TopoActive Africa v3 and TOPO Southern Africa v3 PRO

[Hermansvn]

Hello everyone

Can one of you please provide a brief comparison of the TopoActive Africa v3 and TOPO Southern Africa v3 PRO maps. I do have the TOPO Southern Africa v3 on my GPS Map64 but I am not familiar with the TopoActive Africa map set. Which one will be the best for use on a Fenix 5x?

Your inputs will be highly appreciated.

Herman

[Jan Horn]

Welcome to the forum Herman
Not that familiar with any of the two map sets but here is my two cents worth.
The marketing material on the Fenix 5x indicates that TopoActive Aftica V3 is included in the package.

It seem that Topo Sourhern Africa V3 was delvoped for the GPS range andthe Fenix 5x is not listed under the compatible devices.

I gave extracted some of the features of both map sets which may be of some help to you.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge will join in with beter info than mine

Pros of the Garmin TopoActive Maps

1. TopoActive has turn by turn navigation (SatNav experience as it will route you from A to B)
2. TopoActive has great value for money (usually bundled at very little cost with the GPS)

Negative of the TopoActive maps

1. TopoAcive has no Contours, just shading to show hills
2. TopoActive has not got the detail level that the Ordnance Survey map has

Summary

Many cyclists are going for the TopoActive maps on the Garmin eTrex range as it is a lighter mapping system on the screen but as a walker I really like it. We have a couple of eTrex Touch units in the office and we have not even loaded on the 1:25k OS maps onto them (using the Birdseye Voucher that comes included in with the unit), so that must tell you we like the TopoActive maps on the Garmin eTrex units.

TOPO Southern Africa v3 PRO


Specialised route planning customisable for different pedestrian and cycling user profiles, with different recommended journeys, as well as recreational content with over 1.7 million KM of routable network. Supported activities: Hiking and Cycling.

For the counties of Namibia and South Africa, it includes farm boundary information, which can help identify property borders. Also including land use areas such as National and State Parks, university and other school grounds, natural reserves, golf courses, amusement parks and much more!


Covers 34 dams and water bodies in South Africa with depth contour information sourced by the local Department of Water Affairs.


In addition to town and cities names, this map offers over 1.1 million Point of Interests (POIs), including 450,000 farm names and farm parcels, 130,000 geographic names, 55,000 shopping and 60,000 other business locations, 55,000 small towns and townships, 22,000 hill and mountain peaks, 20,000 landmarks and more! Also includes basic address and POI search for South Africa and in selected other regions across the coverage map.

[Hermansvn]

Hi Jan....

Thank you and thank you very much for such a detailed response! I have tried the TopoActive map and it is pretty good, apart form not having topographic contours. I think I will run that on the 5X and keep the TOPO Southern Africa v3 PRO maps for my more advanced navigation tools.

Have a good day!

[Jan Horn]

I have played around on my computer with Africa South OSM Topo. It is open source free download map set. I have not used on my PND yet but I am planning to use it when we go down to Somerset West in December. We will be using the onboard navigation of the car we will be using so it will be nice to have something to compare both systems with.
It has contours and the map seem to be fairly up to date, At leased it shows Abbey Rd in Somerset West which has been wrongly named In the CN Maps since the 2016.2 version. See my screen shot of a portion of Somerset West.

http://www.gmaptool.eu/en/content/africa-osm-topo

[rocks_in_head]

Hi Jan, how did you get these maps to install?

[Jan Horn]

Hi Rocks long time no hear.
I must appologise I never got around to installing it on the Nuvi. It being a free open source map I insralled it on the same folder used for the CN maps and therefore it is picked up by both Mapsource and Basecamp. I will attempt to install it on the Nuvi later tpday but I am sur It will be posible usinhg Mapstall. I will give you feedback a bit later.

[rocks_in_head]

Ive been pretty busy with the other hobbies...rocks :-) also had a massive back op which slowed me down but i still think of you guys :-) so it looks like it must be uncompressed which mine goes funny...maybe its damaged :-(

[Jan Horn]

It was a straight forward installation using Mapainstall.

[rocks_in_head]

aaaah...the file is WINZIP 7

think i will look at running it on my laptop with my 10x