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Cost with shipping: $315.00 from http://www.tvnav.com/navhome.html Today's UPS truck brought Garmin's big memory stick. This cartridge might store a lot of information, but the size is disappointing for the cost. Still, this is the memory module I had been hoping for since I bought my StreetPilot and today it is a reality.
Garmin ships the 1-5/8" x 3/4" x 1/8" module in a container about 4" square that is very much like the containers that camera flashcards use, except this enclosure is bigger. Loading Maps: Last Spring I purchased Garmin's USB programmer (review available) because loading maps using the StreetPilot was a very time consuming process. I remember the first time I loaded the greater San Francisco Bay area into my 16-meg module it took about 6 hours in total and taught me a lesson in StreetPilot
battery life. Now with the USB, maps that took hours to load only took a couple of minutes. Back then I extrapolated the loading time to fill the 128-meg module, it came out that it would take a little more than 10 minutes. To find out how good my assumption was I wasted no time in getting my Metroguide CD running so I could pick the maps I wanted to have loaded most of the time. Here are the map area that are now loaded into the 128-meg module: Metroguide Region Size Loading these maps took 9 minutes & 20 seconds using an Intel 450 MHZ PII processor with 256 Megs of memory and Garmin's USB device. Except for the time it took to select the maps, ~40 Seconds, this is all it takes to get street-level detail for the entire list of maps detailed above into the StreetPilot.
Users with slower processors might notice a slightly longer loading period because during the first two minutes of loading, the computer is doing a lot of work with the data before it begins the transfer process. My guess is that if the process is a 266-PII, there could be another minute needed to load the same map set. It is going to seem funny riding to always have enough map space to cover a day’s ride and not worry about having to reload a module for a city with which I'm not familiar. This might mean the laptop stay home more often. Before the large memory stick arrived, another concern I had about the large module was how long it would take for the GPS to sync-up with the data. When I tested the initialization time from the San Francisco 16-meg cartridge compared to the 128-meg cartridge covering the same area, there doesn't seem to be
any noticeable difference in position lock. It seems the GPS takes about the same amount of time to lock-on and display navigation information regardless of size. In the few minutes I've played with the 128-meg module in the yard and then on the motorcycle around my local area, I can't tell any speed difference in how the GPS updates. Large memory modules don't
seem to affect GPS operation. I also wanted to know the power requirement change to see if battery life would be affected. From looking at the current draw across a Fluke multimeter, I didn’t see any change in power requirements between a 16-meg chip and a 128-meg chip. I didn't expect any
because this is flash memory, but still it is important to check. Now it is time to go riding.
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