Garmin MapSource City Navigator North American NT 2011 DVD Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have a Garmin Dakota 20 and had been using a very old version of City Select but was getting "Route Calculation Errors" pretty often so I decided to buy the latest software hoping those problems would go away and they have.I assume I have more up to date information now, but one one-way street near me is still not recognized as being one-way, but that's a minor nit, everything else seems to be current. I'm able to download maps to my gps, make routes and do auto-routing with the maps I download to my GPS.I know this isn't the Topo version of the software, but I also have a Garmin Nuvi 500 and there is an option to switch to a view that shows you topo lines and shading which is nice.I'm not sure what software that is, but I really wish it was included with City Navigator, but it's not, you just get dull looking maps.

The actual Mapsource software on my PC still seems rather bland.There's a view satellite imagery in Google Maps feature, which is useless, it just brings you to Google maps in a seperate window with none of your routes or tracks you've created.You can upload your tracks to [...] and get really cool maps including elevation plots but ... that functionality does not exist in the Mapsource program which is disappointing.The Mapsource program seems to be almost not updated at all since I first started using a prior version many years ago. I'm also a little disappointed I can't find a way to split a track which is a feature I use a lot... mostly when you forget to reset the track before using the unit or forget to save the track when you're done.So I have to use other software to do that.I really wish they'd update Mapsource so it could get satellite imagery right within the product or topo maps.And I wish you could edit the tracks and put labels on the maps and use it for actually creating useful trail maps, but Mapsource has none of those features.

Lastly - installation of the software on my PC went ok, but then I had two problems:

1. I could not unlock maps (so I could send them to my Garmin Dakota 20).I have Windows 7.I had to call Garmin, wait on hold for about 15 minutes, then got someone who had me try a whole bunch of things, then eventually, he sent me (via email) a file that I had to put in .gma file (whatever that is) that I had to put in my C:\users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Garmin\Maps which is a hidden directory on the machine and a little hard to find.But that unlocked the maps.

2. Now my old version of City Select no longer works.I really wouldn't care about that problem if you could still unlock this software on TWO GPS UNITS, BUT GARMIN HAS CHANGED THEIR POLICY AND ONLY ALLOW YOU TO DOWNLOAD MAPS TO ONE GPS UNIT.You buy this for ONE UNIT only and would have to buy another copy (or license anyway) to download the maps to a second GPS if you have one (which I do).So - that's a big bummer.One last thing too - until you unlock the software for a particular unit, you can't even use it on your PC, so you can't create tracks or anything... I think it said Map Details Locked and was pretty much frozen.Terrible.

Bottom line is - the Maps you download to your GPS are perfectly fine for the most part.You might experience difficulty unlocking but Garmin can send you a file but expect this to take an hour or so to get through.The Mapsource software is still pretty basic and in my opinion way behind the times, but if you want auto-routing on your GPS that didn't come with built-in maps, you have to use it to get the maps to your unit and to create routes to follow and you'll have to find other software to make maps and work with tracks.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Garmin MapSource City Navigator North American NT 2011 DVD

Product Description:
With nearly 6 million points of interest and road coverage for the U.S., Canada and Mexico, plus Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and the Bahamas, MapSource City Navigator North America NT gives you everything you need to travel North America. Powered by NAVTEQ, a world leader in premium-quality digital map data, City Navigator brings you the most detailed street maps available so you can navigate with exact, turn-by-turn directions to any address or intersection.

Includes postal code support for Canada. Contains traffic data for compatible devices with traffic receivers. Speaks street names (example -Turn right on Main Street.). DVD (PC and Mac) Compatible units -n vi series, StreetPilot c-series, i-series, 2720, 2730, 7200, 7500, GPSMAP 60Cx, 60CSx, 76Cx, 76CSx, 276C, 376C, Oregon series, Dakota series, Colorado series, eTrex Legend Cx, eTrex Vista C, Quest 2, aera series