GPS, Garmin's StreetPilot i5
By Peter Rojas 
posted September 19th 2005 10:20AM
posted September 19th 2005 10:20AM
It's only been a couple of months since they first introduced the
i2 and the i3, but earlier today Garmin announced another
addition to their line up of entry-level StreetPilot GPS nav devices, the StreetPilot i5 (the i4 seems to have been
completely passed over). The StreetPilot i5 isn't all that radically different than the StreetPilot i3 (it has the same
form-factor, vehicle suction mount, and 176 x 220 pixel display), to be honest the main difference seems to be that the
i5 comes pre-loaded with maps of North America. So is it really worth an extra hundie not to have to load the maps up
yourself? You've got a month to decide, the i5 doesn't ship until October.
[Thanks, Allory and Dave]
The i3 comes with a 128MB transflash card. That's not enough to hold all the maps for North America. However, the i3 is probably still the better deal since a you could get a 512MB card for under $70 to hold most if not all the maps.
I have the i3 and it is an excellent GPS, I used it this weekend to navigate backwoods Connecticut and it worked flawlessly. I only wish it had a Li-ion battery, other than that is a great buy.
I think you need about 2GB to hold all the maps, those cards are bit more expensive.
No you could easily hold all of the USA on a 512MB or less, the i3 doesn't need as much space as the larger c320
I would seriously consider this one ( as a beginner New York driver ) - IT does look nice -
almost "ipod" nice...