I'll chime in since I was forced to go GPSr shopping today. (My whole cache kit : GPS, Palm Pilot, digital camera, and swag bag was stolen out of my car last night.)
Everyone will tell you they have a favorite company. (Well, as long as it's Magellan or Garmin -- there's a couple smaller companies besides them like Eagle, but we'll stick with the big two.)
If you know you'll never need maps (and frankly I couldn't do without 'em) you'll be perfectly fine with your Etrex Summit. It'll get you to the cache easily.
If you do decide to go with maps in your GPS, you have a decision to make. Because whatever company you buy your GPS from, you must also buy their map software. My Magellan Sportrak Map was stolen, but since I still have the map software, I am sticking with a Magellan.
I did notice a very disturbing trend today : it's getting hard to find Magellans in most retail outlets. A couple of the retailers I spoke with today said that they no longer order Magellans because the company is getting hard to deal with. (I can say that I have had excellent service on the one occasion that I needed to have my Magellan serviced.)
One location that did have a couple Magellans in stock was Sports Authority, and the version they were selling (the Explorist 300) ran for $229 and HAD NO CAPABILITY FOR UPLOADING ANYTHING. Unbelievable at that price.
If you're buying online, you can still find what you want for a reasonable price, and I did order a Magellan Gold for a song today. Nevertheless, if I was starting fresh with my first GPS, I'd take a good hard look at a company which seems to be less and less available at retail -- they might be on the way out. Hard to tell.
--Dave, The Cow Spots
Roping The Wind <
arizcowboy@hotmail.com> wrote:
>From: "AzRockhound"
>Reply-To: listserv@azgeocaching.com
>To:
>Subject: RE: [Az-Geocaching] Question for the GPS Cachers
>Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 19:16:03 -0700
>
>I have an Etrex Summit........ how does that rate among the GPS's out
>there for geo-caching???
Boy, that question ought to open a big ol' can of worms on this list! :)
If is has the name Garmin on it, it rates highly. :)
> I use it primarily for hiking........ What are the alternatives to
>higher end and lower end GPS's that this group uses.....
Alternatives? Only one.... 60C/CS! :) hahahhahahhehehehehe
> All suggestions appreciated......
>
> Ps.... I dont forsee using Maps.....
Once you start using maps (more specifically, color maps!), you wouln't
forsee using anything BUT maps! :)
Seriously, if you dont want to use maps, then I would say the Etrex Summit
that you currently own is a great middle of the road GPS. No need to switch
to anything else! (Really, a GPS is a GPS as long as it is modern and has
WAAS and the like).
Cache on!
Scott
Team Ropingthewind
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