Maps with no contours (can anyone from Germany, Finland on Spain confirm?)
-
@slurpnik You simply have old maps from before the contour lines were removed.
-
@maszop I don’t believe so - I bought SV two weeks ago and downloaded maps months after the announcement that the contour lines are removed from maps world wide.
-
@slurpnik this is interesting. I’d love to hear from others. I don’t want to risk the update to test.
-
@Honza
I redownloaded my home map (with little hope) and I was disappointed
.
No contour line at zoom >=500. -
@Honza Since I wrote this, I moved countries and realized what’s happening. It’s only map of Slovakia that still has contour lines, other maps that I downloaded don’t. I did download that map fresh as I mentioned in my previous post, so perhaps it’s just an oversight on Suunto’s side to not remove them from this particular map? Maybe you could check if you’re willing to.
That said, this gave me ability to compare working with maps with and without contour lines and … OMG. Maps without contour lines are useless. That’s a strong statement and I don’t mean to offend anyone, so let me unpack it a little:
I do believe Suunto is trying to find the right balance. It is true that as I move between maps with and without contour lines, the ones without are a little more responsive. There is some lag, however it is perfectly usable and in my mind very close to the widget lag in the previous version. If that lag was acceptable to people, I think this level of responsiveness is perfectly fine too, but Suunto may not think the same.
So then the question is - what are contour lines useful for? For me, I bought SV primarily for mountaineering, so by definition navigating where the trail ends. I don’t use the watch as car navigation, where all I need is the breadcrumb path to follow. In the mountains, map is primarily used to get and maintain the context of what’s happening around me, and that’s achieved by understanding my position relative to the relief of the terrain. Comparing hills and valleys I see with the map, and map showing me the terrain around me I may not see/be aware of yet. Those quick glances at the watch are the value of adventure watch, which of course doesn’t store pre-planned routes that go against the exploration part of the adventure
So with that said, I think Suunto has at least two distinct groups of people to satisfy - trail runners with Race, where breadcrumbs are fine but responsiveness is imperative, and off-trail adventurers with SV where responsiveness is not critical but terrain awareness via contour lines is.
I guess the first group is simply much bigger and that’s how this tradeoff was made. It also makes SV much worse value in my mind - for now, and hoping we will see the fix and countour lines back soon!
Watch: Suunto Vertical (titanium solar canyon)
-
@slurpnik Thank you. I completely agree with your points. Even when following a path in the mountains, missing the contours removes the most important data layer in any mountainous terrain (which the watch is made for). I just hate this situation, as this is my major issue with the watch. I can’t believe this would be an acceptable state for Suunto, and I’m disappointed this has not yet been fixed. I don’t think I can download Slovakia without the watch also automatically updating my other maps. So, I’m not really willing to test this. But in a month or so, I will travel and need a new map, so I will be forced to do the test anyway
-
@slurpnik You have contour lines at 200m and below…so why do you say there are no contour lines?
-
@Brad_Olwin said in Maps with no contours (can anyone from Germany, Finland on Spain confirm?):
@slurpnik You have contour lines at 500m and below…
200m and below.
500m contour lines disappeared with latest map updates. -
@Mff73 Thanks, fixed, trails at 500, contour at 200m
-
@Brad_Olwin Yes, sorry, I wasn’t precise and wrote this in context of the thread, where we’re discussing contours missing and 500+ zoom level. I hope it was understandable.
