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CF card for Garmin 2610- What to Buy?


mrsoup

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I have V8 of Mapsource and would like to load all of North America onto a flash card. What size do I need and what type is compatible? Any particular brand better than others? Are the type II better than the standard cards?

Yes, I still have my 'Rookie' stripes intact, ready to test GPS... confused.gif

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Someone else may jump in with more info...but in my experience of CF and SD cards you may as well just buy the biggest you can afford.

 

Coming from a digital SLR camera background, I know Sandisk have their Ultra range which is meant to have a high speed of data transfer and is recommended for using in cameras where you want to take lots of shots quickly. (Picture gets stored on a buffer in the camera which is transfered to the card, the quicker the buffer clears the quicker you can take more pictures.) I have a regular 512mb Sandisk CF card in my camera since it was the cheapest available at the time of purchase. It can easily keep up with constant shooting on the camera so the point of spending more on a faster card is??? I get the same results from Kingston and Expansys cardsthat I have lying around. Though at 16mb I don't get many pictures on the Expansys card!

 

I've just bought a 2gb SD card made by a company called A-Data for my PDA. It was very cheap so I don't imagine it has market leading transfer rates, yet still plays audio and video files back perfectly. Again, why would I need to go out and spend x more on a "brand name" card???

 

Short answer to your question (in my opinion) is just go out and spend what you want on a card (I think a 2gb one will hold all of North America). I can't see that the speed a GPS unit needs to access info is any higher than a digi camera or pda needs and as a result spending extra on a brand name super duper card is just a waste of money. In your shoes, I would just be looking to get a card which was 2gb+ for as little money as possible. Good thing is the prices are coming down all the time! (My 2gb SD card was bought on the high street for under £30UKP about a 1/4 the price it would have been last year...)

 

Steve

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Any brand card should do. There was an issue early on with certain brand cards but that was resolved in a firmware release a long time ago. The speed of the card doesn't matter for this purpose (use in a GPS) but you may want to but a high-speed card if only because it will be more useful if you ever decide to use it for another purpose later, such as in a camera (if there are any cameras left that use compactflash by then.) If not then just get the cheapest one you can find.

 

2gb is the practical limit for use with Garmin Mapsource because there are actually two limits to keep in mind: one is the memory size of the card and the other is the number of maps per mapset (maximum of around 2030 as I remember.) So if you load all of City Navigator and then try to also load all the Topo or R&R maps for the US you will quickly exceed the map segment limit, making the existence of additional space on the CF card itself moot. So there isn't much point on going more than 2gb, which will allow for all of City Navigator plus a healthy helping of additional maps.

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When I cantacted Garmin with the same question, their e-mailed response was the 2610 was not designed for more than a 1gb card and that they were not compatible with the latest 'high speed' format either.

I was sure that I had seen others on this list using 2gb cards, not sure about the CF II or Extreme III.

It looks like I need to buy a standard 2gb card and load it up!

Thanks for the feedback.

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Go to bhphotovideo.com and look up Kingston cards. Get at least the 60X speed card. They sometimes have good rebates as well. I recently bought a 2GB card from them for $20.00 for my 2610. Good luck.

Mark

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I think that you may have received some bum info from the Garmin rep. Although I haven't experimented with high-speed cards (and while they are not needed I can't imagine why they would present a special problem) I can say that there will be no problem in using a 2gb card. I and many others around here having been doing so for quite some time with no issues at all.

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DavidEBSmith

First of all, be very careful buying a CF card on eBay. See here and here for why.

 

As for sources that are fairly reputable and I've bought stuff from without issues, Newegg has a CF card for $15.99 after rebate + $4.99 shipping, and another fro $17.99 + shipping; Meritline has some CF cards for $17.50 plus shipping or $22 shipped free. You can also keep an eye on Techbargains.com for that special sale that will reduce the price by a dollar, if you are willing to wait.

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"If it does not show no where, then that is not Sandisk product."

 

I didn't know that SanDisk tech support was in Texas... grin.gif

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