I picked up a few accessories for my hand held gps unit this Xmas. In stead of just a back-up unit, I found myself using it a lot for certain functions to compliment my larger in dash unit. So when I read about these new pre-programmed chart chips that were for my handheld and their new Direct Route mapping for land based navigation I said what the hell lets try it.
My handheld is a Magellan Meridian Marine unit. I got it mainly as a back up unit and it had the basic built in nautical features that I liked. I have had it for a year and a half and found it to be a great compliment to my larger chart plotter. I have a dash mount for the handheld while on board. While running, I mostly use the highway screen on the handheld and the chart plotter function on the larger unit. For me, I like using the two units at the same time.

The basic features were ok in the marine unit with all the buoys ect but it had no detailed chart info. But for how I was using it it had been working fine. This new BLUE nave chip pops in the back and adds all the details of the paper charts and nicely eliminates clutter at zoom out. It is not cheap...$149 for the local charts (which is what I have and covers from BI to southern ME) and 2somthing for the wide charts which cover a larger area. Frankly I did not "need" this but now that I have it is really nice as it now has more features then my in dash unit (with a much smaller screen). One thing I like about the chip is it adds many more levels of gray to the screen and it appears much sharper.

The Mapsend direct route software is a mapping CD of the US and Canada. I got this because in the off-season, I take the gps handheld unit with me on ski trips north (in the truck). This adds amazing capability to the unit. You basically select what portion of the US you want to port to the unit (on your PC) and then hook your gps unit to your PC and transfer the map info to the user chip. I have a 64MB SD card (small user chip) that fits into the same slot as the BLUE NAV chart chip. (can't use both at the same time)
Once the map info is on the chip, this can compute street routes and guide you to your destination. You simply hit goto button and either goto the cursor or an entered address and it computes the street route from where you are. It works great. It also has a turn-by-turn screen and an audio alert when you near your next turn point.
But to me, the most amazing feature is the database that is onboard. It has a looong list of points of interest hospitals, gas stations, restaurants, hotels, resorts ect..you can select one of those...hit goto and presto...instant routing info...if you miss the exit...it goto again and it re-routes you from your current position. IMO this GREATLY extended the usefulness of this device. It is really simply to use has a ton of USEFUL data in there. For example, wanted to goto eat at a restaurant...select the restaurant title, it presents you with a sub list of types of restaurants (all possible kinds known to man)...I selected Chinese and it listed a sorted list of Chinese restaurants in order of nearness to my current location. I highlighted one and the full address, phone and lat lon position is listed (no menu :( ) hit goto and the route it created from where I am.
The only "bad" thing I found with this software is that when transferring the data to the chip thru the unit ....it is SLOW. A separate drive would be faster. The size of your card determines how much of a map you can put on there. IMO I would NOT BUY anything smaller then 32MB...Mine is 64 and it holds several states of highly detailed mapping data. For example, I selected VT, NH western ME all the way south eastern Long Island and it was about 48MB of data. This took about 3 hours to transfer to the card from the PC thru the gps unit via a serial connection. I don't expect I will do this very often but it is not fast.
So I plan to put the Blue Nav chip in the unit from April to Nov and the user chip with the direct route mapping data in there from Dec thru march (or when I need it on the road).

IMO both of these are great additions to an already decent unit. The blue nav charts make the handheld a better chartplotter and the direct route mapping software has every little road with highly detailed maps with a fantastic database of useful info. for 149 bucks it is also a good buy.


I am thinking about getting a second similar handheld unit to give me even more flexibility. IMO these better handheld units are really feature packed very useful and worth EVERY CENT and then some.

I need a palm pilot for street navigation while driving if I download navman streetfinder deluxe into a palm does it work the same way as it does on pc or can I punch in street info and it comes up on palm without the pc anyone know how this works and is palm the cheapest way out for street navigation I feel with all the other features i could do scheduling keep track of time etc!! with a palm any info would help cause i dont have a clue

I've seen the palm unit with the marine charts but have not used it.

As far as the most cost effective unit for street nav, I bet a dedicated garmin street unit is proably the best way to go. But if you want schedules and address reference as time tracking then the palm is probably the way to go.

As for differeneces in the handheld vs the PC, as far as the Mapsend goes they seem to work the same pretty much. I have noticed some features that are lacking between the mapsend vs a better street program like delome though.

But this added capability to my handheld gps is nice, Also it makes good use of the sd memory slot ...I had 64 mb card with a handfull of tracks, routes and waypoints...Now it has a ton of good stuff. I have been using it in the car the last week just around town...the instant street routing is kewl. I needed to go to a hotel I have never heard of...I did a search for hotels near my area, a list came up sorted by distace from where I am, I saw the name, selected it and it gave me the address, phone , latlon, ect...one push of the goto button and route is created from where you are to the hotel. When a turn is comming up it beeps faster and faster as you approach it. when you turn the beep stops until the next turn. It is pretty slick.

but I want the gps unit that fits on a palm and will work with a street mapping program! I dont know my way around the south shore to good so i use map quest and then follow that but when im out there and get a call i have to go to maps pia!! I think the palm is what i want I just dont know how you put in address and zip codes to get map to pop up! is that how it works!

I got the garmin I-Que and I love it. I put a 128 card in it and loaded street maps for all of New England and Blue charts from Boston to New Haven, CT. You need to go into the Map page than go to the Preferences and turn off the street maps for the blue charts to work. Garmin gave me an additional code for the Blue Charts even though I had used 2 already. I also recomend the dash kit to hold and charge it.

I printed an ad from the internet and went to Boat US and asked them to price match. Got it for $460. The memory 128M was around $80 and the dash kit was around $56

The color display and the one peice design is great.