Refurbished Garmin eTrex Venture HC

I am sure it is good. Since I am new to programming it I am having problems. When I try to load a map it gives a message, insufficient memory. I suppose the micro sd card will solve it??

I love this GPS.

Previously, I had a Magellan handheld GPS (with dim black and white display). It worked well for about 5 years… getting me from point A to point B while I drove my family around California to visit relatives. Recently, I decided that I wanted more so I bought an eTrex Vista CX.

Important features of this GPS are:

(1) it uses a Micro SD card. This allows for storage of A LOT of maps on the GPS. Buy a larger Micro SD card at Frys or eBay and you will be a happy camper. 128 or 256 megs will do the job. We recently took an Alaskan cruise, and I was able to upload all of California, Oregon, Washington, BC Canada, and Youkon onto the GPS with some room to spare. Having the ability to use a mini-SD card is very valuable if you are a traveler like me.

(2) Turn by turn directions **IF** you buy the correct software to go with it. I bought the MapSource® City Navigator North America DVD to get this feature. The key is to make sure that the map that you buy comes with “fully routable detailed maps” as Garmin likes to say. When you “upload” to the GPS, upload both maps and route info and you are set. By the way, don’t bother trying to steal (ie BitTorrent) the maps from the internet. It won’t work since maps are sold by Garmin and MATCHED TO THE SERIAL NUMBER OF EACH GPS. Just save some time, and buy the DVD online.

For those that don’t know, most GPS come with a “base map” that just has the basics (highways, points of interest). If you want every street and turn by turn directions, then you need to buy a map CD or DVD from the manufacturer. An exception to this are the Magellan Roadmates (and others) which come with a built in hard drive that has maps included. Read the box carefully for whatever you decide to buy.

(3) Legend vs. Vista and C vs. CX. Garmin makes models that are somewhat similar, and somewhat confusing. Here’s a quick way to tell them apart. VISTA is the same as the LEGEND, but with an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter. An Electronic compass allows the compass to work well when you ARE NOT moving. This is important for when you are on foot and want to stop and get a good compass reading. The barometric altimeter uses pressure difference to check your altitude. The “C” in all Garmin GPS systems stands for color, “CX” means it is both color AND allows for a Micro SD card beyond the built in memory. This allows you to get more memory in the future as you need it, as maps become more detailed, and as micro SD card prices drop.

Various random thoughts:

(1) This GPS does a great job in the car. It does *NOT* give you the sort of “turn left here” verbal directions. If you need that, get a Magellan Roadmate (or TomTom, etc.) that will speak to you. The Garmin beeps at you in advance of a turn, and beeps again the moment when you should be making the turn. It also changes the display to show you a closeup diagram of what you should do next. It also has a screen which give you turn by turn TEXT instructions (turn left 0.5 miles onto highway 5, etc) very similar to what you get with Google Map driving directions.

(2) The map has a good sized display, assuming you DON’T have vision issues. Mounting the GPS on the windshield helps make it easy to see. The Magellan Roadmates have bigger displays and are designed for road use without looking at the GPS as much. Garmins like this one are “multiuse” designed to do a decent job in the car AND as a handheld for camping and backpacking while on foot. It also works great in a boat, and I’ve used it on cruise ships, ferries, etc.

(3) This GPS works great as a handheld. If you are on vacation, you can use it in the car AND then get out and walk with it (try that with a not as pocket sized Magellan Roadmate). The eTrex Vista easily fits in a pants pocket or around the neck on an lanyard, a Roadmate might fit in a pocket, but it’d have to be a bigger jacket pocket. Often, people mistake it for a digital camera around my neck.

(4) Battery life is awesome (using rechargable AAs) *IF* you have the backlight off. I would suggest using the backlight only when you have the GPS hooked to car or computer power. The TFT display looks good outside anyway without backlight. So use sunlight when walking.

(5) The user interface is much better than the current Magellan handhelds. It is more logical, and there are many more settings for the geek in us all. Unlike the Roadmate, it doesn’t have a touch screen. A small “joystick” and four buttons are used for all actions.

(6) The eTrex Vista CX connects to a computer using a standard usb to mini-usb cable. Transfer speeds are good, and much better than my old serial cable Magellan. Uploading and downloading to/from the GPS is straightforward and logical.

(7) More car info. The car power cable, coupled with the suction windshield mount works great. The backlight is very important while driving (day or night really), so get the car power cord. I have used this GPS 20 or more times with various rental cars. I just attach the suction mount to the car windshield, attach the GPS and power cord, and I’m off and driving. Before a trip, I use the Garmin Mapsource (Garmin Bobcat for Mac) software to set up “waypoints” for the trip. Once on the ground, I just tell the GPS to create a turn by turn driving directions and calculate a route to any waypoint I want. Works like a charm.

