iceman5689
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Wondering if any have reviews or recommend purchasing this mapping system in addition to the pre loaded base maps?
Backroad GPS BC/ALBERTA for garmin rino 650
- Thread starter iceman5689
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X-it
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Well i have found if you own a cell phone with built in gps, or buy one at costco's for 89 dollars. Then install Memory Maps etopo maps for 19.99 dollars for all of Alberta 1:50000 and 1:250000 or they have free ones just as good as backroads. Of coarse BC would cost you another 19.99 or they give you a free trial for 10 days. Now the tough part you have to download the maps into your phone for offline use, this is not to friendly but when you learn it it is quiet easy. It takes about 40 minutes to download the whole province. Also google earth app works fantastic as well. Both will work on your phone or tablet. Why look at a rinky dinky little screen when a cell phones screen is much larger or a tablet is really large
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cdnredneck_t3
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I have it on an older 530. I like it. lots cut lines are on it too. One riding buddy uses that birds eye on his 650. That works pretty good too.
X-it
Active VIP Member
I will also mention that your laptop works great with memory maps, you will need a gps receiver and pay for their gps activation which is transferable. Also google maps apps is probably the best car gps you can own and its free. I have owned a garmin rhino and two other garmins as well as 3 magellans. I do take my magellan along from time to time but why the hell pay that yearly subscription when the clarity is not even close to what you can get and you cannot even get 3d which you can get on your phone laptop or tablet. And you can take all your repair manuals with you on the devises. By the time you where finished with backroads for bc alb you would probably be etching on to 300 bucks and not near the quality.
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takethebounce
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I do not know if its still true or not but a few years ago when I was looking at mapping add on for my Garmin's I found out that NRCan who provides the national topo maps for Canada is what all the companies base their maps on and the last update to the NTSM was over 20 years ago. So regardless of whatever software you are using, they are all based off the same 20+ year old topos. Maybe there as been a recent update?
BackRoads charges a premium for a service that you may or may not get full use off. Their map/info includes all the activities on their maps for which they decide is important or not. I find it a little cluttered the few times i used it but it may be possible to clean up what it shows, I just didn't use it enough. I preferred having a blank topo map which I can add my own way points and points of interest which are important to me.
BackRoads charges a premium for a service that you may or may not get full use off. Their map/info includes all the activities on their maps for which they decide is important or not. I find it a little cluttered the few times i used it but it may be possible to clean up what it shows, I just didn't use it enough. I preferred having a blank topo map which I can add my own way points and points of interest which are important to me.
Although it is very pricey. I quite like having back roads maps. The amount of information on these maps is unreal. Between that and the radio these garmin 650 are a great tool. Definitely a little overwhelming at first. But if you spend some time on it I find it quite user friendly.
X-it
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I would say the topo maps are on average 20 years outdated as well...not great for just finding modern roads. Not sure how good their DeLorme maps work either. Google and bing maps are not outdated though.
X-it
Active VIP Member
Borrow a tablet put Memory Map apps on it, then get Delorme and etopo maps for 10 day trial from memory maps. Put Google earth app and google maps apps on. Zoom in with google earth and set the data to large. Then go out in the field and do some comparison testing. A real eye opener. A phone works to....some learning is required though. My buddy who owns a super cub with lots of expensive instrumentation navigation on board, jaw dropped open when I handed him over my tablet. We had some sketchy routes to navigate through
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- #10
iceman5689
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Good reviews, don't think ill be packing a tablet on the hill for gps use. Don't most gps system on phones and tablets work with cell service? OR are they preloaded and can be viewed at all times?
X-it
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Cell service is not needed ......GPS phone is needed. A phone screen is larger than a GPS. Phones GPS is remarkably good
pfi572
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Cell service not needed as long as you have downloaded the map area you're traveling in before you have no service .
Allseasons
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Some apps such as ihunter cache the maps, so you don't require cell coverage. Open the App, view the area intended on being in, close it up till your out there and it's cached in phone memory. I use the satellite map view on my phone most of the time when in the field hunting.
