mackelroy

To Alabama Ramblers: I'm not sure who told you the yellow etrex is not a good geocaching unit, but they're wrong. Many, many cachers have them and have not had problems finding caches. I started out with one, and only upgraded because I'm a tech junkie and had to have a mapping unit. I really enjoyed the yellow etrex. So don't let someone get you down on that unit. For what it does, it's a winner all the way.

I'll second what wickedsprint wrote. I have an eTrex Legend, which as best as I can tell has the same patch antenna as the Vista, and mine rarely loses lock when I'm holding it properly. You shouldn't have any problems mounted on a bike.

I'll disagree about the build quality of the Legend. I think it's great. I originally bought a yellow eTrex, much like yourself, and a base SporTrak so I could compare the feel of the two brands. While the SporTrak had more bells and whistles, I couldn't get past the chintzy screen it seemed to have. It wasn't perfeclty flat, like the Garmin -- you could see some waving in it. And the Garmin user interface was much easier to get along with. I also found little difference between the patch antenna (eTrex) and the quad helix antenna (SporTrak) in terms of performance. I rarely lost a signal with either when geocaching. In the end, I chose eTrex, but not the Yellow version. I upgraded to the Legend and have no regrets. I like the buttons on the side. One thing you'll love on the higher-end eTrex's is the joystick on the front of the unit. As far as detailed mapping goes... I can't tell you one way or the other on that. I'm happy with the Legend's basemap, and I plan to buy the mapping software soon. So if it's between the Legend or the SporTrak Map, I'd go with the Legend. But, as Cornix pointed out, there appears to be a pretty good deal on the SporTrak Pro, which has more memory. Good luck.

Team 360 is right about the Garmin/Magellan debate - it is likely to go on for a long time. Personally, I started out by purchasing both a yellow etrex by garmin and a base sportrak (yellow) by magellan so I could do field comparisons of both. The etrex was a solid unit. I liked the convenience of the buttons on each side of the receiver. You get true one-hand operation with them. The sportrak can be operated with one hand as well, but it's a little trickier sometimes. As far as user interfaces are concerned, the etrex is hands down the easier unit to read and understand. You'll pick it up and understand it in no time. I personally think the etrex has a more solid feel to it. It just feels like it's well constructed. The sportrak wasn't a slouch in this regard, but the etrex felt a little better to me. I also liked the screen of the etrex - it's perfectly flat. The sportrak had a little bit of a "wave" to it. Small detail, but made a difference to me. The backlight on both are great, with the etrex offering one level and the sportrak offering two. Reception-wise, they're both pretty good. Some will knock the patch antenna of the etrex becasue it loses signal in tree cover, but it wasn't all that noticeable to me. I took both on some bushwhacking geocache finds, and I thought the etrex outperformed the sportrak in terms of leading me right to the caches quickly. The sportrak lagged behind just a little (not a ton, we're talking about a minute lag). The sportrak has a quad-helix antenna, which I understand is more sensitive. It performed well in pulling in a signal. Of course, it might not be fair to compare these two units. In addition to the quad-helix antenna, the sportrak has a built-in city database and is WAAS enabled, unlike the etrex. Depending on where you purchase them from, the difference in cost is about $30. In the end, I took both back and picked up an etrex Legend. I liked the quality feel of the Garmin better than the Magellan, and I preferred it's performance in the field. Don't know if this helps or not, but this is the process I recently went through. I guess I'm on the Garmin side, but I don't think you can really go wrong with either unit or maker.