Best GPS for land and sea? Sure, it's a big claim. But based on the spec, it's possible. Have a gander at these neat features for the new GPSMAP 620:
- It's waterproof! Duh!
- Has a (IPX7 rated) super-bright 5.2" WVGA touchscreen display (800 x 480 pixels)
- Comes with a worldwide basemap and accepts optional comprehensive street maps, topographic maps and BlueChart®g2TM charts. Nice.
- Can be used in your car or on the boat. Or one of those amphibian vehicles that can do both!
- High-sensitivity GPS receiver - goes without saying really.
- Underwater 3D fish eye view with bathymetric contour perspective.
The unit looks like your average car mounted GPS receiver, but can transform into a marine navigator in a few clicks. In marine mode (using the optional BlueChart g2 cartography mode), you access features to see the underwater table including ship wrecks and possibly...buried pirate treasures. Ka-ching!
We like the sound of the fish-eye view, which gives you a true underwater 3D view. In addition to this, there's also detailed aerial views of ports, marinas, and landmarks also found on the software.
Obviously, most of us will never get to use any of those marine features - and Garmin have thought of that too. It doubles a standard turn by turn navigator with the usual Garmin quality interface.
It retails for $1,200, which isn't cheap for a GPS these days (a couple of years ago it would have been a bargain). But for such an extensive feature set, it's probably worth the extra money, especially if you're into fishing or boating and don't want to own two separate GPS units.