Sledding I use my rino650 with Skybase Solutions, bush map chip. Cheap, was $120. Works ok. Only real reason I run the 650 is to be able to see where my buddies are, and be able to use two way. Only once I needed a gps to find my way outta silent pass.
Sledding I use my rino650 with Skybase Solutions, bush map chip. Cheap, was $120. Works ok. Only real reason I run the 650 is to be able to see where my buddies are, and be able to use two way. Only once I needed a gps to find my way outta silent pass.
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X-it
Active VIP Member
Lets just say you had your 650 loaded with 300 dollars worth of maps and year subscription and a car gps with a maps update and wanted to go from Calgary to some place in kakwa. You probably have spent well over a 1000 dollars for all of this crap. Then you dig in you pocket and bring out your cell phone...man in has a built in gps. So you download google maps app offline Hey turn by turn voice gps with way more up to date maps than your car gps....whoo hooo. Now you get to the bush but you have loaded free memory maps and free google earth and have taken the time to downloaded offline maps. Heck the topo maps are amazingly clear and google earth is so clear you can see every tree to go around to get into the open area...wholly grap i did not know you can even do this. All free. I just got schooled, and guess what this has been around for quite some time now. Heck ...want to talk about where your buddies are memory maps as satellite locationing if you want to pay for the service. Any home computer can locate you. Not willing to pay the price to find out how it works but it is way cheaper than the set up you have now. I have a case for my tablet it can get smashed around on my sled. I need it for all the people looking at it 16hr battery life.
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takethebounce
Active VIP Member
This seems like a lot of work. I turn on my GPS and use it. I use the same maps on my Rino and Oregon. I have all of BC and AB. I never have to down load this and copy that and the map CD was $100.
I don't have to worry about my phone or my tablet or computer this or that. Why is something so simple as a GPS or Rino with maps a bad thing lol
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I don't have to worry about my phone or my tablet or computer this or that. Why is something so simple as a GPS or Rino with maps a bad thing lol
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
X-it
Active VIP Member
Download your copy of garmin web updater and update your gps, only takes 20 minutes. The 35 dollar subscriptions take way longer though. Hell I even have my hunting license, fishing licenses all the regulations and repair manuals for everything. Sled registrations.. quad registrations and all the paper work with me in pdf form on the tablet... and phone. Sometimes I bring along one of my gps's though. I am hoping more people chirp in on this topic with their experiences and apps and stuff. To much info to cover.
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- #17
iceman5689
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See not looking to carry anymore electronics, figured the base gamin 650 maps would be adequate. Or use an app on the iphone?
X-it
Active VIP Member
Memory maps works on the iPhone and so does google earth. i own android products so i am not sure how good they work on an iphone, but hey they are all free so it does not cost a dime to try them out. If it works half as good as android then it will be twice as good as your garmin. After doing a google.... it shows google maps to be the highest rated map app for iphone. Of coarse Memory Maps is obscure but man does it work good , same with google earth app. I think you are going to be surprised how well this stuff works, I have been using Memory maps or 20 years now. Iphone hardware i am sure is far superior to your garmin. Funny is leaving your iphone behind and taking your garmin instead believing it does a better job at navigation. Kind of like racing a sled on a pair of snow shoes.
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/memory-map-gps-ordnance-survey/id354675923?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/memory-map-gps-ordnance-survey/id354675923?mt=8
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rightsideup
Active VIP Member
I have 2 rhino 650s one with backcountry BC it is ok but is not update able so rerouted trails or new ones do not appear. I think for this reason it should be priced a lot lower.
X-it
Active VIP Member
The only ones that update maps regular are bing maps, windows 10 offline maps, google maps and google earth. All free on a phone. But some learning how to download offline maps is required and not hard at all. If anyone decides to try Memory Maps you will have to learn how to create a route and download an enclose area around that route to work offline. It was awkward for me to figure this out it took me 15 minutes of scratching my head, their video on how to do this was not clear at all and they skipped over the most important part to quickly. The whole province would take up to one hour to download. Memory Maps has so many darn maps and features it is mind boggling. Include Nautical charts and marine charts. I really would like to try my laptop out on the ocean with the marine chart installed.
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