On 01/05/2011 23:11, Andrew Salzberg wrote:
I'm looking to contribute to OSM and looking for the cheapest,
reliable unit that has a USB interface.
Are you looking for a datalogger (which will probably be the cheapest
option) or something that can do a bit more (show tracks, perhaps
perform basic routing etc.)?
Also - are you looking for a handheld unit or something that can be
mounted in a vehicle?
What continents/countries do you live in / intend to visit? (in order
to work out whether paying extra for something that supports WAAS would
be worthwhile).
I'm also wondering what the difference is b/w using a mobile phone GPS
unit (can that be done while 'offline' - ie, in a country where i
don't have cell service) and something like a Garmin handheld -
accuracy? cost?
Not all mobile phone GPSs are brilliant at being GPSs - shoe-horning
several radios into a small package can mean that they sometimes don't
work as well as dedicated units. Do you have a particular phone in
mind? If so, someone might be able to say what it's like as a GPS unit.
I work in transportation so ideally I'd also like a unit that's great
for storing a fair bit of detailed tracklog data that could be used
for reconstructing things like speeds, times spent moving/not moving, etc.
Someone's already recommended the Garmin Legend HC X; if you stick a
microSD card in that it can log tracks there until the cows come home.
As an anecdotal example on a similar device, 5 hours driving and 6 hours
walking came to about 900kb; so obviously you could repeat that a few
times before filling a card.
There are pages on the OSM wiki for various devices (for example
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Garmin/eTrex_series). They're always
not all especially up to date (and sometimes contain contradictory
information!) but are still worth a read - certainly better than online
sellers' "review" pages.
Cheers,
Andy
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