This post was just re-posted, as I did a major edit to it.
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Stumpy75 wrote:Is the above list a list of what has the Surf III chip or will work with the NT software? Or is that the same thing?
See.. I told everyone to not read that! LOL.
I scrapped the list after I made an editing error and lost part of the info, which then made it too complicated to continue.
I first went to
Garmin's CN NA NT page and created a list of every PND (Personal Navigation Device fka GPSr or GPS unit) model that was compatible with the NT mapping software. The list included all the "x", "H", and newer mapping models, as we expected. I was looking at the "disk-compatible" product list.
Then I went to the
nüMaps Lifetime™ North America page and compared the compatible PND models with the above list. Here was where there was a surprise.
It looked like the only handheld PND models that were compatible with the nüMaps Lifetime were the Colorados, Oregons and the GPSMAP 60CSx. The 76CSx was not mentioned, which makes no sense as we have assumed it was essentially just a floating 60CSx.
Most of the nüvi models were listed, but not all, and several StreetView models were also listed.
All in all, the list of nüMaps Lifetime compatible models were a smaller subset of the models that were CN NA NT "disk-compatible". Notably missing were the Astro, Edge, eTrex series, iQue series, GPSMAP 76CS/CSx along with others in the GPSMAP series, and Rino series.
So is there an error on their website, or is it actually possible that only SOME of the CN NA NT compatible PND models are also compatible with the nüMaps Lifetime subscription program?
According to forum posts on other sites, it looks like the nüMaps Lifetime compatibility list was a lot smaller when they first introduced the program a few months ago, and has grown periodically since.
Reported communications with Garmin have resulted in conflicting answers too. Either their phone staff was not properly informed, or the policies have changed or both. One reply said that only units that were preloaded with NT software maps were eligible for nüMaps Lifetime. This was also implied in some text on Garmin's website. Another reply said that any unit capable of using NT, and if it had the memory capacity would be eligible. While this would be the best news for PND owners, this reply conflicts with the current list on Garmin's site.
Yet other sites implied the program was only for the nüvi and zūmo lines. This is clearly wrong. Of course their use of word "nüvi" in the program name does not help in that matter either.
After visiting the Garmin site a second time I found a difference in the models listed for "disk-compatible" versus, "download-compatible", and "card-compatible" for the CN NA NT mapping software. As it turns out, it looks like there is a pretty good match between those models listed under "download-compatible" for NT and the models listed for nüMaps Lifetime.
So after I made the edit error, I thought about the missing GPSr models, I decided that there may still be errors on the Garmin site, and if so I was wasting my time trying to create the list, so I wrote this post instead!
Now I'm really glad that I have recommended NT to those people buying their first mapping software. It now looks like the non-NT maps are going to have limited future support.
[Last edited by GizmoGuy411 on Mon 2009-Apr-27/07:35 1; edited 6 times in total]