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Garmin Etrex Venture HC GPS Receiver |
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| So-So Starter Unit |
Got this unit to start geocaching with my kids.
PROS are: It seems to be very accurate, screen is easily readable, color is good, seems well made and durable. The unit is also able to obtain a satellite when indoors near a window which was very surprising.
CONS are: no built in compass which makes it very difficult to get to the geocache when you get very close. If you stand still it will confuse you and point to a different direction. The unit only points toward the destination when you are moving. So when you get close to the cache you need to constantly walk back and forth to figure out where it is. If you stop walking the display will point toward screen-north and not the destination.
Also, the Garmin operating system was a little less than intuitive causing me to read the manual more than I would usually need to for other small electronics. After much searching the manual still does not tell you how to manually enter a waypoint if you have the coordinates. It makes mention of the possibility then fails to explain how. (By the way, you use the "Mark" feature and then edit the info to do this).
Despite the fairly major limitation of not having a compass we have still had success in finding our destinations. However if I had known about what trouble lack of a compass would bring I would not have bought it. My kids (9 and 6) are not able to find a geocache without the compass and get frustrated walking in circles when near the destination.
I can see a unit with a compass in our future. |
| Nov 17, 2008 |
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| Ideal for geocaching |
| We bought this for our family's new hobby: geocaching. Works great! Easy one-hand operation makes it very convenient, and the readout is very clear and intuitive, so that even my children can use it. Looking around the menus on this thing, we are probably only using 10% of what it can do. We are not doing any intense hikes, so I'm not sure how the more advanced features might compare with other GPS's out there, but we're very pleased. |
| Nov 16, 2008 |
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| Quick working in less than a month |
| Really liked the performance of this unit, but it quick working completely in less than a month. Very disappointed in the quality considering the reputation of Garmin! |
| Nov 12, 2008 |
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| Awesome unit |
| Very easy to use, very accurate. I got it with the bike mount for my mountain bike and I use it to track all my rides. Great for geocaching too. No expandable memory, but not an issue for my uses. |
| Nov 12, 2008 |
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| Garmin hand GPS |
| Great item but the back light has to be manually turned on every time you start it and there is no button to turn it on. It has to be set each time. This pulls down on battery time. |
| Nov 11, 2008 |
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