| Derek 2008-01-13, 10:33 am |
| It would appear that a useful feature available within the Nuvi 600 Series
receivers has been lost with the release of the 700 and 200 Series Nuvi.
With the 600/700 Series Nuvi, it is possible to navigate using coordinates
(such as Lat/Long). The coordinate format isn't configured through the
setup menus, but is set through the "Where to?" option; you simply choose to
search by coordinates, then select the "format" option that appears on the
coordinate page. You can select from three different lat/long formats, plus
other formats supported by the installed maps.
With the 600 Series (at least on the European 660 models), British Grid was
available - this being extremely useful within the UK, BNG being used by
many types of users, including the Emergency Services. In the case of the
700 series, with its new and very useful "Where am I" feature, in the UK,
Lat/Long will not help you if you make a 999/112 (equivalent to a 911)
call - BNG coordinates are universally accepted for rescue purposes!
The 700 Series User manual indicates that other coordinate formats are
available where supported by the installed mapping data. However, to the
considerable detriment of the 700/200 Series receivers, the British Grid
option has gone.
Upon contacting Garmin Tech support, to ascertain whether this was "by
design" or was a software fault, I was informed that British Grid had been
removed because "...other European customers wanted support for their own
national grid formats, so we REMOVED the British National Grid option from
the Coordinates options".
This is totally perverse... just because a feature wasn't supported for
other European countries, Garmin removed a useful [and "safety of life"]
feature from those users that already had and used the facility!
UK units are already customised for the UK. UK 700/600s have both a free
lifetime "TrafficMaster" subscription for TMC data (no European equivalent
subscription is included) and a "Cyclops" database (ditto, no equivalent for
other Euro' countries), so removal of British Grid is totally daft.
Garmin Tech Support did indicate that if enough users specifically request
reinstatement of British Grid coordinates (i.e., they raise a formal feature
request through Tech Support ), it may be reintroduced through a software
update.
So, for all those that would like support for additional grid formats,
especially British Grid, please contact Tech Support and make a formal
request. If you don't insist that a formal request is recorded, nothing
will happen.
Garmin do respond to customer requests where it is their interests to do so.
In the case of coordinate formats, whilst not a pocket calculator exercise
for end-users, the additional coding is trivial to implement.
Hopefully I'll never have to call the Emergency Services, but if I do, I'd
like the security of knowing that I can be found with the most acceptable
form of coordinates in the UK.
|