Handheld GPS Reviews - Customer reviews - DeLorme Earthmate PN-40 Handheld GPS (1:100k Topographic, Detailed Street Maps & POIs Included)


DeLorme Earthmate PN-40 Handheld GPS (1:100k Topographic, Detailed Street Maps & POIs Included)
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Manufacturer: Delorme Mapping

List Price: $399.95
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Average Customer Rating: -

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Name: Adam
Location: Bellport Village, NY United States
Date: 2008-11-24
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Simply an amazing GPSr. True paperless caching!
Comment: I received my new DeLorme PN-40 GPSr the other day.

First off, let me state that my previous GPSr was a basic Etrex. It was pretty weak, but helped me find lots of geocaches. Now, keep in mind two weeks ago I had NO intention of getting a DeLorme. I was pretty set on getting the Garmin Oregon, and had just an inkling of the PN-XX's. So, I headed on over to the DeLorme forums and posted some questions. The level of attention I received from the members as well as employees of DeLorme really impressed me. Couple that with a DeLorme employee's blog post which pretty much seemed to be a direct answer to my questioning about Mac support, and I was sold. I'm willing to wait a month for limited Mac support, and know that they are working towards more support down the road.

So, onto my first impressions. This might not have the bells and whistles aesthetically of the Oregon (by this I mean large touch screen, lack of buttons), but it ROCKS. I really have nothing to compare it to other than the Etrex, but it is FAST, fast, FAST! I've heard the PN-20 took a while to render maps and create routes. This rendered maps real-time while I was driving. It only took a few seconds to calculate a driving route. Really amazing. On top of that, it took quite a few minutes from a cold start to acquire a 3-D fix, but once it did, every restart after that had an almost instant fix. Literally, I turned it on and it acquired a fix.

The driving directions were very accurate, and the beep was sufficient for me to know to turn. If I had the travel kit, I could keep the backlight on in the dark, and have no problem finding my way to other addresses. Speaking of addresses, the maps that come with this are GREAT! So easy to load the pre-cut area maps that come on the accompanying DVDs. I haven't tried to cut maps online yet, but I plan on grabbing a bunch of satellite imagery, as that is one of the key points that sold me on the PN-40.

Now, onto the main reason I wanted a new GPSr, geocaching. The Etrex served its purpose, but sometimes I would be walking around an area for over an hour, with the GPSr jumping all over the place. With the PN-40, it took me right to the cache. I had already read the hint, so I thought I knew where it was. The GPSr showed that I was only 2 feet from where I thought it was!!! Unfortunately, I couldn't find it at first, so I keep looking, and finally I find it a couple of feet from where I was first looking. I look at the PN-40, and sure enough it was registering 0 feet. Maybe this was beginner's luck, but I was impressed.

I am simply AMAZED. This was the greatest geocaching experience I have ever had. I loaded Color Aerial Imagery onto my PN, and it was literally like i had Google Earth as GPSr. I viewed all my caches on the map, scrolled to one I wanted to hit, and routed to it. It was so accurate it was scary! I was in heavy foliage at times, and it never lost a 3-D connection. It wasn't jumping all over the place like my old GPS did. This was steady! In fact, I think the biggest problem is that the people who placed the caches had a less accurate GPS, thus throwing off the coords slightly.

I had the PN auto-routing for roads to each cache. Once I got to the area, I just let the GPS lead me to cache. Some of the caches I didn't even read, I just made my way to the area and found it.

I'm already having a lot of fun with this. It's a big change from my Etrex. My biggest concern was that I would have buyers regret and wished I bought the Oregon. So far that is not the case. Once I start loading all kinds of different maps, which come with the GPSr (and for $29.99, I can get a year subscription of unlimited map downloads of their online maps), I don't see how the Oregon can even compare.

I could not be happier with my purchase of this treasure! I am really amazed how the PN does everything! I can't wait for the next firmware update to get the enhanced geocaching features. The PN-40 can only get better.

BTW, 7 for 8 caches today, and the one I couldn't find was definitely gone.

Great job DeLorme!


Name: J. Weber
Location:
Date: 2008-11-27
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Delorme Puts It All Together For Hiking GPS
Comment: I had a chance to try the PN-40 extensively on a recent off-trail desert hiking trip. The unit performed flawlessly, and though I'm pretty picky about features, at the end of the week, I still didn't have a wish list.
Delorme's new high resolution color aerial imaging is a real upgrade from it's previous topo and "satellite" imagery. Comparing side by side with Google Earth, Google has a slight edge on resolution, but it's pretty close. And for a mobile GPS, the resolution is more than you need, and you can zoom up on details that provide more than enough detail. Delorme's new subscription pricing option of $30 for a year's worth of unlimited map downloading is a much better pricing model than the old "pay as you go", which got expensive fast.
The PN-40 is fast, both in GPS acquisition and map re-drawing. The GPS continued to track while in my pocket. It acquires a fix after being turned on often within 30 seconds. The map re-draws are not silky smooth if you set it to always orient "heading up" as it constantly tries to adjust to your varying direction. But in "north up" and "course up" mode, where the map is static and your arrow is moving, the unit is very easy to use. And zooming in and out is almost instantaneous, which is much faster than older handheld GPS models with high resolution aerial maps.
Planning routes and waypoints on the included Topo software is an easy way to plan hikes, though you can also pick points on the little screen on the unit if you don't have a computer nearby. That's a slower process as you have to use the four-direction round button, which is not that easy to nagivate around extensively.
The unit is rugged, with high impact, tough plastic on the outside, and a battery case the screws tight with finger screws to make it water resistant.
The unit is easy to use but has a whole lot of layers of complexity if you want to do more. It took me several days of heavy use before I felt I knew all the menu options. There are a lot of ways to customize the unit, which is probably why I didn't feel I wished for much at the end of the hiking week.
Though you could use this for auto routing, I find my regular auto GPS a lot easier to use for that. But for anything off roads, such as hiking or jeep riding, this unit is really great.
Here's a few tips I learned using it:
1) Sometimes the unit will not be recognized by my computer when I first hook up the USB cord and turn it on. For some reason, if I just turn the unit off, wait a bit and then back on, the computer recognizes it on the second try.
2) Don't be afraid to turn up the display brightness to full brightness. It's a lot easier to see in the day, and since the unit runs on two AA batteries, it's no problem if you need to switch them out. I found that two AA batteries lasted a day and a half at full brightness with the display set to automatically turn off after 30 seconds of no use.
3) I scratched the screen with my car keys in the same pocket, so watch out for the screen and sharp or metal objects.
Portable high resolution GPS has finally become reality. I really enjoyed my hiking trip, being able to plan complex routes in advance, and see exactly where I was when out in the backcountry or on trails. I was able to make some smart decisions while hiking when it was getting late and I needed to figure out a new way back out. It took years for my dream of a hand held GPS with high resolution maps to finally happen. I highly recommend the PN-40.


