Which GPS for battery life?

[Ned Kelly]

Hi, I'm a newbie so please excuse me if I'm revisiting an old subject!...I was wondering what nav systems more experienced guys use for their long distance navigation?
I have a Garmin 810 with pretty crap mapping and 13 hour battery life & also my iphone which I have memorymap on, which I love!...however battery life is terrible. I want something with good mapping but will last me a long time ...3 days or more I would like, so any advice on what back up power used would be great.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Anything you can put AA batteries in ... eTrex, Dakota, etc. Never far from somewhere to buy them in the UK.

[JohnClimber]

A Dakota with Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA batteries get my vote

[Ned Kelly]

thanks, that makes sense...I'm not sure if memorymap is compatible with garmin though?

[ianfitz]

Hi, I'm a newbie so please excuse me if I'm revisiting an old subject!...I was wondering what nav systems more experienced guys use for their long distance navigation?
I have a Garmin 810 with pretty crap mapping and 13 hour battery life & also my iphone which I have memorymap on, which I love!...however battery life is terrible. I want something with good mapping but will last me a long time ...3 days or more I would like, so any advice on what back up power used would be great.

i have the same set up. I use a dynamo hub and anker 3000mah usb batteries to top up. they are around a tenner online. worth a try before you buy something else

[ctznsmith]

thanks, that makes sense...I'm not sure if memorymap is compatible with garmin though?

It's a long time since I looked at this but I think you can export a .GPX from memorymap which means you can put it on a Garmin device as a track.

However I'm fairly sure you can't export the OS maps that are part of Memorymap which means you are either buying them again for the Garmin device or downloading open source base maps.

(Not 100% sure on this, as I said it's been a while since I used Memorymap)

[greenmug]

It is worth looking at how to improve battery life on any given model. I have a gaming etrex20 which gives me 20 hours on rechargeable. This is double from using default settings. Mainly the bright screen mode that takes the juice but suprisingly the rate of data plotting was a big factor.

[fatbikephil]

22 hours plus on a Dakota 20. Just did a 6 day tour and only had to change the batteries on day 5 (Lithium ultimate)

[Ned Kelly]

Thanks for all the input guys. I've ordered an Aukey 20000mAh battery backup for my iphone & see how that goes...just not ready to be without my memorymap yet!

[ianfitz]

Thanks for all the input guys. I've ordered an Aukey 20000mAh battery backup for my iphone & see how that goes...just not ready to be without my memorymap yet!

20000? That's pretty big, should charge an iPhone 13 times! Or a garmin about 20 times

[godivatrailrider]

I'm very pro the Panasonic Eneloop batteries. I get 2 days riding out of a pair in my Garmin Oregon 450.