"eMap guided them out of gridlock"

My grandparents have used GARMIN products for deep sea fishing, and they first introduced GPS to me years ago. I have wanted the GARMIN GPS II or III, but with newborn twins, it hasn't been on the top of my wife's approval list. My wife saw the TV commercial with the dad walking around reading how fast he was walking, his elevation, distance from other points, etc., and I guess she understood this "guy thing" as she says.

Last week, we took a Christmas roadtrip from Atlanta, GA, to Orlando, FL, to see my parents (perfect Christmas). Our kids are 1-year-old twins and a 3-year-old. We returned via I75, Sunday afternoon, 12/26/99, along with a few million others. My wife and I were not paying attention to exits and zipped past an exit, driving right into gridlock somewhere south of Gainesville. If you've spent any amount of time in the car with small kids, you know the type of scenario we were faced with: A 7-8 hour trip extended to 10-11 hours in a minivan with Barney videos and music. Kids can be distracting, Barney can be numbing; we weren't sure how far we'd travelled or which exit was where, so our paper map was useless. Looked like we were joining the others in the sit and wait.

Our GARMIN eMap (a Christmas present) pinpointed our location, showing the last exit and alternate route detail. We backtracked to the exit, took alternates and saved a lot of time (hours) sitting in traffic with screaming kids. My wife was happy and said the investment 'had paid off' right then and there. The rest of the trip she was acquainting herself with the new GPS. She quickly found which restaurants were at which exit, and how far to the next rest area and gas station. She was measuring the distance between the points and the eMap was calculating ETAs for our different stops. It actually took a lot of the stress out of driving long distances and trying to figure out all of the logistics. I've even found alternate routes to work, which will save much commuting time over the year. eMap is a great tool with a lot of great features. While the eMap came with a preloaded basemap, I highly recommend getting at least the MapSource Roads & Rec CD for great detail. It's an excellent product Ñ I have recommended it to all my friends. To the people of GARMIN, you do good work.

R.W.

"eMap goes where he goes"

I've just returned from a business trip to Oregon where I tried to mix as much pleasure with business as I could. Of course this meant bringing my newly acquired eMap, Hans. Excuse the name, but "he" travels with us almost everywhere and we needed to properly identify him in our predeparture checklist. (Hans...Hansel and Gretel...breadcrumbs)

Before my trip, I downloaded maps from the MapSource Roads & Recreation CD to a 16 MB data card that I used with my unit. As I've used other GPS units during plane flights before, I've had the pleasurable experience of knowing my ground speed and approximate elevation. Now with my new eMap, it was particularly enjoyable because I could readily identify city, street, and land features with just the basemap. I tracked SVs as easily from the northeast-facing return flight as I did from my southwestern-facing outbound flight. Delta Airlines provides a similar map and speed and altitude readings on most of their flights. My eMap correlated wonderfully with their data and was always within 2 mph of their ground speed. I used the eMap to navigate around the Oregon coast and to our final destination in Corvallis. Overall, the map data was very accurate and displayed even the smallest coastal roads and byways. I'm particularly impressed with the trip function of the eMap and the accuracy of the odometer function. I'm very pleased with the small size of the eMap and the ease of use of the front panel buttons and their respective menus. Very, very intuitive. All in all, I'm most happy with your product and would highly recommend it as a very useful position locating and map tool. Keep the cool toys coming and I look forward to the next generation of GPS products from your company.

P.A.