Posted: 12/10/2008 12:27:10 PM EDT
|
Looking for a GPS for geocaching and mostly outdoors. Looking for garmin. Any ideas? what the best GPS that will do the job? Anyone have one that their impressed by? |
|
I'm in exactly the same situation as you, I want a hand held GPS.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6015174 There's a good price on the Garmin Vista HCx. Check out Groundspeak.com, that is the geocaching site. Good GPS's for this and other things are the Garmin 60 CSx, Garmin Vista HCx and Garmin Oregon 400T. The 60 CSx is supposed to be about the best and is very problem free. It has been around for a while. I went to a meeting of the SA geocachers and more than half had the 60 CSx and several others had the 60 series models that preceded it. The Vista HCx is smaller and lighter, more a pocket GPS, it's screen has a much brighter backlight than the 60 CSx which in turn is brighter than the Oregon series. The CSx and HCx can be seen well in direct sunlight unlike my Nuvi 200W but in the car or in the shade surrounded by sunlight the backlight helps and this is where the HCx shines. (pun intended) There are some problems with the HCx though, Garmin is now all the way up to firmware version 2.8 for both the firmware for the machine and the firmware for the software, these are free downloads from Garmin but problems persist. Still if you want a GPS that can fit in the pocket and does most things very well the HCx is supposed to be a good one. The Oregon series have their problems too, one is a dull screen but they are touch-screen and probably easier to use. The Oregons are good for "paperless" caching but can't do some of the things the 60 CSx can do. The Oregon 400T has TOPO US built in. The HCx and CSx have only a "base map" built in. For turn by turn navigation they will need Garmin's "City Navigator NT North America 2009", this comes on DVD or micro SD card. If you get it on DVD you install it on your computer and then download it to the GPS. You can use it on your computer or GPS. The map is locked to that one GPS though. If you get it on micro SD you can transfer it from one GPS to another but can't use it on your computer. I think the Oregon 400T is the same deal. These GPS's can use micro SD's up to 2GB, maybe even 4GB. If you get maps on the mSD you can't store anything else on it. City Nav NT NA 2009 needs 2 GB of space on your computer. For TOPO the HCx and CSx will need Garmin's "TOPO 2008", it comes on DVD only I think and needs 10 GB of space on your computer. Getting one cheap: http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=207046 Here's a link, look half way down the page for the stuff about Live.com, Live Search and stuff like that. When it takes you to the page that has eBay listings on the top and you click on the "live search" link it will take you to eBay and all the vendors will have the gold "live.com" medallion by their listing. If you click on a good deal you have only an hour to buy it, yikes. It might reset in 24 hours though. Right now the cash back is only 8% but it was 30% a few days ago. 30 damn it and I didn't buy. I have a Nuvi 200W it is just fantastic for driving and I have tried to find two caches with it and found both. A car GPS will be better for car navigation than any handheld but the HH's are better for caching or hiking, etc. Car units have short battery life and the screens are harder to read in the sunlight or shade surrounded by sun light. My Nuvi's battery is built in and there is no way to change it when it goes bad or runs down. PM me if you have any questions. Mike S |
|
Wow. there is so many i dont know which one to choose.
i want it to download on computer as well. i just want it for hiking and outdoor. no car gps. and used one before, but eveytime you want to track your path it would take long period of time standing in one place, then sometimes lose signal. ya, i want one that will be quick responding as well. |
