More basic than it appears to be, but still decent
By hairymon Dec 10, 2005 | 1 out of 1 found this Whistler Galileo review helpful
Pros: Choice of horizontal or vertical screen, inexpensive, very good maps and POI, memory card option, quick and excellent support
Cons: Sometimes has poor satellite lock, eats batteries, non-standard for geocaching
The Whistler Galileo is a full-featured unit with maps, points of interest, and the ability to add memory from compact flash cards. It is probably the least expensive such unit out there. The features included a compass, detailed maps on the GPS its...elf, and a screen that includes info on your speed, location, elevation, etc. I can't say that I'm totally disappointed, but I really do believe now that "you get what you pay for". If you are not in an extremely open area, the device can (but doesn't always) take up to 15 minutes to "warm up" and find satellites, which is pretty poor. In fact, after 10 minutes it will flash "poor GPS Signal", but if you hit "OK" you will usually start getting a reading a couple of minutes later. We are not talking about the first time you ever turn it on (for which this would be normal), but in situations where it hasn't been on for just a few days. It also doesn't keep it's lock well in any car I tried it in unless you have the device pressed against a window. Some real "basic" GPS units do have this issue but you wouldn't expect it from a unit at this level. I did buy an external antenna for about $25 on eBay that has helped greatly though (you can magnetically mount it to your car roof or buy a suction device with a metal plate to mount inside your windshield...make sure you buy one with a jack that is "straight through" and not "right angle", because the jack is too deeply recessed for the latter to connect). If you buy the "accesory pack" or the "Elite" GPS edition you will get a 32MB CF card and more detailed maps. Installing is not very intuitive. First off, you do not simply "install the CD", you create the directories on your own and copy the files there and then manually create the icon and Program Files entry. The instruction booklet does tell you how to do this, but this seems very very crude, I would've expected this in 1985, not 2005. Then, it can take hours to download the maps with the USB cable. You can improve on this greatly by buying a compact flash reader to do this. You can only download one set of maps, and the next time you download, it erases that set and creates a new one. The instructions do not tell you this and it is very annoying to find out. And Whistler is not planning to update the maps and points of interest, which date from late 2003 (however, for most purposes they are still fine). It is also a "non-standard" unit compared to most others in certain ways. In a nod to the standards used by the growingly popular activity of geocaching, most units by defauly display a reading in Degress, Minutes, Decimal minutes (i.e. 40D 58.019' N latitude). This unit will only show readings in Degrees, Minutes, Seconds, Decimal seconds (i.e. 40D 58' 01.5" N). Also, it is not compatible with most standard software out there for downloading waypoints from geocaching sites, etc. If you are not going to use this unit for geocaching (or only will occasionally), this is not a problem at all, but if you are, having to mathematically convert waypoint coords and then enter them manually will be a pain. Also, it does not show an "estimated position error" like most GPS devices do. The device is not a complete waste, however. Once you get the lock, it works pretty well. If you use it more than once/week, it will not take long to acquire and hold satellites. I find most of the figures to be surprisingly accurate. The lat/long numbers I got vs. looking on maps showed I was usually well within the 45 ft. accuracy they advertised. In my car, I took a trip with the cruise control set at 65 mph and the speed it showed was always between 64-66. The compass was perfectly accurate as well. The one case where the numbers tended to be off was "elevation/
altitude". The instructions warn you that you Read more Less
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