Delorme Earthmate PN-40 vs Garmin eTrex Vista HCx- Update 1
Jim Logan
I had the PN-40 on my bike for the first time today. Impressions:
- Overall, It will do the job.
- I like the Delorme mapping software, though while it knows about convenience stores, doesn’t think they are important enough to display in default mode (while it displays some other things like restaurants).
- What I like about the PN-40
-Main map/navigation screen is good. Shows next turn, and has two programmable windows. I used one of them for miles to next turn.
- Buttons make sense, and are labeled if you turn stupid, as can happen on a brevet.
- The concept of the “cue sheet” page (the one that shows the sequence of turns, roads, and distances) is good. More like a cue sheet than Garmin– it displays incremental distances between turns.
- The simplistic “powers of 2” scaling in and out on map. Also, it has a nice mode that when you at small scale, it displays direction of motion. When you pass a certain scale, it puts north at the top, when you are trying to interpret the map beyond your local environment.
- Is much less fiddly than the Garmin on number of intermediate way points. It looks like you can program a whole brevet, with a start, end, and labeled stops.
- Can display miles to next stop (though can’t display miles from last intermediate stop), and this looks like it just happens naturally after each stop – no need to load a new route at each control.
- One of the values you can program into any display field is how far the device thinks is off-course. Given the device is less earnest than the Garmin on trying to direct you back to the route, this looks like a handy field to have.
- The eTrex is a tad more road friendly than the PN-40. Meaning:
- It assumes you are on a road unless you wander off the road. Delorme displays where it thinks you are independent of the road.
- eTrex while often clueless where you ought to be going, does a pretty good job of telling you what road you are on as part of its directions. The PN-40 only tells to what your next turn is supposed to be (not the road you are turning from).
- The eTrex can earnestly try to reroute you when it thinks you are off-track – the Delorme assumes it is up to you to get back on track.
- While the PN-40 assumes you are following roads following a route, when you ask it to navigate to a waypoint, its first assumption is that you want to go direct overland.
- PN-40 doesn’t seem to worry about displaying road names on the maps as earnestly as the Garmin. Or they don’t seem as obvious to me as on Garmin displays.
- What will take some getting used to with the PN-40 (for an eTrex Vista HCx user)?
- On the “cue sheet” page, they use a teeny tiny font. Along with road vibration, I had a bit of trouble reading it with my 20/20 glasses, and I couldn’t read it with my year old under-corrected riding glasses on an overcast late day ride.
- Rather than the single big screw with a half turn to get in to the battery compartment on the ETrex, it has two smaller screws that each take about 11-14 half-turn to untighten and tighten. Plus the loops have fiddly little captures on the back of the device. Certainly provides an extended distraction if you change batteries while moving,
- It’s not clear if it wipes off the “cue sheet” page after you use them.
- While it does whoop when you get close to a turn, it doesn’t change the page to the “turn here stupid” display like the Garmin does. That makes turns a tad less noticeable visually.
- The topographic information clutters up the display a lot. On the other hand, it will give something else to look at while riding, and presumably can help forecast hills.
- Other comments:
- The Ram mount sits high above the handlebars and is a cradle. It’s high enough off the handlebars I worry a bit about it slamming into my chest in some accident scenarios.
- The cradle is very noticeable even when you don’t have a GPS in it.
- On the other hand, the PN-40 didn’t turn off once from road vibration in my first 15 miles J
- The specs indicate the PN-40 has much shorter battery life than the ETrex.
- Overall, the Garmin seemed optimized a bit better for readability assuming vehicle use.
Bottom line: The Garmin is a bit more active navigator than the PN-40 is. Whether that is good or bad is your preference. This weekend I’ll try to follow a (known) route for the first time on the PN-40 when I ride a century, and I’ll report back again.
Jim Logan
Pittsburgh
