[Az-Geocaching] Garmin Rino 520/530

[Roping The Wind]

>From: AZcachemeister <>

>A true price comparison would be for two radios and two GPSessesssss. 
>(well, one additional GPSr)
>I think Scott is interested in having his position shown on his ground 
>crew's unit without any extra effort on anyone's part. By the time 
>coordinates are transmitted, written down and then entered into a GPS, a 
>lot of time is lost, not to mention the possibility of errors. I saw a pair 
>of 110s in action when they first came out...pretty cool that you could see 
>the other user's position change with every transmission as they moved 
>around.

Exactly. I have had a Rino 120 in my hand this past summer. But didnt get to 
play with it much or use it with another radio. So didnt get a feel for it's 
range or using its features. It does feel and look just as tough as a 60 
series unit. The 110, 120 and 130's are only 2 watts and not color mapping. 
The new 520/530 is basically a 60C/CS with 5 watts. They will all 
communicate with each other and other FRS and GMRS devices. The only 
negative thing I could see visually was that the screen is much smaller than 
the large screen I am used to looking at on my 60 series. The 520/530 does 
have the same 256-color transflective/TFT screen though. So that is a big 
plus.

>Gee, Scott, since everything Garmin says about the 60c can be taken at face 
>value (gospel!), why don't you trust their claims about the Rino?  ;-)     
>:-P

The 60C/CS (and now particularly the X series) is, in my opinion, the 
nicest, most complete handheld unit on the market right now. It is definetly 
the best bang for the buck. I saw a CX in action last week and I could not 
beleive my eyes on how quick that thing got a position lock when it was 
turned on! I will say one negative thing about my beloved 60C..... the USB 
port SUCKS. This is an issue with any 60 series with the USB ports. They can 
pop out of the unit. Garmin should have a flange of some sort on the body to 
keep it from coming out. A couple of weeks I posted a question about 
sautering this USB port back to the circuit board. This was what I was 
referin' too. It still works. But I have to wiggle the cable to get it to 
touch the circuit board so I can mass upload/download tracks, waypoints, 
geocaches, etc. I called Garmin out on this issue a year ago and I see no 
improvements have been made with the USB on the X series. I know several 60 
series owners who have had this happen. One geocacher I know had this happen 
less than 3 months after he bought his unit (mine went 2 years before this 
happened). So I am sure there are many others who have had this issue as 
well. This is the first GPS with USB, but I would have thought they would 
have fixed this issue when they came out with the X series. I have a serial 
port plug in as well on the 60C, so not a big deal should the USB take a 
s**t on me. But the Rino only has the USB port.

Scott
Team Ropingthewind

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Shopping has everything on your holiday list. Get expert picks by style, 
age, and price. Try it! 
http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctId=8000,ptnrid=176,ptnrdata=200601&tcode=wlmtagline