DeLorme Earthmate PN-40 Handheld GPS (1:100k Topographic, Detailed Street Maps & POIs Included)
The Earthmate PN-40 is a high-sensitivity, high-performance, bright-color-screen handheld GPS that offers an unrivaled selection of display options including up-to-date DeLorme Topo USA topographic maps, color aerial imagery, USGS 7.5-min. topographic quad maps, and NOAA nautical charts. The Earthmate PN-40 is a high-sensitivity, high-performance, bright-color-screen handheld GPS that offers an unrivaled selection of display options. Click to enlarge. With its 32-channel STMicroelectronics Cartesio chipset and DeLorme ConstantLock technology, the PN-40 acquires satellite signals quickly and retains them in the most challenging GPS environments. Map and imagery displays are lightning-quick thanks to a powerful dual-core processor. A three-axis electronic compass can be used with the PN-40 held in any position, while a barometric altimeter provides reliable altitude readings. The on-board base map includes major highways and thoroughfares worldwide plus s (more…)
I must say that I find it interesting that there are so many glowing reviews about this flawless GPS. I am always skeptical of anything that sounds too good! I read many of the reviews online, and after evaluating the specifications and features, opted to buy the Delorme PN-40. Prior to this purchase, I owned a Garmin 60CSX GPS. I believed that the Delorme was poised to be a significant improvement in both the tracking ability and the display of aerial overlays.
Let me begin by stating that I don’t believe there is a perfect GPS except from the perception of the user and their application. If it meets your criteria, then it serves the intended purpose! That being said, let me try to summarize my personal observations from my point of view.
After purchasing the Delorme PN-40, I quickly signed up for the $29.99 annual download service to take advantage of this impressive feature. I have downloaded about a dozen maps at this posting and must say that Delorme has been very effective in minimizing the number of maps that can be downloaded. First, the size of the maps you can download for each map type (color aerial, USGS, etc..) is restricted to some size in sq Km. This isn’t too much of an issue as they are large enough for my typical hike. Second, I have found that the download speed is being limited to speeds on the order of 15-20Kb/s. This is incredibly slow considering the capability of cable is in excess of 700Kb/s. A typical download time for the maximum 250sq/km file is over 1.5hrs. In addition, many of the downloads stop prematurely, and this requires you to download the entire file again (a download manager isn’t able to resume the download after termination). I have spent days trying to download a single file due to premature downloads (and no, my modem and router aren’t the cause!)
The learning curve for uploading the map files to the PN-40 is tricky and not documented very well. It took me (I’m an electrical engineer) about 4 hours to sift through the documentation along with some trial and error. Once downloading was accomplished, I found that the display of the maps was pleasing, but lacked detail.
I then took the Delorme PN-40 and Garmin 60CSX (Sirf Star III chipset) on a 9 mile hike in Forest Park located in Portland Oregon. I used fresh Powerex Medion batteries in both GPS’s. The temperature outside was about 35degF and the hike took approx 5 hours. My findings are as follows:
The Delorme PN-40 took several minutes longer than the Garmin 60CSx to lock onto the satellites before a 3D view was possible. The Delorme circle of uncertainty, accuracy of the location, varied significantly while standing in the same spot on open terrain with no obstructed view of the sky. The variation would be on the order of +- 15ft to +-40ft. The Garmin locked onto the signal vary consistently for this same location with variations of only +-2ft. I found the aerial display on the Delorme to be difficult to see without the backlight. Note that the isobar lines aren’t easily seperated from the aerial background. It may just be me, but I’m not color blind and have good vision. The Garmin display is easier to see, I think, because there isn’t much clutter on the display (the backlight helps very much in low light also). The Delorme tracking lines are superb! It is easy to see where you have gone and is nicely color contrasted to the background map. The Garmin tracking points are almost impossible to see (until downloaded to your PC) as they blend into the topo map! The last point I want to make concerns the battery life, and this was the biggest issue for my personal use. The Delorme battery life was barely acceptable (for my purposes) under the conditions of this hike (cold and wet for 5 hours). The battery indicator on the Delorme started dropping after about 2.5 hours and declined steadily for the remainder of the hike. The last hour of the hike I expected the Delorme to shut off, but the batteries did hold out for the full hike. The Garmin battery life remained at full for the entire hike. You can argue that my test wasn’t exactly fair since the batteries weren’t brand new and don’t know how often I used the backlight, but I didn’t expect the Delorme to start indicating reduced battery power so soon. A sample size of one unit is not exactly a great indicator of all the units sold, but then I’m not being hired by anyone or trying to take sides! Obviously, you must be the decision maker for your application.
