Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)After reading a couple of the previous reviews where people gave the Quest low ratings because they couldn't find anything, or couldn't tell where they were, all I can think of is that they didn't read the directions. The Quest came in two flavors - the Quest and Quest2. The difference was in the memory size. The Quest came with only 115MB of free memory while the Quest2 must have had at least 2GB.
The Quest comes preloaded with a "basemap" that shows the major cities and roads in the US/Canada, but does NOT show the details and "Points of Interest" (POI). As far as I can figure from the previous posts, that's ALL that was loaded. To use the Quest, you must install the "City Navigator" software on a PC. Once installed, you can then select portions of the map to "send" to the Quest. This loads the map details and POI's in the Quest for use. As stated, you can download a maximum of 115MB total which generally includes the information for several states (dependent on population density). While this may seem to be a hassle, generally you don't have to reload the information very often unless you're traveling. On the other hand, since the PC software has all the same information as the GPS, you can pre-plan your travels by saving places where you want to go as "waypoints", or even pre-plan entire routes and download them to the Quest along with the maps of the area. The Quest even has the ability to to sort multiple waypoints in one route for maximum efficiency. For example, let's say that you are planning some sightseeing/shopping - leaving from point home, traveling to several wayoints, then returning home. Put your "home" location as the Start and Finish, insert all of your intermediate stops as Vias, then have the Quest arrange the Vias for maximum efficiency. Not many GPSs will do this - even the City Navigator software won't. Another nice thing about having to download maps, is that you can update the PC software to a newer version, and when you download the maps you know you are getting the latest inforation. Also, you can install maps of different types (such as Bluewater or Topographical navigation) and use them in the Quest as well by purchasing the PC software from Garmin.
BTW - the difference between the Quest and Quest2 is that the Quest2 has ALL of the maps installed from the start - no cutting or downloading and uses a different version of software (NT version) to update.
As you can probably tell I have a Quest GPS. I purchased one when they first were released (2004) and have been VERY happy with it. I have a mount installed on my motorcycle with the unit connected to an Aux input for sound and have toured through a large portion of the West and West coast, parts of British Columbia as well as the East coast and Texas on the bike, in the car and/or camping in my truck. My Quest has been through rain, hail and dust and has never failed me yet. My parents had purchased one of the "inexpensive" (cheap) road GPSs, and asked me to help them use it. Compared to the Quest, the unit they purchased was a POS. I finally purchased a refurbished unit for about 1/5 the cost of my original Quest and gave it to them for use. I was impressed with the refurbed unit in that it looked as good as new, had the latest software from Garmin, and worked great. I highly recommend this product.
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Garmin refurbished quest deluxe with a high-speed processor allows faster automatic off-route & detour recalculation.
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