Garmin abuse market position to force high cost map feature

[Iain Macleod]

Garmin have discontinued their BirdsEye select feature in the UK which means all new GPS units need to now purchase either a £200 1:50,000 map for the whole of the UK or a £350 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 for the whole of the UK. For most serious hickers who plan to upgrade or buy new units this is completely unacceptable. Having already purchased an expensive piece of equipment I doubt that most people would be aware that rather than spend to collect £20 sections of mapping that you need, now you have to spend a fortune on mapping you will never use! We can buy Landranger paper maps for just the area we are hicking in why does the equivalent not apply electronically?

 

[Nuvi-Nebie]

I would agree that Garmin maps purchased separately from GPS units are very expensive, however you do have access to quite a large selection of free maps that may do what you want, have a look at this link :-
https://www.gps-forums.com/threads/can-i-get-free-maps.46545/