Foo - Gps

So, I am in the market for a decent GPS for hiking/camping mostly. What do you all suggest?

What's your budget? I think some nice stuff can be had for 300-400 bucks.

You used the search function first, right?

According to the roadie forum, the Garmin Edge 305 (or whatever) seems to be the in-thing to have. Dunno if it's any good or not though.

Actually there was nothing showing for 'GPS' in the search, but a few for Global Positioning System.' Not a lot. I belive that what did show revolved around a cyclibng application including cadence and othe cyclocomputer functions. I do have a $300-ish budget, but may splurge on more. Garmin does seem to be the brand with which to go. A decent memory is important but I'm not sure what that is : 24 megs? Altimeter is very important otherwise.....Are AA batteries the way to go, seems the higher end units use them. Do rechargeable ones compare with the battery life on non-chargeable? How many waypoints/routes does one really need? Etc, etc, etc... good reference websites are appreciated!

i have been oogling the Garmin E-trex vista CX for a while now, but stupid amazon wont ship to canada, and its far too expensive up here...

I got a Garmin 60CS or something like that about 1 1/2 or 2 years ago. It is great, but there might be better out now.

Just keep in mind the price of the map package....they are extra and don't necessarily come with the GPS (almost none do). And you DO want the map package.....you only get basics without the map package, it is the map package that allows you to find nearby gas/restaurants/motels, etc.... It also gives you the detail of road names and such when you are not on major roads, etc...

This might be useful, but only for the garmin 305.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=173587&highlight=garmin

I have a Magellan (Meridian Color). One thing I definitely like about it is the fact it uses SD memory cards, so I'm less stuck with the unit's own memory capacity.

I get about 14-15 hrs out of a fresh alkaline set, compared to maybe 11 hrs with a set of rechargeable NiMHs. My NiMHs are a couple of years old, so with current larger capacity NiMHs I don't think there would be huge difference. AA sized batteries are the way to go if you spend days in places where no mains electricity is available. You can buy alkalines almost anywhere, and if you're really off the beaten track, there are several solar panel systems for recharging NiMHs.

I use my unit when paddling, so for me the distinction between the various marketing slogans in waterproofing (water resistant vs. waterproof vs. immersible vs. immersible and floating) is important. For general use with bike or hiking all outdoor units seem to be waterproof enough.

--J

The beauty about rechargeable batteries is rechargeable last for years. - Well if you find a good brand. I've seen alot of energizer and whats that brand that shaq was sponsoring everlast? that literally will start accidinzing when you try to recharge them - despite them being labelled as rechargeable. But if you buy 4-6 rechareable nimh batteries you can continously recharging them without having to spend 10-20 bucks whenever you use the device for more then 14 hours. Can have a spare set and a charging set and a using set

I have a Garmin 76CS (big brother to the 60CS) and I really like it. I use it for hiking, car navigation, and occasionally cycling (I just stand it up in my trunk bag). The newer models (60/76CSx) supposedly have better reception, though at the expense of battery life. More memory is always better since you can load up all your maps at once and not have to constantly reload different maps depending on where you're going. 24MB is pretty slim these days. The 76CS has somewhere in the ballpark of 128MB, which is ample for most of my needs. The new models accept flash cards so you can get up into the gigabyte range. I would never get a GPS with a built-in battery, since it's impossible to recharge it in the field without homebrewing some kind of (heavy, bulky) recharge pack like people are doing with the Garmin Edge. It's much nicer to carry a few extra sets of NiMH or alkalines. When I hike I also carry an LED headlamp that uses AA's so I only have to carry one size of spares.

Sweet. This is good info!

alk.com

Yeah, a map network is important if you want to know where you are in relation to roads, POI's etc.

Otherwise you're just a point on the earth. And all map data isn't equal, some are great, some are good, and some are just terrible and barely usable.

I've been using a Garmin Quest on my bikes since last September. It's small enough so it doesn't look out of place, the display is clear enough to be easily read, and the Lithium-Ion battery has enough capacity for at least a weekend's riding; my most recent century took ~8hrs, and the GPS unit had more than half its charge left at the end of it. The mapping software and downloads are easy to use.

FWIW -

- Wil

http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Navigation%20and%20Map%20Gear/GPS/

Backpackgeartest.com is overflowing with reviews and most are pretty darn detailed.

Check it out, thats the link to the GPS page...

I have the Magellan Meridian Gold, which was replaced by the Explorist. Models 400 & above have removable SD card slot for unlimited memory. It gas an altimiter in it and works everywhere except inside my house. I like it.

I also spent $50 (Ebay) on the Topo maps on CD that are used for the units. Mapsend Topo US. In my 128mb slot, I pretty much have all of western Colorado in there. Meaning the mountain areas. So that should give you an idea of how much they hold.

The topos are great for camping & hiking & not too bad for roads. But this software won't give you driving directions. That is another software called Direct Route I believe which does the directions, but it doesn't have topo.

The thing has more features than I'll ever use, but I like them just the same. I recommend it.

Here's a picture of my route going by 2 lakes up near Breckenridge. The first one shows a 7 mile resolution, the second is .4 miles. My route is the dotted one. Dotted because each dot is a checkpoint of location.

Good luck & have fun with it.

Excellent.

i have been oogling the Garmin E-trex vista CX for a while now, but stupid amazon wont ship to canada, and its far too expensive up here...

I don't know if this is cheaper for u or not but we ship to canada


http://www.fisheriessupply.com/online/search.asp?N=0&Ntk=All&Ntt=vista%20cx&Nty=1&D=vista%20cx&act=A02&hideprops=1&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial+rel+Inactive

The nice thing about the Garmin etrex is that you can get a handle bar mount for them through Garmin