Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver by Garmin
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List Price: Our Price: $116.00 You Save: $53.99 (32%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $112.93 (click here) Category: GPS or Navigation System See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS Receiver
Digital camera Review: Excellent value
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent value; I bought it for less than $140 and it's the best GPS I've ever had
The sensibility and acquisition-speed of the GPS are amazing. It has satellite signal even inside the garage! Maybe it's because of the new SIRFstar 3 sensor
It comes with a USB cable that is a lot more practical and fast than the old serial cables. And you can use the same cable to power the GPS too! Just connect it to a USB port of a laptop or better yet buy a 12v to USB car adapter
Digital camera Review: Excellent value/performance
Summary: 5 Stars
Worked with the eTrex a couple of days, very pleased, we had the Garmin Geco 201 earlier, this had a bad reception in the woods.
The Etrex is next generation, good/excellent reception with the maps in the background so far excellent ratio performance/cost.
Herman
Digital camera Review: Fantastic GPSr for geocaching at the price
Summary: 5 Stars
I got this unit for geocaching in urban and near urban areas. Garmin has some cheaper units, but they're either in B&W (not a big deal) or has a serial interface. I highly recommend getting a unit with USB interface unless you're running Windows 95 on a really old machine. Not only is the transfer speed much faster, some new machines (and many laptops) no longer has a serial port.
Performance of the unit is very good. It even managed to get a lock in my house, something my Nuvi could not do. Do bear in mind that the position is updated once every second, and the "compass" is only accurate if you're moving for a few seconds in a straight line. This is true for all GPSr that does not have an electronic compass.
The unit is small and fits very well in my hands - much easier than holding a Nuvi which I was using before this arrived. With the black case, it looks vaguely enough like a cell phone that people will not give you a second look when you're out hunting for a cache.
Waypoint names are 14 characters long, and it only holds 500 waypoints. Geocaching feature in this unit mainly consists of the ability to mark a waypoint as "found", after which you're asked if you want to go to the next closest waypoint. Searching for a cache would, by default, filter out found caches. And you can view the calendar to see when you found which cache - useful if you are logging your finds after a few days out hunting without Internet access.
The main limitations of this unit is : very limited basemap, no sensor, no memory expansion capability. There are units that has those features, but none come close to the price of the Venture HC. If you want those features, go for a GPSMap 60CSx - at almost 3 times the price. Or spend even more and get a Colorado or Oregon for paperless caching.
If you want some free street maps, search for ibycus USA. It's very straightforward - install the Garmin software that comes with this unit, then download and install ibycus USA. You need to select the map set on the upper left corner of Mapsource. There's no topo information unfortunately, and it is not routable. By the way, this unit will not do routing no matter what mapset you're using.
The Venture HC (and probably all other Garmin GPSr that takes AA batteries) can be used with rechargable batteries, but the unit itself cannot recharge the battery (you'll need to remove the batteries for recharging). If plugged into a USB port, the Venture HC will draw power from USB, and not draw from the batteries. I use Sanyo Eneloop low self discharge batteries and I haven't had to recharge them after a week of use.
My unit came with firmware 2.7 - updating to the latest (2.8 as I write this) is fairly painless. User interface takes a few minutes to get used to, not difficult at all. Garmin also has an application to make screen captures off the GPSr, and to customize the startup splash screen. A device SDK is also available for application developers.
For a (relatively) low cost entry to geocaching, I highly recommend this unit, with a set of Eneloop NiMH and the protective case.
Oh, and just a note, if you have a Nuvi, search for Nuvi Paperless Geocaching. You'll need the application GSAK and a premium account with geocaching.com, but that will give you the ability to view cache descriptions, hints and logs, together with proximity alerts and driving instructions to the cache, at your fingertip.
Digital camera Review: Finding my way back
Summary: 4 Stars
Pros:
I don't know how to use this in it's entirety yet, but like what I have been able to figure out so far just by playing with it. I have used it on a number of hiking trips and feel 100% more confident knowing that I have some type of bearing on me other than the sun.
I was able to get this as one of the Deal of the Day on Amazon and I am glad i didn't pass it up.
Cons:
I am disappointed that it is not Mac compatible but at this point I am not saving any of my treks.
It also needs a scratch cover for the LCD screen, so buy that as well.
It also does not use and SD card. I don't need this since I am not saving any info, but it may be important to you.
Digital camera Review: First GPS
Summary: 5 Stars
Works great, very accurate. Instructions were not very good... a bit more of a learning curve than I expected.