I bought a DeLorme PN-30 GPS receiver during Labor Day weekend and put the unit to a test while geocaching a couple of days ago. I got the unit for $200 during REI’s Labor Day sale. At the time, it was going for $260-300 everywhere else. Now Wal-Mart has it for $225. My well-worn Magellan eXplorist 400 still works fine, but the $200 price was pretty good for a modern unit with a color screen, paperless geocaching, current-generation receiver, and maps. I bought the PN-30 with an eye on the future. I plan on replacing my 5-year-old computer sometime in the next year with a system running Windows 7 64-bit. From what I have read, Palm will not support Palm Desktop on 64-bit Windows. That means I would no longer be able to use my Palm IIIxe to carry geocache descriptions. I also would have had to get a motherboard with a serial port or install a card with a serial port for the Palm. The time and price seemed right for me to get a new GPSr.
The PN-30 is not the best GPSr on the market right now, but I think it is one of the best deals. No other receiver was available for $200 that could handle paperless geocaching and included maps. I looked at the Garmin Dakota, Garmin Oregon, and Lowrance Endura models. The Endura is having growing pains right now, so it was quickly removed from the short list. The Dakota and Oregon seemed like nice units, but they cost more than the PN-30 and I would have to pay another $70 for maps. I haven’t handled a Dakota or Oregon, but from seeing photos and reading the manuals, I liked their user interface better than the PN-30. Price was my primary consideration, so DeLorme won. As an aside, there is a Dakota 10 on sale right now for about $200 at Amazon that includes City Navigator maps and a bike mount. Nice deal, but too late for me. I have read the Garmin touchscreen is difficult to read in sunlight anyway.
Now for my early opinion about the DeLorme PN-30.
Likes
Got a position fix in my house. Received WAAS corrections using firmware v2.6. Much better GPS and WAAS reception than on a PN-40 I used last year.
Screen is very readable. Size was not an issue for me – it’s the same size as my eXplorist’s screen. In sunlight, I don’t even need to use the backlight to read the screen.
Paperless geocaching on the handheld is nice. I used geocaching.com’s Send to GPS feature since I didn’t feel like installing the Topo 8 mapping software or buying the Cache Register geocaching program yet. I was able to see the essential info about the cache plus the last five logs. I am a fan of the Field Notes capability as well. I can mark a cache as found/not found/note/needs maintenance in the field and enter some notes. Back at home, I can connect the GPSr to the computer and upload the Field Notes to geocaching.com. The Field Notes are kept in a queue and I can edit the notes and post my logs. The notes are shown in the order that you created the Field Note.
Maps were included with the unit. The unit has the ability to display aerial imagery from DeLorme’s $30/yr Map Library subscription service or a user’s own aerial imagery run through Delorme’s XMap software. I wanted detailed maps with my GPSr so I could view geocaches in context with streets and parks and know where I am. I almost always have a handheld GPSr on me, but don’t always have my nuvi, so I thought it would be good to have a handheld unit with full-mapping in case of an emergency.
Dislikes
The maps are not as accurate as the NAVTEQ maps on my Garmin nuvi 200. DeLorme’s maps appear to be based on the Census Bureau’s TIGER maps. My street’s name was misspelled in TIGER, and my street has the same misspelling on DeLorme’s maps. I don’t plan on using DeLorme’s maps for routing unless I am in a pinch.
The PN-series isn’t very good at routing. They route faster than my eXplorist, but slower than my nuvi. Their routes aren’t as direct as those created by the eXplorist or nuvi either. For example, Google Maps calculated a route from my office in Geneva to my house in Elgin that would cover 14.7mi in 28mins. This evening my PN-30 calculated a 16.2mi route that would have taken me out of my way and would have taken longer than 28mins. My eXplorist and nuvi offer routes similar to the one produced by Google Maps. So the PN-series will get you do your destination, just not with the most efficient route. If I need in-car navigation, my nuvi or Google Maps on my BlackBerry will be my tool of choice.
During a trip to work, the PN-30 only had a 2D position fix for a good deal of time, and the signal environment should not have been that challenging. It never lost the position fix, but it should have had a 3D fix. Might be a one-time oddity because reception has been OK otherwise.
I don’t like how the data cable slides onto the back of the GPSr. I’m worried I may snap the connector out of the receptacle if I pull on it from the wrong angle.
A geocache’s coordinates aren’t shown on the same screen with the cache description and previous logs. Minor issue, as the cache coords can be pulled up from a menu.
Summary
So far, I am satisfied with the performance of my PN-30. It got me through a day of geocaching without any problems. My 16GB SD card came in today, so I will soon be loading the GPSr with maps of the surrounding states, and hopefully loading some aerial imagery before too long. I am postponing use of the Topo 8 mapping program because I have read that it is not intuitive to use. Considering I have been using computers for 25 years and have been working with GIS software for the last 10, it shouldn’t prove too much of a challenge for me.
There are no GPS receivers on the market right now that do everything the way I would like. I like the value the PN-series provides, along with their ability to show aerial imagery. However, I like the different profiles (driving, geocaching, etc.) on the Garmin units. I also like their touchscreen interface and more accurate maps. Those units don’t have a good waypoint management system, though. My eXplorist lets me hold an unlimited number of geocaches and waypoints in files of 200 or 500, depending on the type of point of interest. No current GPSr lets you have more than one batch of waypoints/geocaches installed with the ability to choose which batch is actively being used. The PN-30 isn’t the best at everything it does, but it does a lot of things for the money.
