adamant

i bought this unit back in 2004. would it be useful for city riding?

enine

How are you using it, just for logging or navigation? If navigation you'll want to update the maps (city navigator, or open street map or something) as the base map doesn't much in the way of smaller streets (assuming its an x model).

adamant

Thanks for the reply I like to try to use it for street navigation in the city. Is it hard to up load street maps into the unit? I have the older one not the color one u see today.
Ant

prathmann

Yes, it'll load the Garmin detailed maps fine, but you're limited to 24 MB of mapping data at a time. That's enough for a good-sized metro area and lots of surrounding rural areas. Easiest (but more expensive) is to use Garmin's City Navigator maps. If you're in the US those will cover the entire US and Canada. Install that on your PC and then select the specific map area you want to load into your Vista.

Note that you'll also need the interface cable for your Vista if you don't have that already. It connects to an RS-232 interface on the PC - if your PC only has USB serial ports then you'd also need to get a USB to RS232 converter (should be < $20).

In addition to showing all the roads in the selected area, the maps also have lots of 'points of interest' including businesses, parks, schools, transit centers, etc. These can be pretty handy when touring and you want to find a grocery store, library, bike shop, etc.

enine

yea, its pretty easy to load, either use Garmin's mapsource or one of the open source tools.
With 24M its probably not worth buying Garmin's City navigator since your not going to be able to load much at a time.