other accessories

We took our SP III with us on our last trip to France and used the 128MB memory card to load in all of the data from Paris through Normandy and beyond. There was enough capacity for about half of France. I was very impressed with the routing capabilities and up to date maps available for France. The Unit easily led us to our destinations and provided step by step directions when the routing function was used. It also highlighted our route on the map making following your progress simple, even when driving. Especially nice were the up-close maps of upcoming round-abouts, something common in Europe (and which can be confusing for first timers). The map showed entry onto the round-about and which exit to take, in addition to telling you the information with the voice feature. I was skeptical that the unit would function as well overseas as in the US because I figured the small back roads would not be shown on the map, but was pleasantly surprised. We navigated along highways and through medieval towns with ease. I can highly recommend this unit for use both in the United States and in Europe. While you do have to pay for the maps which are somewhat costly, they are well worth the one time investment. This Unit works as well as or better than any built in or rental car system that I have used.

I did a little research into 'navigation systems' before looking over this particular one, so that way I wouldn't be so impressed. Didn't work - this is a SWEEEEEEET little set-up. You can transfer it from on car to another, and even bring it on trips with you for use in rental cars, too. No re-tooling of your dashboard, or other permanant modification of you vehicle is needed. I'd really like to own one in the worst way (because I can't read a real map to save my life), however...

I did run into a snag that really put the brakes on this purchase. Although all the major routs in the U.S. and Canada are in the unit already, you still need to load up the 'memory card' (which IS included along with an interface cable) with the areas you want fine detail for - that's how it can route you to a specific movie theater, restaurant, or house.

That's where the map CD comes into play. All that detail IS given to you on the CD, but has to be read from your home computer, and then transferred to the memory card - I have absolutly NO problem with that, except that the CD interface is for Windows systems only! No Mac support at all. I even called Garmin direclty.

If you have a Macintosh computer, make sure you at least have access to a friends PC before you get this. Otherwise you'll be a little frustrated. After you get it set up the first time, you'll have no trouble at all. I persoanlly don't have a PC, so I had to hold off. Hopefully Garmin will start supporting Mac soon enough, and I can try for a later generation of this.

I love it! It was extremely intuitive. Easy to use, lots of features, voice/speaker feature is great.