Garmin eTrex Vista Cx Waterproof Hiking GPS by Garmin
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List Price: Category: GPS or Navigation System See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Garmin eTrex Vista Cx Waterproof Hiking GPS
Digital camera Review: Excelent product
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm very happy with this product, it is very useful and covered my spectations.Digital camera Review: Excellent GPS
Summary: 5 Stars
This GPS is a much better product than I expected. I loaded City Select North America v6 (old software) with no problem. I was able to load ALL of North America using a Kingston 2GB microSD card. I had no trouble with loading. This GPS has a number of features that are excellent:
Size - It's a great size to carry in a pocket.
Color - The color map is very easy to read.
Auto Routing - This feature is wonderful. To navigate a route, all you need to do is to enter the destination. The auto routing figures the route and will compute a new route if you miss a turn or decide not to use the computed route.
Directions Page - A page is available that gives every turn point with a direction of turn arrow. The direction arrow is at the angle of the actual turn. The distance and time to each waypoint is available on this page.
Approaching a turn - The depiction of the situation at the turn is very clear and graphic. It shows you the road layout clearly as well as the route you need to take in the turn and also gives you a small arrow indication your progress.
All in all, this is an excellent GPS and works well for navigation on the streets and highways. I need some sort of a mount and will probably get a power cord for the car so I can keep it lighted at night.
The only drawback is that you must purchase maps saparately and unlock and load these maps. This takes some time but give you quite a bit of versatility with map selection.
Digital camera Review: Excellent mapping GPS, but altimeter and compass issues
Summary: 3 Stars
My Vista Cx is an excellent GPS. Satellites are quickly acquired and WAAS enhancement works reliably. The unit is sturdy and battery life is much better than I expected. The downside seems to be documentation. Documentation is minimal and occasionally incorrect. No expanded documentation is available on the Garmin website and there doesn't appear to be a Garmin user's group where questions and techniques can be archieved and discussed. The Vista is a very complex device with hundreds of features, and concequently needs a good user's guide.
This lack of documentation is especially noticed with the altimeter and compass. The altimeter apparently makes non-obvious choices between pressure-derived altitude and GPS derived altitude. I've found no way of determining at any moment which altitude is displayed, and the settings can vary by several hundred feet. Similarly, the compass can be very badly misleading with no way of advising you of calibration problems.
Web-accessable white papers describing the internal workiings of both the compass and altimeter would greatly enhance the Vista's usability (and user's confidence).
Digital camera Review: Frustrating Item
Summary: 2 Stars
The first Vista Cx I purchased died after only 3 days of use. I returned it to Amazon who immediately and painlessly replaced it. The second unit lasted for 4 days until I fell waist deep into a stream with the unit in my pocket. Though it was only submersed for a matter of seconds it immediately stopped working and water was seen internally around the screen. Garmin's claim of waterproofness for 1m for 10 minutes is utter baloney. The poorly designed T-style lock on the battery case cannot possibly assure water integrity from anything beyond high humidity. I probably wouldn't buy buy another Garmin but I'm stuck with them as I have already invested $200 in proprietary MapSource software. I guess that was their plan.
On the plus side, the Vista Cx did seem to function as it should...for all of 7 days.
Digital camera Review: Full of great features
Summary: 5 Stars
Garmin did a great job putting in loads of features into this GPS unit, including a color screen. A downside for casual users is that these features require that you read pages and pages of instructions. if your only going to use a GPS for geocaching etc, I would reccomend a unit with less features. Otherwise this unit is awesome and at a great price.