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I know, but it still seems like some sort of rubbery gasket hence the concern. My classic-style Etrexes had a soft rubber gasket, my eTrex 30 had a harder rubber gasket. Even with just medium-light use both types dried up and had buttons ripped off; the classic variants had the gasket detach entirely. Hence wondering if this is still a corporate-related quality illness or if they finally swapped the design to become robust for rugged outdoor use.

But... did Garmin finally fix that dreaded rubber gasket or not? Otherwise I see it as a real and true risk that whilst the battery life might be "unlimited" in 75k lux conditions, the rubber gasket will dry out and gum up and the buttons fly off under such hot conditions after just a few outings... Also.. for almost $300 I am not exactly impressed by a mere IP67 waterproofing which is really too weak for constant marine use. There are full smartphones around this price range with IP65+68 or even IP69K.

Owner / prior owner of: eTrex Original, eTrex Legend, eTrex H, eTrex 30. They have all failed in this way. Button ripped off suddenly after ca 1,5-2 years of light to medium use. It seemed the rubber gave up or dried out. Garmin sent a new gasket for free for the first eTrex which eventually failed too. After the eTrex 30 (2012), along with its horrible software which was at the time not anywhere near production quality for even recreational navigational equipment, I said enough is enough and didn't send a dollar more to Garmin. I since that time use only water-resistant (IP67+) Android smartphones with apps fit for navigation (Topo GPS, Topo Maps, Osmand). Mostly Samsung models. Superior in every aspect other than not having an always-on and transreflective display.

Exactly what above poster said, Hats off for managing too keep such an oldie active, but you are probably going to too much trouble than is worth. I had a Legend Classic once. Basemaps are not updated by updating firmware as far as I remember, those are at a separate memory space. You have to use Mapsource and load a basemap file of your choice (which is probably floating around the Internet somewhere with dubious legality).

Exactly. Though the mere disabling of mobile data is probably what most people would do these days. Staying on mobile data by the way takes absolute loads of battery, especially if the phone switches over to a 2G network which can often happen in the woods or backcountry. Don't agree with the "once you go dedicated GPSR, you never go back" at all. It was all decidedly unsmooth for me. Tethered to a PC dependent on a hefty (and expensive) software package for the planning of routes or caching, then uploading it... Far step back from having one device that can just pull the relevant data off the Net and you are good for your outing, at least for me. But to each their own.

Same thing happened with my eTrex 30 after only a couple years, very bad for equipment that's supposed to be rugged. I rough-repaired it with a properly cut piece of pencil eraser and sealed with flexible Silane glue (goes under names such as Loctite Repair Extreme, but there should be other brands as well). Works ok, but would not bet on its waterproofness.

I gave up on dedicated GPSR (Garmin) over five years ago. My last one was an eTrex 30. At about the same time I bought it, got a tiny $100 android phone (Samsung Galaxy Pocket) and installed Osmand Maps on it as well as a local official topo app. I thought the latter blew the former totally out of the water even back then. -GPS reception about the same (I have to admit, the eTrex probably won here, but not by much) -Digital compass actually worked, in contrast to the eTrex 30. There were loads of other annoying software bugs in the 30 as well. -Phone was MUCH faster in general use and navigation than the eTrex -Poor build quality of the old eTrexes shone through and was still there in the 30. Even though I did not use it much and never really exposed it to harsh conditions, side buttons dried up and broke after ca 2 years. Pretty terrible for equipment that's supposed to be "rugged". My Galaxy stood me for four years before I swapped it to a newer one, not because of breakage, but because I wanted something faster with a bigger screen, which could be had for another $100 (a newer Galaxy on sale). These days I also own a modern Galaxy and am very satisfied with it as a navigation device for my outings. I see very small market for dedicated GPSR for the general population, but there could be a few reasons to get one: -You need something that is completely usable under heavy rain (Cell phone capacitive touchscreens are not. However this is alleviated slightly by "button navigation mode" in ruggedized devices such as the Xcover, but I never tried it myself) -You really like Garmin's software package for planning routes (not a good reason either; GPXes can be exported from there and imported into any device) -You definitely need something that uses ordinary rod batteries for whatever reason -You need something with an always-on display The above does not apply to most.

