I've been on the hunt for one for a few weeks, and they're hard to find from a reputable place that really has one in stock. So I tried something a little different: I got a human in the loop. Took the wife to Watertown to do some shopping, and I popped into a West Marine store, on the off chance they might have display stock or something. The girl there didn't have one, but she went digging into an old catalog from 2007 for the SKU number, then punched it into her pooter. She found a bunch of shops that still had one or two, and she could see all over the country. She called up a store in Maine, the lady there pulled one of two off the shelf to confirm they had one, and they're shipping it to the Watertown store as we speak. So I'll run down to pick it up when it comes in later this week. So if you're looking for one, this should work for you. As of today, a couple of shops in Florida had two, and quite a few still had onesies. Good luck.
I just got a refurb from Johnson Hicks Marine in Santa Cruz. They had it listed on Ebay for a $479 starting price. I called their office just to ask about Garmin warranty on the refurb and he offered to sell one to me over the phone for that price. I snapped it up!! He still had a few more as well. Later that day, the ebay listing sold for $676. $479 shipped, with all the goodies and Garmin warranty. Even got a free map upgrade when I registered it. I'm very happy with that.
What is this "human" you're talking about? Seriously - good tip. I've actually had pretty good luck at West Marine for GPS bits, they seem to have a good selection and many of the salesdrones actually have a clue about GPS.
Even more than that, they seem to have a company wide customer service policy that differs from the norm, they always jump in and try to find a solution. Dealt with them a lot over the years. I think it stems from the fact that no 2 boats are the same, there's A LOT of one-offs out there, so they understand that it's gonna take some leg work to find you what you need. And that's their business, so they're good at it.
damn these are in demand! I was the orginal bidder on that ebay unit last week. I'm bidding on the one that expires tomorrow, if I get beat out again I'll just call them on tuesday.
Sorry for hijack, I was looking at this unit because I need to buy a new GPS, one that works for kayaking and also for the bike. My question is, are these units delivered with the Mapsource software, and everything else needed for creating routes/tracks? I understand that the advantages over the nuvi 550 are numerous, including the fact that the BlueChart. Are there any disadvatages? Lastly, could someone explain what is the difference between this and the zumo 550/660? Thanks Edit: I think I answered most of my questions with the 478 thread :)
Don't know if they're still available, but a word of caution (which you'd want to confirm), but I believe that you cannot create routes on your PC and upload them to a 378. If I recall, I think it had something to do with the maps that were pre-loaded on a 378.
The problem with the 378 is that the inland waterways are somehow tied to the maps in the GPS. Therefore the map on your PC will never "match" the GPS maps and when you try to send a "pre-calculated route" to the 378, it will always want to re-calc it using the info it has on the GPS. Kind of similar to what the 60/76 series do also. You can sort of get it to go where you want by inserting enough way points and sending a direct route that makes sure it uses all your points. You are still leaving the final calculations up to the GPS, but its possible to pretty much get what you want. I can't remember though if because of the way the maps and inland waterways are tied in, can you even update the internal maps on the GPS very well? Either way, it does have its quirks and for road routing, the 478 is considered a much better option.
Picked up my 478 today. It's a brand new one, not a refurb. Not only was it not an overhaul, it was $499. That was worth the effort.
A word of warning. I got my nuvi thru west marine in a similar fashion. They called another store that had one "in stock" and had it sent to my local store. When I got the GPS I found a few waypoints on it at the store it came from and around the area of the store. When I brought this to the attention of my store and questioned if it was a floor demo I was told no and it must have breifly been shown to someone. I dug a bit online and found about a hidden screen that shows total operating hours and found the unit had over 1000 hrs on it. Clearly a floor demo. When confronted with that data they did contact Garmin and got me what I think is a new unit.
The quick and easy in-store check is to turn it on. If it shows its location in Kansas and it's trying to locate satellites for a couple of minutes, then it hasn't been used. Edit: Just noticed your location, and it reminded me what the clerk at the West Marine said. She said that they stopped taking stock from Florida stores, because the stuff was always worn/ damaged/not as they represented.
With the unit off, press the Enter and Power keys down until you get the system screen. You'll know when you get there. You can only see time since last system reset that I know of.
Well, that's a cool thing to find. Thanks. It shows the temperature on that screen, too, but it doesn't seem to be reading ambient. I put it in the fridge for ten minutes and it went up a few degrees. If you press the page button, it will cycle through a bunch of other screens that must be useful for diagnosing faults if you know what you're doing (I don't.) Drew