I will say that both products performed well enough for this one hike. I prefer the Garmin for satellite reception, consistent locking, battery life and ease of software use. However I do like the display capabilities of the Delorme. Also, the Delorme mapping is far superior to Garmin, but at the expense of a steep learning curve. I also want to mention that Delorme did a great job for allowing use of every battery type you might want to use; from lithium ion to alkaline. Also, I really appreciate Delorme giving easy access to the full capacity of a 32Gb SDHC card (which I verified worked well), but you do need plenty of storage for the hybrid aerial maps.
In summary, let me say that in my opinion I feel that Garmin has the lead on GPS hardware and that Delorme has the lead on Mapping software. I would love to see a product created by the merger of these two companies to take advantage of both of their strengths. Good luck on your purchase decision.
Note that I am not an employee of either company, and have no personal bias towards them. I also own products from both companies!
2.0 out of 5 stars
PN 40 gps
I’ve had a Magellan Gold for years and comparing the two, I’d like the Magellan. The Magellan was easier to read.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great GPS when it worked, which wasn’t for long
I purchased the PN-40 recently but unfortuantely had to return it shortly thereafter because it was a brick.
I received my new DeLorme PN-40 GPSr the other day.
First off, let me state that my previous GPSr was a basic Etrex. It was pretty weak, but helped me find lots of geocaches. Now, keep in mind two weeks ago I had NO intention of getting a DeLorme. I was pretty set on getting the Garmin Oregon, and had just an inkling of the PN-XX’s. So, I headed on over to the DeLorme forums and posted some questions. The level of attention I received from the members as well as employees of DeLorme really impressed me. Couple that with a DeLorme employee’s blog post which pretty much seemed to be a direct answer to my questioning about Mac support, and I was sold. I’m willing to wait a month for limited Mac support, and know that they are working towards more support down the road.
So, onto my first impressions. This might not have the bells and whistles aesthetically of the Oregon (by this I mean large touch screen, lack of buttons), but it ROCKS. I really have nothing to compare it to other than the Etrex, but it is FAST, fast, FAST! I’ve heard the PN-20 took a while to render maps and create routes. This rendered maps real-time while I was driving. It only took a few seconds to calculate a driving route. Really amazing. On top of that, it took quite a few minutes from a cold start to acquire a 3-D fix, but once it did, every restart after that had an almost instant fix. Literally, I turned it on and it acquired a fix.
The driving directions were very accurate, and the beep was sufficient for me to know to turn. If I had the travel kit, I could keep the backlight on in the dark, and have no problem finding my way to other addresses. Speaking of addresses, the maps that come with this are GREAT! So easy to load the pre-cut area maps that come on the accompanying DVDs. I haven’t tried to cut maps online yet, but I plan on grabbing a bunch of satellite imagery, as that is one of the key points that sold me on the PN-40.
Now, onto the main reason I wanted a new GPSr, geocaching. The Etrex served its purpose, but sometimes I would be walking around an area for over an hour, with the GPSr jumping all over the place. With the PN-40, it took me right to the cache. I had already read the hint, so I thought I knew where it was. The GPSr showed that I was only 2 feet from where I thought it was!!! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it at first, so I keep looking, and finally I find it a couple of feet from where I was first looking. I look at the PN-40, and sure enough it was registering 0 feet. Maybe this was beginner’s luck, but I was impressed.
I am simply AMAZED. This was the greatest geocaching experience I have ever had. I loaded Color Aerial Imagery onto my PN, and it was literally like i had Google Earth as GPSr. I viewed all my caches on the map, scrolled to one I wanted to hit, and routed to it. It was so accurate it was scary! I was in heavy foliage at times, and it never lost a 3-D connection. It wasn’t jumping all over the place like my old GPS did. This was steady! In fact, I think the biggest problem is that the people who placed the caches had a less accurate GPS, thus throwing off the coords slightly.
I had the PN auto-routing for roads to each cache. Once I got to the area, I just let the GPS lead me to cache. Some of the caches I didn’t even read, I just made my way to the area and found it.
I’m already having a lot of fun with this. It’s a big change from my Etrex. My biggest concern was that I would have buyers regret and wished I bought the Oregon. So far that is not the case. Once I start loading all kinds of different maps, which come with the GPSr (and for $29.99, I can get a year subscription of unlimited map downloads of their online maps), I don’t see how the Oregon can even compare.
