Tail of Two Cachers

Garmin GPS V for 279.99 at Amazon. Maybe find it less elsewhere. It's the best value and will suit your needs for starting out. Includes cables and maps.

Also consider the new Pocket PC smart phones. However, the Treo 650 which is palm based is coming out in a few weeks. PalmOne which makes them says a driver for wifi will be coming out later for it. This pda/phone does just about everything. Camera, bluetooth, can used as a modem anywhere the phone gets reception, mp3 player, tons of palm apps, video, email, full web browsing, messaging...list goes on.. Here's a comparison between Palm OS and Windows Mobile 2003 by CNET. http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3127_7-5120845-1.html?tag=ft

GPS V continues to get lower in price. Didn't search too hard, but is $284.00 on Amazon and contains mapsource software and cords to hook up to computer (which is extra with some units). It's 299 at a lot of land stores. IMO, it makes a great first GPS and gets your feet wet in caching as well as car navigation.

If 2 or more are caching, then you have to consider the Rino series. Makes it more fun being able to talk to or track each other.

Good price I thought... http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp...duct_id=2403495 rebate is from garmin.com and is valid 10/1/04-1/15/05 New $100 rebate today for the Garmin 2610, 2620, 2650, 2660.

If you want autorouting, there's really only 2 GPSrs to consider if you're looking at Garmin. The Quest which is on Amazon for 513.00. Comes with 115mbs or so of memory. Has voice, internal battery, and is smaller. The StreetPilot 2610 which can take a compact flash card and hold all the maps depending on the size of card you get. It's bigger, no battery (but you'd leave it plugged in), has the voice, touch screen, remote. It's 713.00 or so on Amazon. Both come with unlocked City Select maps.

I'm kind of in your boat. The more i think about it though, I believe i'll go with something for driving such as the Garmin 2610 (which isn't a LOT more than the Quest if you can find a deal). And I'll keep the V for caching.

Garmin V and my wife has access to 10 rino's she won with her grant for her classroom. But would like to add a 2610 eventually.

I've seen the Garmin cf que for 205.00 on Amazon with free shipping. After looking around, it seems the software + a different cf gps would run around the same. Thanks for the help. The cf Que 1620 holds 64mbs of maps plus you can use an SD card to hold more if needed. Lack of an external antenna is a concern but I haven't used one for my V. And any other standalone GPS's that autoroute in color, voice, and all that would cost more than double. I think I made my choice

My father in law has never used a GPS but my mother in law wants to get him one that does auto routing. Since price is a factor, and I got him an Axim a couple of years ago, I think a CF GPS should work. I'm familar with Garmin but that card (cf que)seems to be around 200.00 but it includes mapsource unlocked v6. I've seen cheaper other brands. Any recommendations? I'm leaning toward the Garmin because I probably will be his only support in using it. Anyone have problems with it?

The Quest is no where close to being a V replacement..

Not sure what you have in mind for usage, but I'd keep the etrex for geocaching and use the money to buy a Garmin 2610 for the car at around 730.00 on amazon. Get a CF card with money left over.

I don't consider the 60c an upgrade to the V to be honest.

Still isn't too specific.

Personally, I think that fee should be lowered a bit for current customers. Ever since my wife and I started geocaching and bought a Garmin V, we've must have influenced at least 10 friends to buy Garmins (rinos, legends, streetpilots and V). My wife is a teacher and even won a grant for her school recently for 2500 dollars to be spent on GPS's to teach geocaching, gps, etc to her gifted middle school classes. Most of it was spent on buying Rinos. Be nice if Garmin would make things easier on its loyal customers. What's with all these deals people are talking about? Does it pay to call them up and talk about stuff like this?

Sealed batteries are stupid. Just thought I'd mention that. But seriously, this GPS isn't really for going places without electricity. If you're doing a lot of hiking, camping, etc, then you should look at something else. Does this gps have portrait or landscape modes? (i doubt it or they'd show it off). If not, then that will be a negative. Can you imagine backpacking or hiking carrying this thing sideways? The antenna is even fixed somewhat. I would guess that this isn't Garmin's upgrade to the V or they'd mention it. It's nothing like the V (which was good for both hiking and driving). An upgraded V should have garmin's geocaching mode since the V was one of the most desired units for geocaching. This is just Garmin's mini color GPS for the car.

What new features does V6 add?

Hopefully this isn't what's relacing the V. All Garmin has to do is make it a bit faster, add some memory and color and that's enough for me. Keep the same design otherwise and especially the ability to use portrait or landscape views. Any other enhancements such as geocaching mode or multiple destinations would be nice.. Seems to me that the V is or was the most popular unit on here. Build upon it, don't change it.

Yes but now you have to pay shipping cost and stand in line to send it back, then you will not have for 2 maybe 3 weeks. sorry, I am not a real big fan of internet purchasing. If I want a new toy I want it now. that's a great point. You can save money online, but then you have to worry about support issues after the sale, returns, etc. If the purchase is expensive, I go to a store every time. Learned my lesson on this many times. If you do some homework, you might even be able to take advantage of price matching.

Depends on what you want I guess. Personally, I want a bigger screen and keyboard when in the field (but the field is usually a client or hotel room for me). A laptop is fine for me. Yes, extendable keyboards could be bought and used for such small pocket pc's, but that's more trouble then whipping out the laptop. When on the road, the Treo 600 works fine for email, directory lookups, or if I need to see a website. Guess we'll see what the future has in store..

I had mapsource 6.xx beta installed and over the weekend it said it expired and wouldn't let me access mapsource unless I applied the newest update. Garmin's site was down and couldn't upgrade it so I was without maps. Be careful with the betas..they could be time sensitive..

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I shelled out the 75 for V5 when I had V4. I've not seen a difference to be honest. Although I realize people want the latest (myself included), I'm not upgrading to V6 anytime soon. Will wait for V7.

No idea.

Depends on what you have now. I had the Treo 300 which I used for caching (cachemate). I upgraded to the Treo 600 which is much better and still only use cachemate. So not much difference. BUT...with the 600, you can browse the web much easier. It's faster. You can put an SD card in it, listen to songs like an MP3 player (its not bad), and install loads of palm programs. Can access email Any minuses would be...you have to be careful with it. Screen gets dirty often, just have to wipe it once in while. Low resolution screen (but bright and easy to read). It's still great to have one device that you can email on, use as phone, browse web, take small pics (good enough to email..not much else), play games, use palm programs, IM, MP3 player, store caches on with cachemate, keypad, etc. It's a great phone/palm. Pricey though. But to answer your question, for caching purposes, any palm will work. The Treo600 might be overkill just for that. It depends on what you want out of a device. (the treo 300 worked fine for me..had a flip cover, same resolution, can be had cheap now).

sounds interesting. My inlaws have a dell axim. So this should just plug in and you got an Ique? Might be a good present later on..