Thought I would add my 2cents worth. I just got a Quest unit the middle of Sept. I have used it in town in both Denver and Austin Texas. I also used it between these areas driving back to Texas from Denver. I'm impressed with it in the car. It's better than I exepected such a small unit was capable of. Easy to operate and use. I bought this unit so I could use it for trips we do with our business. I also wanted the ability to take it "off road" on occasion. I considered the 60CS but got the Quest because travel by vehicle is my main use. I travel for my business to different cities.
This past weekend, I managed to talk my wife into going for a little walk in the park to "treasure hunt". She went along with the idea as a good sport so I could play with my new toy. By the end of the day, she was holding the unit and telling me which way to look for the cache. We even went back to one we couldn't locate in the morning and found it with a flashlight after dark. We went home and re-read the online cache info sheet. We found the unit to be very accurate and right on most of the time, even under the thick trees. It did work very well for our inexperienced purposes. The dog was exhausted by 3pm so we dropped her at home and went for some lunch then we went after another locate site.
My observations...
Autorouting on this unit is fantastic. Voice guidence is top drawer. Detour feature worked great. Missed turns reported quickly and a new route is given within 15-20 seconds in most cases. Newly built up areas are sometimes not as well covered because the maps are not filled in as well.
It seems to do everything I need to do to locate a cache. We found 4 out of 4, although we had to revisit the first one. We have never done any geocaching before. I have only used it navigate highways and city environment prior to this day.
The exterior of the Quest GPS case is slippery... with no carry strap. I worried all day that I would drop it on a rock. I went to Frys yesterday and got a zip shut camera case with a neck strap. It fits like a glove and although I have not used this in the field yet, I expect it will help.
Seemed to track well under the trees, although it is slower to react to turns etc when I was in heavy cover. We found that triangulation worked best when it was sensitive to the cover overhead. Coming at the area from more than one direction helped us narrow our search. Setting it to prompt for route type between: Fastest, Shortest, or Off road routes made it easy to go from car to park and back again.
Screen is bright and easy to read even in sunlight. Battery life is great too. I have played with it indoors for hours looking at settings, configuring, and showing it off to others etc. and still had plenty of power. Our day out in the woods didn't seem to drain it either, we did put it into the dash holder while navigating to the next location.
I don't have enough opportunity to geocache so I expect the Quest will work fine for my purposes. If I find enough time to do this regularly, I'll want a real outdoor type GPS in the future. Right now, I have the best of both worlds.
I would like a mount that is easier to get the unit into and out of the car. The plastic bracket holds the unit well, but my concern is over the long haul how this will hold up. I would also like to be able to attach a strap to the unit for out of car use and safety.
If you plan to do more auto travel than outdoor field use, this is a good choice to get both worlds.
That's about 2cents worth,
Doug in Texas