Name: William J. Feuer
Location:
Date: 2008-12-13
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Is this for you?
Comment: If the reason you're considering the pn-40 is because you're driving to meet friends and they call you on your cell to tell you that they're going to this other restaurant and here's the address... and you want to type that into your gps while you're stopped at a traffic light and have it give you the route, well, read no further - this is not for you. The pn-40 won't do that, at least not unless you've got your pc in the car with the topo 7 software loaded onto it. On the other hand, if you're looking for a gps to use after you get out of the car this is it.

I was about to buy a (cheaper) Garmin vista HCx but heard about the pn-40. I've been a huge fan of Delorme atlases for many years and I decided to give them my business. Here's why I'm glad I did:
1) there is the huge library of satellite imagery and aerial photos and more available for download (you are going to pay for the $30 annual subscription, get used to it) - it really is something like having google earth on a hand-held gps. If you're going on a hiking trip and you want to have arial photography available for the place your walking to, you just download it and copy it to the pn-40. You can have a variety of map types loaded onto the gps and select which one you want to look at as you go
2) the pn-40 has onboard memory and an SD card and it's fast
3) while I don't find the topo 7 software stunningly intuitive and I don't care for the help screens, it is powerful and gets the job done (note, if you want to get to the waypoint tool, you have to be in the draw tab)
4) despite what I said above, the pn-40 comes with *excellent* onboard US street maps. If you have the foresight to create waypoints for the places you want to go before you leave the house you can ask the gps to give you a route from whereever you are to your waypoints.

With respect to the topo 7 software: the package comes with an offer to get an upgrade to the most current version within 6 months of your purchase (it costs $10). I'm holding onto that offer, and hope that Delorme makes some improvements.

The reason I almost didn't buy the pn-40 is because I periodically hike out of the US in South America and Asia and spots like that. I asked DeLorme about their international support and they honestly admitted they weren't planning anything special. That said, they do have basic international coverage (borders and major roads) which sounded pretty skimpy, but then I couldn't find evidence that Garmin or Magellan had anything much better.



Name: G. Grenz
Location:
Date: 2008-12-06
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Best Off-Road GPS
Comment: I have owned 4 GPSs over the past few years. I have a Garmin Quest for on-road use, but didn't care for the Garmin topo maps. I first tried an eTrex from Magellan, but didn't like the fact that there were no topographical details. I later purchased a copy of Delorme Topo USA and was impressed with the graphics. Then the PN-20 was released that could display those graphics. I have owned a PN-20 since it came out, but was frustrated with the speed of the unit, even though everything worked great. Don't get me wrong - the PN-20 is a great unit - but the PN-40 is even better, and with the support from Delorme and Earthmate I expect further improvements to the firmware in the future. This unit works both on-road and off and can do street-by-street routing. One of the things I like best is the ability to transfer data (waypoints, tracks, maps, drawings, etc) between your PC and the unit. One way that I use the data is for uploading track data to the PC to show where I have ridden. Another way is to pre-plan your trip and download the waypoints and routes developed on the PC to the PN-20/40.

If all you want is a GPS that shows a blank screen when you're off-road, but will get you back to your camper when out hiking, or to a geocache there are cheaper products that will do the job. BUT - if you want to see where you are at out in the wilderness AND have a GPS that provides you with street level detail in town, the PN20/40 is for you.


Name: Cham Green
Location: Merryland
Date: 2008-12-14
Customer Rating: -

Summary: Best Bang for the Buck
Comment: The main differentiators between the DeLorme PN40 and the competition are as follows:

1) Cost of ownership - When you buy the PN40 you get everything you need to get started. You get the DeLorme TOPO software which includes the detailed contour maps for the entire US as well as all the road data. There is no additional software to buy in order to get started. The price of the PN40 is substantially lower than other brands if you compare functionality.

2) Support - DeLorme has an Internet forum that has a wealth of knowledge already archived. You can do a search on the previous posts or ask a question on the message board and get a response any time any day. If that doesn't satisfy you, you can call customer service or tech support where a real DeLorme employee will answer the phone and speak American English.

3) Additional Aerial/USGS/NOAA data - For an additional $29.95 you can download all the color, black and white, hi resolution city aerial imagery, NOAA charts and USGS maps for one year. These maps work very nicely on the PN40, ideal for boating, geocaching and hiking. The aerial imagery can be hybridized with contour maps so you know exactly where you are and what obstacles are in front of you.






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