(8) COST: For this GPS, I bought the GPS itself, then a car power cable, then the Mapsource DVD, then a bigger mini-SD card, and finally, a suction mount for the car windshield. The GPS was about 0 (2005). The DVD was about 0. The rest, about . So I’m about 0 into this GPS. As of June 2008, I’ve used it for about 3.5 years with no problems. It’s still in perfect condition and still going strong. Just added a 2GB Micro SD card to the GPS. Now it holds the ENTIRE North America Map set!

Bottom line:

If you only want to use a GPS in your car, with audible turn by turn directions and a touch screen… get a Roadmate or TomTom or Garmin NuVi. If you want a smaller rugged “pocket sized” multi-use GPS (car, camping, backpacking, walking, boating) this great one and you will be very happy.

UPDATE 2010: Have moved over to a Garmin Nuvi 765T for use in the car. Still have the Etrex Vista as a backup and for use on foot. Still going strong.

Two months ago my family and I joined about 2.3 million others in leaving the Texas Gulf Coast as Hurricane Rita came our way. The road system could not handle that much traffic and a 3 hour drive turned into a 16 hour nightmare. Roads were clogged beyond capacity and I used a county map to navigate along back roads (gravel, shell, dirt and cowpath) to get ahead of a few thousand cars stopped on highways. That worked fine until the map ran out. Then we were stuck in traffic and melting heat. As we sat there I saw other people using nearby roads with confidence and I assumed they had better maps than I did. I was right, but their maps were on their GPS devices. The decision to buy a GPS was made then and there.

I did a lot of research trying to decide which device I wanted to buy and soon found myself lost in a sea of varying opinions. Right after reading a review that extolled the virtues of one unit I would read another that completely trashed it. Eventually I decided that the reviews here and at other sites were not going to give me the answer I was looking for and I would have to buy a device and try it for myself. Using reviews and some common sense I decided that the Garmin eTrex Legend C was a good bet for a trial and ordered it from Amazon.

After giving it a real workout this last week I have to report that this device is a dream. When I chose the Legend C it was my intention that be our introduction into GPS navigation on road and off as well as to use for Geocaching.

We began using it the day we got it by entering an address and navigating to a friend’s house on the other side of town. What amazed me was that it chose the same route I would have used, (from among several that were not as desireable). A few days later we used it on a 300 mile trip and it performed flawlessly. It even found our destination, a place in the middle of nowhere, past the end of the last marked road and in a pasture accessible only by a ranch road with no name (that was on the map I downloaded into the device from Garmin City Select Map CD). We used it in the field for several days and my son played with it almost constantly. Before we left to return home we used it to find our first geocache.

The Pros – Great battery life. I do recommend the 12 volt car power cable option because the backlight times out to conserve battery life. We used it for a week (kids sat there and played with it for hours trying to discover all of the features) and it’s still on the first set of batteries.

- Easy to read display. Like most other color displays it washes out a little when direct sun is shining on it, but unlike the color display on my cellular telephone it only takes a small adjustment in angle to see the readout well. The display is sharp and automatically changes at dusk and dawn to make itself easier to view in different light conditions.

- Amazingly accurate. When navigating, the device provides warning of upcoming turns by beeping and changing the display. As you get closer to the turn it displays a countdown to the number of seconds before the turn. We were astounded by how accurately it marked the turns to the second.

- Quality of optional maps from the City Select CD. We were out in rough country where even the marked county roads are unpaved and barely maintained. The number of no-name ranch roads scraped out by graders, or are trails marked only by the track of other vehicles that use it, are how people get around once off the highway. Other than some of the smaller tracks this map found every gravel or shell private road we came across. We even found some roads that we had not known existed before as we saw them on the map display while driving around.

Ability to maintain contact with satellites. If you plan to use this in the car I recommend that you turn it on outside the car first and let it find the satellites. It seems to work faster that way. However, while it may take longer for the Legend to find the satellites from inside a vehicle, no matter how it finds them once it acquires the satellite signals it hangs on to them from inside the car. The only way we ever got it to completely lose the signals was to hold it down well below the line of sight from any window. I purchased the optional vehicle mount that suction cups to the windshield and I always had a great signal. Outside, under medium cover, it held signals without a problem. I did not have major cover to deal with so I can’t say what would happen in a forest. I expect that the Legend would have the same problems as any GPS would when used under a heavy canopy of trees.

Cons – The device uses a small pointer button to maneuver through options on many of the menus. When trying to manipulate the pointer and then press it to enter an option, it is easy to make mistakes and make the cursor move when you meant to press “enter”. A minor hassle but one you should be aware of.

