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Review on Garmin GPSMAP Waterproof Marine Chartplotter by Napoleon Robbie

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Marine GPS Backup Plan

I have tried several devices as a backup for my Raymarine built-in GPS chartplotter. I thought I would try. First on my list is support. In less than a minute, someone popped up on Garmin chat. Unfortunately the gentleman was working from home and didn't have my device to hand to help me with some setup issues. But he was very patient and helpful. A call to Garmin went unanswered. Left a call back. Your auto reply said I would get a reply in about 4 hours. Never done. The device is accurate. The display is bright, battery life is good with Duracell installed. The interface and menu are absent, as with all these devices. The top 5 things a sailor should do should be the only things in the top/main menu. Everything else is just garbage. The display is pretty small. So if you don't know your waterway, it will be difficult for you to use it. I created a series of waypoints. The device calculated all my waypoints at the same distance from my boat. The waypoints ranged from 0 to 35 nautical miles from my position. A restart fixed that. Then I tried to remove the waypoint. Wasted too much time trying to find the steps for this. How about just removing the Garmin key? It's advertised for use with boats, but you can't type in coordinates to get anywhere. I'll probably leave it at that, but I want Apple to help marine GPS developers.

Pros
  • Great Design
Cons
  • There are more interesting options.