Quote Originally Posted by Neil View Post
............ it's a fact that it's generally pointless you using a card bigger that 16GB because you will almost certainly exceed the unit's limitations to read all the map data, and your etrex cannot handle more than about 3,000 segments .................
.............. Did your test involve having exactly the same map data on both the 16 & 32 GB cards?
Quote Originally Posted by Schermann View Post
The 16 Gig limit as opposed to 32 Gig is recognised by Garmin as an ongoing issue.

The issue of map layering and tile limit is well understood by me and nothing to do with this Etrex firmware issue. ........
It may well be a firmware issue, but is that an acknowledged fact or just a suspicion by WEAVEJD in the Garmin thread? He said: 'Irregardless of what Garmin says, I think the new etrex series has a firmware problem, so the 32GB cards aren't useable.' The alleged 'non-answer' from Garmin to him regarding practical card size is actually good sensible advice i think and in the real world most users will get by with a 4GB card and would never require, or perhaps even be able to use, a fully loaded 16GB card because of the universally understood limitations.

Regardless of whether there is or isn't a fw issue with the eTrex series coping with cards above 16GB, i do agree with Garmin and i don't advise using bigger than a 16GB card in any unit and that's simply for the reason that we all well understand, i.e. the tile limit. i don't have access to an eTrex to make the test myself. But did you do the test as asked above? Frankly, that's the definitive as to whether your etrex 20 has a problem with the overall capacity of the card itself or just the amount of data on it exceeding the capability of the unit itself. I know WEAVEJD reported negative results for the 16GB with the same data on both it and the 32GB in his eTrex30.

The old chestnut about Garmin only endorsing the card brands SanDisk & Kingston has been around forever and frankly I don't believe it either. I had a funny experience some time back which I reported about a small card I kept exclusively for doing NV backups. Always worked fine in countless units until one day i stuck it in a 2 series and nothing happened, card was ignored. A different card worked in it and the original card worked in everything else i tried it in, just not in that particular nuvi. The card was not read even with a small map on it, just didn't exist for that unit when i checked in hidden inventory. Can't explain that either and it was also either a Kingston or SanDisk. It's a total crock but i understand why Garmin keeps saying it, they can't test every card on the market.