Garmin eMap : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao.co.uk

Author's product rating:

Reliability	Excellent
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Look & Feel	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Basic mapping
Disadvantages:	Not detailed enough

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This unit is a really good compromise between something for the road and something for walking with. The reason for that is that the unit is nice a small so you can hold in your hand (much smaller than something like the Street Pilot range). Also with this unit you can do some basic main road mapping but you won't be able to right down to street level.

There are various versions of this unit available from just the unit for around £200 or complete with data card and data lead for around £250-£300. But you will need to get a mapsource cd for around another £100 to get any road detail at all.

The unit is similar to the etrex in that you can store and name your waypoints and see where you are in relation to each of them. However you can store a lot more on this unit, how many will depend upon the size of the memory card you have in the unit. But you can also store multiple routes on this unit too which is great because you can save a route you've walked then if you go back there after a year for say an aniversary and want to do the same walk again you can at the touch of a button.

Although the unit is hand held it's actually got a pretty big screen, i think it's the second largest screen in the garmin range, behind the street pilot.

It does only have a black and white screen but i really like this unit. It's nice and easy to carry round, easy to use and it looks damn slick too.

Additions From Comments

29/12/03
How easy is the unit to setup a route?
It's not the easiest to setup. It is of the older version of the garmin range, as opposed to the SP3, GPS V and IQUE. If you want to go from point A (current position), to point C you have to select that you want to create a route to point C. The unit will then give you a route "as the crow flies" so if you need to go to a certain junction of a motorway first you need to select that as a via point, then if you come off in four junctions you need to select that point too, then the next turn, and the next and so on. The longer you spend and more turns you input the easier it will be to navigate the route. To do the return route however there is a reverse route option.
So unfortunately it's not the best for setting up a road based route.

However if you were out walking it'd be easier as you would only select pre-marked way points and probably have less turns.

Accuracy?
The unit as any GPS unit will give you around 10-15 feet accuracy. This will depend on how many of the GPS satellites the unit can see at the time. There are 12 (i think), the unit will need at least 3 to be able to get your position as it uses tri-ang-ulation to pin point you. So the more it can see the better.
There is a screen that tells you how many satellites the unit is receiveing and what the accuracy is.