little gpses part 2

I've talked about little GPSes before, and I recently acquired another. There's just something cool about a small tech thing that can do a big job.

This time around I got a model that was never released in North America, the Garmin Drive 40LM. This little guy only has a 4.3" screen measured diagonally, and to the best of my knowledge is the last matte screen model in this size Garmin ever released.

While this isn't the smallest GPS I own (the StreetPilot i3 is the smallest I have, which is slightly smaller than a baseball), it's something which can still be used now when updated with alternate map data from OpenStreetMap.

True, one can simply use infotainment or the phone to navigate with, but I prefer to use a dedicated Garmin device. All the maps are stored locally to the device (no data connection required!) and it's something I can leave in the car and not worry about it. This is why I use a Garmin DriveSmart 66 now.

The little-guy GPSes hold a special place with me. I've got this little screen with a tiny memory card and a tiny circuit board inside, and it receives signals from space that lets me know where I am and instructs me how to get places. To this day, I am still fascinated by that. Feels like magic.

And yes, I consider what it does to be a big job. Being lost while driving sucks. I'm not lost, even when using a little Garmin like the Drive 40.

I had to get the Drive 40 all the way from the UK since it was never a North America model. Why did I get it? It's the only 4.3" model with an on-map Turns list. Look at the photo above on the right side. That's the Turns list. The 40 was the only 4.3" that had this feature, and it's a good one. Yeah the DriveSmart 66 has this too, but to have it in something that small is just neat.

Published 2024 Nov 7