The display is small for use as in vehicles. I could read it allright, but if I were using the device only for in car navigation I would a larger readout. But, as I said I chose this unit to perform a variety of GPS jobs.

Pro and Con – The maps from the CD were fantastic. I have yet to find an error. The “unlocking” process was not as much a pain as I expected from reading other reviews, but it was not as user friendly as I would like.

Maps are loaded by sections and urban areas really eat up a lot of memory. My next unit will have more memory or an expansion slot to add memory via SD or CF cards.

Final analysis. If you are looking for a GPS device to perform a wide variety of tasks on and off road then I highly recommend the eTrex Legend C. As an entry level unit it is expensive, but the cheaper devices had limitations that I was not prepared to live with. More expensive units offer more memory and other things that are nice to have, and of course you can find devices that are more specifically designed and useful for more narrowly focused applications.

The Topo 6.0 maps that come with this unit contain surprisingly detailed topographic information. Most popular hiking trails are included. You can preview them at (you need to create a free account)…

data.delorme.com

The PN-20′s main rivals are the Garmin units. The Garmin mapping software can be previewed by following the appropriate links here…

www8.garmin.com/cartography

These topographic maps are generally inferior to those of the Delorme unit (you can discover this for yourself by accessing the websites above). The PN-20 nicely superimposes street and topographic/hiking info into the one map which I don’t believe the Garmin units do. The mapping software is included free with the purchase of the PN-20. You have to pay an additional amount of more than 0 for both topo and street maps with the Garmin units. One drawback of the PN-20 mapping software is that is highly user UNfriendly. Also, if you want to cut a large map section (say of the entire state of California, with all contour information included), it will take your computer many, many hours. It is possible however to download all street information, from interstate freeways down to tiny alleys, for an entire state, without contour information, in an hour or so. On the plus side, once you master it, the mapping software can be very powerful.

The screen is full-color as opposed to the Garmin models which only display 256 colors. The PN-20 can display aerial, satellite and usgs topo quad images that you download for {amazon:4:content}.25 per square kilometer. The unit comes with a free voucher for 0 of image downloads (400 sq. kilometers). This can be a very useful feature for hiking, as many unnamed trails and paths are visible from the air, and hence appear in the aerial photographs. One warning, if you have poor eyesight you might have difficulty reading the small type on the screen.

The signal reception is good. It works inside a car and under moderately dense canopy. Under very dense canopy it will loose the signal. The initial lock can take a few minutes, depending on how far you have moved since the device last registered a location. I haven’t used the Garmin units but my guess is that the PN-20′s signal reception is significantly better than the Etrex’s but not quite up there with the 60cx’s, which apparently acquires an initial lock within a few seconds. I’ve found the typical accuracy the device settles down to is roughly +/-50ft under some canopy, +/-30ft if you’re driving down a suburban street, and +/- 10ft if you’re on a freeway.

The battery life is good, ~8 hours with moderate use and medium backlight.

Auto-routing functionality is built in, but limited. If you want the unit to direct you from address A to address B you have to use the Topo 6.0 software on your computer, to create the route and then upload it onto the device. The procedure is fast and straightforward once you learn how to do it. The software enables you to create via and stop points for your route, which can be useful. You can also calculate road-routes by clicking on start and end points on the map (ie without entering addresses). Once you enable auto-navigation, below the map will be displayed the distance and expected time to next turn, the name of the street or exit, and an arrow indicating the direction to turn. It will beep twice for each turn, once to alert you in advance, and a second time to indicate when the actual turn should take place. All in all I found the auto-navigation feature was quite effective, though not as user-friendly as a purpose built auto-GPS such as the Garmin Street-Pilot. Perhaps the biggest downside to using this device for auto-navigation is that you have to wait a minute or two after switching it on for an initial-lock.

One general drawback is the slow processor. Map redraws can take up to 30 seconds depending on what information is being loaded, though typically they take 5-10 seconds. At times it can be frustrating, though for conventional use the delay is tolerable.

Another drawback is the street maps are a tad crude. For example, a curved street will appear as a couple of straight lines joined together. Also, some sections of the street maps are misaligned by more than 100ft. These are typically streets in suburban (non-metropolitan) areas but it can occasionally be frustrating, particularly when driving, as the unit can display your position as in between two roads. I believe the Delorme Street-Atlas maps don’t have this problem, but they are not compatible with the PN-20 yet (apparently Delorme is working on a patch to make them compatible).

All in all, the ability to display aerial photography and accurate hiking information makes this a break-through device, though the slow processor detracts a little from the novelty.