Garmap 2009 – a first look
Though promised for many months, the new Garmap Africa Series 2009 has only just been made available. After a number of fruitless attempts at trying to buy the ZAR 10 DVD from a variety of speciality stores, I went straight to the source and picked the DVD up from Avnic in North Riding.
The DVD contains both the Mapsource interface for users of Windows and RoadTrip for Mac users. A heap of extras are included on the DVD, such as the latest edition of the Garmin Training Center and USB drivers. Maps are the main reason you’d want this, as substantial improvements have been made. A much larger database of points of interest is bundled with the map data and more provinces now enjoy full map coverage.
I tried out the installation of MapSource on Windows 7 first. No issue with registration provided Internet Explorer is used. That’s a pity for Firefox fans out there. I was rather surprised that the MapSource version included seems rather old. Dated 2007, to be precise.
I don’t understand why the very latest version is not on the disk. The update of the product is rather easy, yet unnecessary as it could have been included by default. I suggest you perform the update immediately by selecting Check for updates from the menu.
The newer version provides a slightly improved interface and the ability to manage installed map products.
The routing feature is handy to check trips before embarking on them, or for some wishful thinking to see how long that trip to Cape Town would take if we left from here now…
In true MapSource fashion, the download of map data to a GPS unit takes no time at all and provides the same routing and search facilities on-the-go. I haven’t come across anything on the maps I’ve traversed that shows up huge changes, but the inclusion of many new points of interest is certainly obvious.
The wireless hotspot search is my current favourite…
