Garmin TOPO Great Britain DVD Maps

First off, I don't want discount the pain that others have obviously experienced but I run an unexceptional Vista system and TOPO loaded and unlocked without problems. Admittedly I've been there before with City Select and predecessors but I had not a single glitch. Of course it would have been different if the Garmin servers had been down but this was one of the smoothest Garmin installations ever.

The only increase in heartrate came, as always, when I couldn't find the coupon code. Garmin love to hide it - and yes I know it says where it's hidden in the bottom corner of the front of the packaging but hey, how about big red letters `THE COUPON CODE IS HIDDEN INSIDE THE PACKAGING, DUMMY'. I sympathise with the previous reviewer who ended up scrabbling about in the dustbin to find the packaging.

The maps are a disappointment, but then Garmin maps always are. The limitation on the display of TOPO maps in Mapsource to a little sub-window in the centre of the main map window (and no printing) is little short of scandalous. I can buy the whole of the UK in 1:50,000 for around £100 from Quo, see it at any scale, full-screen, and print out screens. From Garmin I can get a lame cut-down version for £130.

The only justification for buying TOPO is that it makes your hand-held a little more useful. You are never going to want plan routes with this, there simply isn't the detail. Its sole merit is that you get a bit of information in areas where other Garmin maps are simply blank.

Contours seem to be there in pretty full detail. It seems to be a bit better on river courses, where woods are shown they are better but they aren't all shown by any means. But if you're expecting something that feels like an OS map a little simplified, forget it. You're not going to know about most landscape features, though if there's an Indian restaurant in the middle of the moors (or was a couple of years ago) then that will be shown.

Paths are simply rubbish, at least in the geographical area I'm interested in. There's a garbled explanation on the Garmin website about limitations of data from the Ordnance Survey (OS), which apparently doesn't distinguish between different types of track. In the form in which the explanation is given it doesn't explain why only around a half of the paths are shown and why the map is littered with bits of path that begin and end in random places and connect with nothing. Comparing with an OS map it appears that when a path runs along a track it is not shown - it simply disappears. Frankly, you'd be better of without them since they do nothing but add meaningless clutter. Again, I've only looked at one area - others may be better.

The best you can really say is that TOPO is better than nothing and that there's nothing else you can buy that does the same job. It's astonishing that a company which makes such excellent hardware - I've loved every Garmin I've ever owned - shows such complete incompetence and complacency when it comes to mapping products - though judging by some of the comments on the Colorado, not even the hardware can be guaranteed any more.

Roll on the day when Galileo is up to speed and maybe some more manufacturers come in and there is some real competition. Until that happens, Garmin will continue to make us jump through hoops on installation, pay full (rather than upgrade) price when you want to modernise your maps alongside your new (and expensive) Garmin unit, make do with crippled software etc - because they can.

I also wasted much time trying to install this software onto a Vista operating system before ending up on the Garmin website and going through unlock process number two. Believing I could then start to use the pacakage, I quickly needed to resort to using the "Help" functionality - to receive an error message stating that the "Help" functionality was not actually compatible with Vista and not available; no help then!
I had planned to use TOPO on the new Garmin 705 for mountain bike riding. The lack of detail in the mapping, such as rights of way, I believe makes it virtually impossible to pre-program a route to follow on the trail - especially important when one is looking to avoid trespass issues.
I returned both the 705 and the TOPO software to the retailer for a refund.
The 705 looked like a useful piece of kit. It's a shame I never got a chance to use it on the trail. The 705 would be useless "off road" without additional mapping, unfortunately TOPO just doesn't delivery.

Like other reviewers I had a terrible time installing this product. There are major incompatibility problems with windows Vista which although fixed with a patch from the Garmin web site mean that you have to go through the tortuous website registration process rather then use the installation wizard.

Once installed it's quite good. However, it's not like having a OS map available, really you need to have both when entering routes. It's very good in urban areas, showing even small roads but once you get out into the countryside it's not great. Contours are accurate and there is an attempt to show the kind of landscape (woods, marsh etc)which works quite well. Some paths are shown well, Cumbria seems particularly well represented but Berkshire is not. It's also hard to see the size of some things and exactly where the path goes (try following the towpath along the Kennet and Avon Canal for instance).

Would I recommend this? Well if you have a mapping GPS such as the GPSMAP60 then yes, it's a useful addition to the mapping that comes with it. But before you make the final decision, have a look at the Garmin website. There is a fully functional demo of the map. The real thing is very similar. If it shows what you want to see then go for it.

Personally I do use it quite a lot but I still use Oziexplorer just as much too.