The GPS Times

Most of the email that I receive is from people asking the same questions over and over again and, a lot of the time, those queries are concerning basic information that is not adequately covered in the unit manual. Or, if it is covered, is explained in such a technical/convoluted way as to make even my eyes water (I mean really, do the people who create these manuals think that we all have post graduate degree’s in physics or something?). Anyway, I thought I’d start a series of shorter “Tips and Tricks” type of posts to try and demystify these wonderful gadgets of ours.

Since my last few posts have been concerning the updating of the firmware and the map software on your Garmin Nuvi GPS, lets begin by showing you how and where to check what versions you already have on your unit (I have used a Nuvi 360 for the screen shots but since all of the units in the Nuvi range have very similar menu structures, it shouldn’t be too difficult to follow the instructions on your own unit).

First let’s check your firmware version:

From the main menu screen on your Nuvi, tap on the “spanner” to open your settings menu screen. Then tap on the “System” button.

At the bottom of the system settings screen you will see an “About” button. Tap on the About button and this will bring up your System and Copyright Info screen. On this screen you will see the Model, the Software (or, as we prefer to call it down here in Africa, the “Firmware”) version, the Unit ID and a bunch of other less important information.

Next, lets take a look at your map software version:

Again, from the main menu screen, tap on the “spanner” to get to your settings menu screen but this time select the “Map” button to open your map settings screen.

At the bottom of the map settings screen you will now see a “Map Info” button. Tapping on this will open up your Map Info screen. You will notice that I have a few different maps loaded on to my Nuvi but only one of them is ever selected (in the tick box) at a time. This is to prevent clashes between the different map products loaded and whilst it not always necessary, it is a good practice to follow, especially if you have two different mapsets covering the same area i.e. a road/street map and a topographic map (we have had a couple of instances where some really weird routes have been created when the unit tries to use one mapset for one part of the route and a second mapset for the rest of the route).

Well I hope this helps you find your way around your Garmin Nuvi a little easier. Please let me know if these tips are useful to you by leaving a comment below…

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