Garmin Quest I comments:
1) Why you picked out the GPS you did.
The price on Garmin's Quest has come down quite a bit since last
winter when I got my GPS-V, which is now somewhere at the bottom
of the Toccoa River. I like the battery power & color
screen. I used the GPSInformation.net review heavily
in making my choice. I don't mind manually loading maps for a
couple of hundred dollars vs. the Quest 2. It also should travel
easily because of it's small size - I use mine in rental cars on
business trips.
2) What you like about your choice.
The routing is SO much faster than the GPS-V. If you got
off-track, the GPS-V would often take so long to re-calc that you would
be past the next turn before it recommended it. A 25 mile trip
takes maybe 5-10 seconds to do now. Did I mention how fast it was?
The screen looks great day & night. I like the automatic day-night
change in the display. Also, it has no problems with polarized
sunglasses like my XM MyFi radio does.
While not recommended in your review for serious off-road use, the only
thing I really use it for off-road is geocaching & return to camp
info (distance to go) and so I think it will serve me fine.
The suction cup mount makes it easier to place the unit a bit
off-center in front of me, versus needing to place it on a relatively
horizontal spot on the dash.
Although mine came with City Select 6, I qualified for a free upgrade to version 7, which I am looking forward to.
The 4-way keypad is easier to operate than my GPS-V, which was
picky about doing lefts and rights. The Quest seems softer.
USB map downloads are about 15 times faster than the old serial method.
3) What you do not like about your choice?
I wish I could use all my old Garmin accessories (beanbag mount and my
dash mount constructed using hard epoxy for my curved dash as described
on the web site). A friction mount costs about $60+, since it
includes the entire power cable/speaker assembly.
I also wish I had a way to block the reflection off the windshield at
night. I had a little piece of manilla folder cut out for the
GPS-V that fit into the mount on top of the screen to block it.
Being able to put it out of my line of sight with the suction cup helps
a bit.
Some of the functions take extra keystrokes, like "Stop Navigating" and "Recalculate."
4) Your experiences in using your GPS receiver.
Very good. The suction cup mount does vibrate a bit in my little sporty car (Mazda Protege) but not in our Honda Pilot.
5) Does your GPS perform as you expected.
Better than expected. I'm very pleased. The antenna works
very well - I have had 12 sats on at one time. No worries at all
about the patch antenna.
6) How is the manual?
The manual is fine, but it mostly works like my older Garmin so it
doesn't matter to me much anyway. The unit also has a "auto-tips"
feature that tells me when there's an easier way to do things (it told
me that I could use the page key to get rid of the letter input pad
instead of keying the back key)
7) Other comments.
I used one of your vendors, got the best price available, and had it in
my hand in 2 days with free shipping. You have to manually turn
WAAS on in the setup. Just like my GPS-V, it comes preset not
using it.
If I ever take this one rafting, I will be sure to have a case
and have it tethered to me. Trust me, your pocket is not a
reliable keeping-place!
Scott Dunnington
Acworth, GA