Performed Flawlessly (trip through China, Korea, and Japan)

Thanks for the report. What maps did you use with your 660 while in Japan and China?

I just returned from Korea, and I was surprised to see multiple function units in almost every car. The size of these things was also striking. I wondered how the drivers could even see through the windshield. Back in the US, and not owning a GPS unit, I tought I would take myself down to Best Buy and purchase multiple function unit. I figured Garmin and Magellan would be making these things. I was shocked to learn that such units are not manufactured in the US. I did read that Cobra makes a unit. Mary Ann from POI wrote me and said that there were legal contraints. . . I wondered, what the hell is the difference between two units on the dashboard and one unit that combines both or more functions. Puzzled. Generally, US technological innovation and development seems to pale against what is happening in many of the Asian countries.

gerrydrake, I used the North American map. When I turned the unit on it found the satellites, and spotted where I was.

Max, I found your comments to be true. The U.S. should send there railroad and highway engineers to some of these countries to take a few pointers on how to build them. I stayed in one hotel that had a heated toilet seat, plus a button to either spray or stream wash your fanny, and then a button to push and blow it dry. LOL, man that was a hoot!

Hi, you mean with just your north american maps, you found major streets or freeways in China and Japan that you could follow? You weren't able to plan a route were you?

gerrydrake, no, I couldn't plan a route. It just showed my present location relative to what major city I was near. It did not show streets, just the major freeway or highway going from one city to another. Major cities being, Hong Kong,
Shanghai, Beijing, and Dalian in China. Soul, and Pusan in Korea, and more of the major cities in Japan. The North American map did not show. Only the outline of the country with the cities showed. No streets.

I see , thank you.

Does anyone know if there is a Garmin compatible map out there? Particularly for Beijing.

I went to China last year for a month and thought about bringing my nüvi but without maps I figured..... It would have been cool to bring it. I could have marked my hotel and at least known if I was heading the wright direction back to my hotel after a heavy night of drinking

There is a version of China City Navigator v6, unfortunately Garmin USA won't sell that to you. You are better off buying a new GPS unit while in China for the same price you would buy a map here.

Check out http://www.unistrong.com/ which is the company with which Garmin teams with in China to produce Chinese maps.

I'm using my 650 here in Japan. The one of the glitch is that here in Japan you have to drive on the left side while the software logic thinks you're traveling on the right side. So when you are driving on the expressways, the off ramps gets confusing.

(Note: there is a company that you can buy 3rd party Japan maps and load it)

I've been using my Garmin in Korea for the past couple of years. It's great for getting around the backroads.

I'd prefer to use a Korean GPS, but it's hard to find one that offers English menus and navigation.

The problem with my Garmin is the last Korean map update they made, v.8, doesn't have support for MapSource. I have the previous v.7 loaded which does allow route planning with mapsource, but there is a lot of new road construction here and none of the roads opened since 2009 are included. Also the English translation of the road names is terrible. For example, in Seoul we have the Olympic Expressway. My Garmin calls it Ol Lim Pig Expressway.