My holiday to the Kruger Park seemed as good a test as any. Initially, the unit's menu system and user interface take a bit of getting used to, especially if you are used to HandyMap on an iPAQ (which I am). Luckily, it is easy enough to figure out the system without having to consult the user's manual.
What I liked about Quest was the fact that you can navigate right down to address level (i.e. street name and number). While the system was not always 100 percent accurate to the meter, it was accurate enough to get you to where you wanted to go in a reasonable time.
On the subject of accuracy, the map data seemed to be a lot more reliable than other offerings this journalist has used in the past, up to and including those irritating boom-gates and road closures we have all had to endure.
While the Garmin map data did have the vast majority of closed-off areas included, and routing systems took note of them, there were a number of road closures still not included in the data, which could cause some frustration in the event of driving through a totally unknown area.
Quest got us to the Park's Phalaborwa Gate in good time, although I did find it a little difficult finding smaller towns like Dullstroom (via points) using the look-up feature. I often found myself manually navigating the mapped route on the screen to find a town to add as a via point.
Having said that, the user interface is not as flexible as many of the PDA-based GPS systems available to consumers. But I suspect Garmin did this out of a need for simplicity. Regardless, I would have liked to see an additional index search function, which I would have used more than the mandatory lodging and point of interest functions.
Throughout the trip to the Kruger, Quest displayed various interesting stats about our trip, including travel time, estimated time of arrival, distance travelled, average speed, top speed and elevation. It almost felt like I was staring at the in-flight info on an international flight.
On the map accuracy front, I was uber-impressed with the fact that Quest picked up every single road in the Kruger Park, even the little dust side-roads and rest camps. And the GPS's point-in-time accuracy was far superior to other systems I've used, although on one or two occasions I did miss a turn, which was quickly re-routed. Acquiring satellites, in general, was also a breeze.
The unit itself is small enough to be totally unobtrusive when mounted on the wide screen but this does not result in a smaller screen, which meant that the right amount of data was always being displayed on the GPS, using the system's auto-zoom function. I would have liked to take it on my motorbike as well, but there was no way of mounting and charging it, unfortunately. This would be a great addition for touring bikes or delivery vehicles.
One thing has to be said though, the cigarette lighter jack was a very tight fit, and we did have to take care when removing it that we did not pull the entire lighter fitting out of the dashboard, but we managed to do so, anyway.
The GPS also includes PC connectivity and bundled map software (MapSource).
In my opinion, Garmin Quest, although a little more expensive, is far superior to the HandyMap iPAQ 6515 offering CSA had on review late last year, from both a functionality and data accuracy perspective. If you or your business need a GPS and you have the cash, Quest is a great option.
Price: Around R6,500 (US$1,092);
Available from: Cape Union Mart.