GPS Unit - Which one?

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:47 pm

Because we do a lot of camping, I am thinking about geocaching. It sounds like a lot of fun and I'm sure my camping buddies (grandsons 9, 11, & 14) would love the "Adventure".

I have talked to the sales people in several sporting good stores to get their recomendations for a GPS unit for Geocaching. None of them seem to reaaly know what to recomend and have suggested I ask someone who has been geocaching for a while.

Soooooo I'm asking. What model you might recomend? What to look for in a GPS? Possibly someone has purchased a unit and then regretted their choice?

I am interested in buying a unit that will be trouble free and have the features needed to simply enjoy geocaching and not be bothhered by the wrong type of unit.

Can anyone help or offer your suggestions?

Jack (or you can call me "Pine" for short

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:13 pm

Glad to hear the clerks admitting to not knowing!

I would recommend you stick to Garmin or Magellen. That way you are bound to have a unit someone else has and can give help with.

Some of these newer off brands might be okay, but.....

Make sure you can download waypoints to the model, and that it comes with a computer cable.

Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:20 pm

Well, I just got a new Colorado, and so far I love it. Lots of advantages, easy to use, accurate and the big bonus is that it keeps track of your finds for ya, which is cool.

I was with THB and KSpud when they got their new Oregons, and you are rignt, the clerks are clueless.....I think the clerk said something like "Well, what does this thingie do?"

I used a cheap Garmin Legend for years and had quite good luck with it, and you can get em very inexpensively. I think a lot of people use the Garmin 60 series and they are a step up from the Legend, and a step down from the Colorado/Oregon series, but seem to be quite excellent for caching too. So in part it depends on how much ya want to pay, and what features are important to you,

zuma

WGA Member Joined: 2006-12-23 Posts: 6012

Zuma is right, if you want entry level, have fun with it go with the etrex legend, decent unit, I found several hundred with it. Not sure if they've switched to usb or not but if not you'll need a usb-serial adapter.

Otherwise 60 CX or CSX are awesome units, I've had one of each if had not lost the CSX and mistakenly ordered a CX I would still have the CSX. They are much better than the legends but are in the 250-300 range for price vs about half that or less for the etrex series.

I've not heard anything good about the oregon's or colorado's until zuma's post. My one attempt at trying to buy one off of ebay the seller sent me a long email about why i should not buy it for geocaching. Wish I still had that email I'd post it here, it could be way off now though as that was early last summer.

If you aren't going to do it a lot, or use it for routing on the road, the etrex series is your best dollar investment. Better accuracy and routing with the 60 series, and some more caching related features with the oregon/colorado's(I'll let zuma go on those) are what you get for a larger investment.

Another thing you should look into is GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife), its what..10-20 bucks I think? gsak.net, awesome app for manipulating and sending caches to your gps. If you have a mac there isn't anything exactly like gsak, but there are several apps for getting waypoints to your gps.

Welcome to the adventure!

--Mike

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:53 am

Good morning Jack, and welcome to the WGA.
I started out with Garmin etrex (yellow) mainly because it was a birthday gift from my wife. I believe that was even before geocaching was invented. I thought that it was the cat's meow. However, I only used it when I went hunting, and every year I had to pull out the book to learn it again. I never had a reason to use it more often. Then I found out about geocaching and almost never put it down. I used it for the first year and a half then upgraded to a Garmin 60Cx. The etrex is a fine unit, but it will give you problems in dense cover (pine trees, leaf cover, etc), plus they aren't as accurate as the newer models. I have seen brand new ones for $99.00. When I upgraded to the 60Cx, I was looking for better accuracy and mapping ability. I also went with a few more bells and whistles because it seems that what one is willing to make due with now, one wishes they had this or that feature later. I have had this one for just over a year now. When I was researching the prices for this model, I found it as high as $400.00. That seemed pretty much the norm in stores. I found it online for about $280.00.

Another thing to consider is customer service. I have never had problems with my Garmin units. I think most people use Garmin or Magellan. It seems that, from reading the forums, Garmin's customer service is pretty top notch and Magellan's needs quite a bit of improvement. That may be different now though.

That's my experience with GPSs. I hope it helps you. Good luck and enjoy the fun.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-01-31 Posts: 156

Welcome aboard Jack Pine Savage.

I'm a bit confused with your caching name as I have been aware of another cacher with the exact same name that became a member back in March of 07'

Anyway, I would suggest looking into a Garmin 60Csx GPS or an Oregon 400T model. I have been caching for quite a while with my 60Csx as has my wife, DOC. and been very satisfied with what that model does. I recently purchased an Oregon 'cause it offers more bells and whistles pertaining to paperless caching.
I know Zuma had expressed his favor of a Colorado but I personally know several people that tried that model and returned them because of some features.
I would suggest you try out the 60Csx with a current owner. I believe that would do a great job for you and unless you are really bitten hard the 60Csx should last you for years of successful caching.

Da Bloodhound

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:32 am

Keep it simple to start.

Go with Garmin or Magellan.

Maybe try out a used one from eBay. If you like the sport, which I'm sure you and the grandkids will, go for a better model then.

Simplicity is key here. Try them out in the store to see what features you like, and which ones are easier for you to use. Do this even if purchasing on-line.

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:33 am

...Oh, and welcome to gepcaching, and the WGA!

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:37 am

And another useful note. Garmins are the only brand that you can download caches from the cache page to your GPSr.

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:08 pm

cheezehead wrote:

And another useful note. Garmins are the only brand that you can download caches from the cache page to your GPSr.

But this will be changing soon...

Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:03 pm

Stick with Garmin, you will get frustrated with the Magallan Drift.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 12:47 pm

I got a Colorado last August and love it. It doesn't handle waypoints real well, but you can't beat having all the cache information in the GPS and being able to log finds. I had a Magellan Sportrak before that and it worked just fine. The Colorado is a bit overkill for basic caching.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:52 pm

Team Black-Cat wrote:

cheezehead wrote:

And another useful note. Garmins are the only brand that you can download caches from the cache page to your GPSr.

But this will be changing soon...

And you know this how? Please share with the rest of the class.

Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:25 pm

cheezehead wrote:

Team Black-Cat wrote:

cheezehead wrote:

And another useful note. Garmins are the only brand that you can download caches from the cache page to your GPSr.

But this will be changing soon...

And you know this how? Please share with the rest of the class.

Delorme is working with GC on a couple of initiatives including the "Send To GPS" functionality that has previously only worked with Garmin units. The only timeframe that anyone is stating is "soon".

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:22 am

To see what other cachers are using check out the Tech Talk forum. See the poll that was stared by Marc. I think that it speaks for it self.

Garmin 75% [ 53 ]

Magellan 17% [ 12 ]

Lorance 2% [ 2 ]

IPhone 0% [ 0 ]

DeLorme 2% [ 2 ]