Following on from that does anyone have a source for cheap charts at all?

Thanx in advance!
 
No, It needs the Garmin charts and you will be fortunate to find a cheap option. Garmin are very wise to all (most?) of the tricks, so chart software needs to be matched to the serial number of the device and will only load if it finds everything to be correct.

If someone knows different, please advise!
 
Christ this great then isn't it? Suppose its not disimilar to printer manufacturers who make their money out of ink.......

In my case the maps appear to be half the cost of the gps and thats for one map!

So I guess you better not buy second hand then either eh?
 
They're still great value plotters, even if you do decide to get the G2/G2 Vision cartography (either will work and the new charts will be updateable)

As with any other plotter, if you want to keep the charts bang up to date (or in this case buy new ones) you'll need to shell out some cash.
 
WALLY said:
No, you can't update the embedded cartography.
Click to expand...

The embedded cartography in GPSMAP 450 series, 550 series and 750 series devices can be updated by purchasing the updates from the Garmin website http://www.garmin.com/sites/uk/maps/bluechart#pre The price to update my 450 series plotter was £50, not sure if thats the same price for all the other series but certainly cheaper than being forced to shell out for the full G2 cartography.
 
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I don't think Garmin chart prices are any more expensive than the others, but whatever charting system you use, the concern is that the company will cease to support that particular chart issue, so that updates are not available -- worse still you may find that the new generation charts will not run on older units, which leaves you in limbo. Most makers do offer a fairly generous support term, but if you are in the market for any of these older or obsolescent ( not obsolete) machines it is worth checking out the chart situation before you part with any cash.
 
WALLY said:
As with any other plotter, if you want to keep the charts bang up to date (or in this case buy new ones) you'll need to shell out some cash.
Click to expand...

Make sure what you are getting before spending your money. My plotter is a Garmin 2010 taking the original version of their chart software. Charts for Greece are very poor, Meganisi in particular having very poor resolution. At SIBS I visited the Garmin stand and asked whether updating to the latest version would be worth spending almost £200. The very helpful gent on the stand produced a CD of the latest version, which we checked. Resolution for Greece is exactly the same as on my elderly version and we agreed there was no benefit in updating.
 
I too have a Garmin 2010 and the original Garmin Bluecharts are no longer available which I find dissapointing. I bought a 5012 at the SBS as I found it at a very good price on the last day. but before commiting the cash I checked on the Garmin stand as to how long the G2 and G2 vision charts are likely to be available. I was told that as these charts were also used by the recently introduced 6000 and 7000 series plotters, it should be at least seven or eight years. This still seems a bit short to me as it effectively means a very expensive bit of kit is fairly redundant even though it is in perfect working order. However, I am told by the younger generation that this is to be expected as technology moves on. I suppose I could always buy a sextant!
 
Garmin could allow anyone to open their out of date software and update it themselves. It seems mean not to do this. And anyway the coasts and seabeds don't change too much.
 
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