I could not be happier with my purchase of this treasure! I am really amazed how the PN does everything! I can’t wait for the next firmware update to get the enhanced geocaching features. The PN-40 can only get better.
BTW, 7 for 8 caches today, and the one I couldn’t find was definitely gone.
Great job DeLorme!
I had a chance to try the PN-40 extensively on a recent off-trail desert hiking trip. The unit performed flawlessly, and though I’m pretty picky about features, at the end of the week, I still didn’t have a wish list.
Delorme’s new high resolution color aerial imaging is a real upgrade from it’s previous topo and “satellite” imagery. Comparing side by side with Google Earth, Google has a slight edge on resolution, but it’s pretty close. And for a mobile GPS, the resolution is more than you need, and you can zoom up on details that provide more than enough detail. Delorme’s new subscription pricing option of $30 for a year’s worth of unlimited map downloading is a much better pricing model than the old “pay as you go”, which got expensive fast.
The PN-40 is fast, both in GPS acquisition and map re-drawing. The GPS continued to track while in my pocket. It acquires a fix after being turned on often within 30 seconds. The map re-draws are not silky smooth if you set it to always orient “heading up” as it constantly tries to adjust to your varying direction. But in “north up” and “course up” mode, where the map is static and your arrow is moving, the unit is very easy to use. And zooming in and out is almost instantaneous, which is much faster than older handheld GPS models with high resolution aerial maps.
Planning routes and waypoints on the included Topo software is an easy way to plan hikes, though you can also pick points on the little screen on the unit if you don’t have a computer nearby. That’s a slower process as you have to use the four-direction round button, which is not that easy to nagivate around extensively.
The unit is rugged, with high impact, tough plastic on the outside, and a battery case the screws tight with finger screws to make it water resistant.
The unit is easy to use but has a whole lot of layers of complexity if you want to do more. It took me several days of heavy use before I felt I knew all the menu options. There are a lot of ways to customize the unit, which is probably why I didn’t feel I wished for much at the end of the hiking week.
Though you could use this for auto routing, I find my regular auto GPS a lot easier to use for that. But for anything off roads, such as hiking or jeep riding, this unit is really great.
Here’s a few tips I learned using it:
1) Sometimes the unit will not be recognized by my computer when I first hook up the USB cord and turn it on. For some reason, if I just turn the unit off, wait a bit and then back on, the computer recognizes it on the second try.
2) Don’t be afraid to turn up the display brightness to full brightness. It’s a lot easier to see in the day, and since the unit runs on two AA batteries, it’s no problem if you need to switch them out. I found that two AA batteries lasted a day and a half at full brightness with the display set to automatically turn off after 30 seconds of no use.
3) I scratched the screen with my car keys in the same pocket, so watch out for the screen and sharp or metal objects.
Portable high resolution GPS has finally become reality. I really enjoyed my hiking trip, being able to plan complex routes in advance, and see exactly where I was when out in the backcountry or on trails. I was able to make some smart decisions while hiking when it was getting late and I needed to figure out a new way back out. It took years for my dream of a hand held GPS with high resolution maps to finally happen. I highly recommend the PN-40.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lots and lots of potential
There is a bit of a learning curve, which I am still navigating, but I can tell there is lots it can do.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Battery life(???)
Excellent features and ease of operation, but horrendous battery life, less than ten minutes with two different freshly charged sets of NiMH batteries, 45 min or so with multiple…
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unreliable
I received this item in early June 2009 with the hope to use it to geocache with a friend during their last weekend in town before moving out West.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very strong alternative in the GPS market
I purchased a Delorme PN-40 GPS for the purpose of geocaching. I already own a Garmin GPSMap 60CSx and a Garmin eTrex Legend, so although I did not really need another unit I…
5.0 out of 5 stars
DeLorme PN-40: Another winner!
Got this to replace an aging GPS that had served me well. Did my homework and found a great buy here. This does all it says it does, and very well.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great if……..
The GPS itself is fantastic. I have been using the old etrex model from Garmin so this is definitely an upgrade.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good product, lives upto its promis
I bought this then went on a survey for my local fish and game to find and trap Ferrets. I had to know EXACTLY where the Ferrets were and return them.
5.0 out of 5 stars
PN-40 review – new to Geocaching
I bought this after reading several reviews. I am glad I did. It has lived up to my expectations, and more.
I bought this to help map out some remote property we have.