|
||||||
| In Stock.Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available. |
GARMIN GPSMAP-640 Car Marine GPS. Garmin International is
pleased to announce the new GPSMAP 620 and GPSMAP 640. These two
new Garmin products offer elements of the GPSMAP 5000 series
marine chartplotters combined with elements of the popular nuvi
series for use on the road all in one easy to use device.
Portable and powerful, the GPSMAP 620 and GPSMAP 640 feature a
high sensitivity GPS receiver and boast a large, super bright 5.2
in WVGA touchscreen display that reacts as users tap and drag
through the intuitive user interface. Out of the box, the GPSMAP
640 comes complete with marine and automotive mounts. This true
land and sea navigator features preloaded maps such as highly
detailed BlueChart g2 marine cartography of the coastal United
States /including Alaska, Hawaii and the Bahamas/ as well as
highly detailed City Navigator NT road maps for North America.
- Product Dimensions:1.9 x
4 x 5.9 inches ; 1.1 pounds - Shipping Weight: 6
pounds (View
shipping rates and policies) - Shipping: Currently,
item can be shipped only within the U.S. - ASIN: B001HL4YMG
- Item model number:
GPSMAP-640
- Waterproof Land and Sea
Navigator - 5.2 in Diagonal WVGA
Touchscreen Display at 800x480 Pixels - Preloaded with BlueChart g2
Marine Cartography of the Coastal U.S./Including Alaska,
Hawaii and the Bahamas - Supports GXM 40, XM WX
Satellite Weather, XM Satellite Radio, XM NavTraffic - Turn by Turn Directions and
Text to Speech
Customer Reviews (Favourable)
****Great GPS for on the road or on the water, March 7, 2010
First-off, I have no idea what the other two reviewers are
complaining about regarding XM traffic/weather while using the
unit in automotive mode. You have to buy a separate XM receiver
to even get XM reception, and on top of that a monthly
subscription. Rating the entire unit as 1-star because of the
absence of a tiny feature that almost no one will miss (XM
traffic/weather in automotive mode) is short-sighted,
reductionist and unfair to Garmin and potential customers. The
GPS is great - the touch screen works well, provides a lot of
real-estate, and is very responsive. The built-in data has loads
of information on local facilities and points-of-interest, and is
really good at showing you current speed limits and adjusting
quickly when they change. The on-land navigation is excellent, as
you would expect from Garmin. You can choose from several voices,
it does an excellent job re-routing and estimating
time-of-arrival, etc. It comes with many accessories, including a
mounting kit for a boat, the base for the car, and AC adapter for
charging at home. On the water it is very impressive with the
level of detail in the charts that come with this unit - shipping
lanes, lots of soundings, hazards, channel markers, everything is
there. It has tide and current information for many stations, has
built-in knowledge of the local deviation which allows you to
configure the unit in True or Magnetic, and again is good at
calculating arrival times and headings. The are a few minuses to
the product. It tends to support only straight-line navigation on
the water so if there's any land in between you and your
destination, it oddly just plots a course right over the land. It
is also insanely expensive given its size and target audience
(presumably people who want to use it both for automotive and
nautical purposes and aren't interested in shelling out a small
fortune for a full-fledged on-board nav system in their boats).
The battery life (at least in my unit) is also less than ideal -
it seems to last only a few hours, which is unfortunate. The
battery pack that you attach to the back does add some
weight/bulk (total unit is about 1pound 2 ounces with battery),
so it's not quite in the category of handheld or easily carried
on a hike, so one would think (therefore) that it would have
substantially more battery life than it does. Overall, it's a
great product with a ton of features. I just fear the downfall of
this unit (or rather this particular line of land/water combo GPS
from Garmin) will be its excessively high price point.
Customer Reviews(Critical)
Technology in reverse..., June
17, 2009
The 640 could/should have been so much better, had Garmin
enabled the XM Weather capability in Automotive mode, in addition
to the Marine mode, which does support XM Weather (WHY would they
do such a stupid thing?!), and kept the Tracks/Tracks Management
feature of the 276C/378/478 models, which are also geared toward
Marine/Auto users. The unbelievable thing is that these missing
features are all features that Garmin has implemented in older
units - it is baffling why they would eliminate them in newer
models, particularly at a time when this basic GPS functionality
in the 640 is so widely available in smartphones. They also
reduced the number of saved Routes. As the 640 is currently
configured, I will stick to my trusty 478 for a long time,
despite the fact that I would have liked to upgrade to a larger
screen and updated GPS receiver technology found in the 640.
No comments:
Post a Comment