Nuvi 300 questions

KnightAzul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 8

Hi All,

This is my first post, great forum! :D

I bagged a Nuvi 300 yesterday and am in the process of testing it out. This was after returning a TomTom Go 300 due to poor reception through my car's athermic windscreen. The Nuvi has no such problem and acquires satallites really quickly.

First impression is that this baby rocks. Small in size, stylish, etc. Some questions/comment after playing around with the unit, would appreciate any help on these ...

* Is there any way to configure the alert sound for speed camera custom POI's? It only goes off once and is not that instrusive. Can I at least get it to go off continuously by setting the speed limit to zero?

* What is the max size for BMP's for custom POI's on the Nuvi. I tried with a 22 x 22 B&W BMP and it didn't seem to work. Just shows a dot instead of my carefully drawn traffic camera! Anyone got a decent BMP for cameras that they can share?

* There seems to be a little lag between where I am and my position on the Nuvi map. I have the firmware version 2.10. So I'll try updating to 2.40 to see if the situation improves. I have zoom such that I could see the POI's on the map.

* At least here in Spain, the TomTom maps are much better than the v8 Garmin maps.

That's all for now.
KnightAzul

KnightAzul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 8

No one got one of these Nuvi's then??!!

What is the max size for BMP's for custom POI's on the Nuvi. I tried with a 22 x 22 B&W BMP and it didn't seem to work. Just shows a dot instead of my carefully drawn traffic camera! Neither did 16 x 16 B&W BMP.

Perhaps there is a problem with the Nuvi and custom BMPs?

KnightAzul

KnightAzul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 8

Ok, I figured it out (and it was in the Garmin FAQ Embarassed

)

BMP needs to be 16 or 32 bit colour. I was using 2 colour B&W.

KnightAzul

adamf · Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 11:17 pm Post subject:

let us know if the images work?? as for the tone it will go off continualy untill you reach the safe speed not over the speed set i have put all the separate speeded zones in eg 20 30 etc my unit come with v 2.40 software im not allowed to play with it any more its for christmas thats what she said Crying or Very sad

KnightAzul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 8

The images work fine, just converted the BMP to have 4 colours and worked like a charm.

"as for the tone it will go off continualy untill you reach the safe speed not over the speed set "

Not convinced. I set the speed alert to 0 km/h and still it only went off once. Will keep trying various configurations.

KnightAzul

KnightAzul · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 8

Ok, got it working now. :D :D

I set the speed alert to 10 km/h instead of 0 km/h and it goes off repeatidly until you are past the camera.

However, the alert sound is really quiet and doesn't really alert you! They could not have made it softer ...

KnightAzul

Rob500 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 08, 2006 Posts: 38

I'm confused about how to get the bitmaps to work with the Nuvi POI Loader. Can somebody who has done this say where you have to put the bitmap files for them to be picked up? The part of the manual that is confusing me is whether it is the POI Loader that picks up the bitmaps or the Nuvi itself.

In answer to other posts - on my Nuvi I get a double tone when nearing a POI (speed camera) and then a soft single chime that repeats until I slow down to below the speed set in the CSV file.

adamf · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:21 pm Post subject:

put all the files you need into one folder bmp etc then transfer the lot in one go via the poi loader make sure they have the correct names eg gatso30bmp gatso30csv Wink

Tosty · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 22, 2005 Posts: 50

Hi all,

Am interested in buying a Nuvi 300 (much cheaper than the 350), but was wondering if I can install the text to speech voices?

Also, I own a cf que with city select v7 full european maps. Does anyone know if they can be installed onto the Nuvi 300? Saves me spending another 150 quid on maps I already own!

Thanks.

Skippy · Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:08 pm Post subject: Re: More Nuvi 300 questions

Rob500 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 08, 2006 Posts: 38

I've been told by Garmin's technical support that TTS is not available on the Nuvi 300 because they have to pay royalties for the Text To Speech voices and they have not chosen to make them available as chargable upgrades.

However, some people who bought a Nuvi 300 found that when they upgraded the Software Version the TTS voice was added to the menus. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case for people who bought the 300 recently but it does prove that all you need is the voice file and there is no technical reason why you can't have TTS on the 300.

It seems ridiculous that Garmin won't sell you an upgrade! I did say this to their technical support staff and they admited that they had received a lot of calls about it! Perhaps the answer is for lots of people to complain.

Tosty · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 22, 2005 Posts: 50

OK, thanks. Will give Garmin a call about the maps. The TTS voices - assuming they are the same - can be downloaded from the Streetpilot C340 download page on Garmin's website. Might have to do some more investigation!

Tosty · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 22, 2005 Posts: 50

Spoke with Garmin tech support. They said that the City Select Europe V7 maps would not work. The maps need to be NT versions. Apparently to do with how the map data is compressed. A new version of mapsource would not help, as the underlying data is different. Shame, looks like I'll have to start saving for the 350. Now if it had bluetooth hands free like the Tomtom Go's, I'd have bought it already!

adamf · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 3:01 pm Post subject:

what about the tts i tryed the one off the garmin website couldnt get it to work ??? any one else any good....

Tosty · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 22, 2005 Posts: 50

They told me that the voices wouldn't work. But then they would say that, wouldn't they!

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