I was careless about my eTrex 30 screen and scratched up an area to become nearly unreadable. However, I found vigorous rubbing with Autosol chrome polish and ordinary household paper did wonders - nearly the clarity of a new shiny screen was obtained actually. Very satisfied.

20 feet accuracy would be superb. I wouldn't be looking for systematic/receiver errors and reinvestigate the coordinates unless people are starting to suggest that coordinates may be 100 feet or more off the cache. Waypoint averaging won't correct much for the atmospheric errors by the way, unless you take several readings hours/days apart and put together a linear average of those. (A poster above now writes the eTrex 30 might suggest this upon averaging, I haven't seen it yet!)

This is actually rather interesting, and if I hadn't experienced it myself (on a Galaxy Gio), the only phone where I ever saw it, I would not have believed you. I don't understand how the crud they can have failed that miserably with the GPS implementation. Somehow the GPS signal seemed to be in symbiosis with the 3G reception. No 3G signal and you would have a hard time locking and keeping a lock. Easier to get a lock with A-GPS, sure, but once the lock is there... ehm??? makes really no sense! It could, by the way, be fixed by some obscure software called "GPS fixer" or the like on the android market.

I don't know, is there anything in particular you are thinking of? These are some of the simplest (and in my opinion best) units around. Have you checked out Garmin's quickstart guide?

Indeed. It is however another thing entirely if the professional finds the combo-tool actually better and more well functioning for the task than the uni-tool.

Already exists.... I honestly don't think this will perform much worse in torture tests than the outdoor Garmins: http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/smartphones/android/GT-S7710TAABTU

It can also be that Garmin has actually changed the calculations of estimated position error, to better represent reality (i.e. previously, it might have shown a way too good number). 8-12m position error is much more realistic in most receiver situations than 2-3m even with an unobstructed view of the sky.

It seems that in this thread there is not unanimous agreement that incorrectly recorded and incorrectly timestamped data should even be considered wrongful; some think it's up to the user to remove that data. I'm not frustrated about anyone with such a relaxed view on it but have higher expectations on production firmware than that and simply call it a bug. With such dissonance going on there's not much of a point to continue the discussion from my part. I rest my case, I'm out!

Blatantly incorrectly recorded speed on the connecting stretches is why it is clearly a bug. If they fix that, then you can start a lengthy debate on whether it is a bug or a feature. I don't think i'll participate in it though Regarding the 60/62 series, the bug has apparently been introduced in them as well in later firmwares, according to some reports here. Not very surprising, I'd guess the eTrex and 60/62 shares some procedural codebase.

Yep, I understood that; that's what I meant with "same setup". And yes the satellite is geostationary. It is not many degrees over the horizon here. There is not only a "little" DSP going on, but a lot of it these days for sure! As I have understood it, the noise can actually often overpower the GPS signal by many many times after even after exiting the analog receiver/filter part. However, a modern GPS runs time-correlation over hundreds or thousands of received data blocks if necessary to pick out a "position message" - therefore increasing the effective SNR by tens of times artificially. I would guess the ASIC in a modern GPS receiver contains those time correlator structures in hardware.

Don't you have be in the footprint of one of the WAAS satellites to get WAAS corrections. I'm not sure how EGNOS works. Are they not geostationary like WAAS? Afaik, it's exactly the same setup and radio interface as WAAS albeit with different satellites. Re increased current consumption with WAAS, I haven't checked that on my receiver. I know though, that many show significantly increased current consumption during the acquisition phase. And since in northern Europe it's very hard to get an EGNOS lock (in 60ºN Stockholm nearly impossible, unless one sees the low southern horizon perfectly, on a boat one might have some luck), it will just stay in acquisition all the time... (probably not nearly as bad as staying in GPS acquisition mode though).

Really? I did some testing when I got my Etrex 20 and with WAAS/EGNOS enabled battery life reduced by over 2 hours. I find fizzymagic's statement way too general. That work is done by an external component rather than the general CPU does not mean that battery life is unaffected. Generally LESS affected though, yes; that's much of the point with releasing work from the CPU. Running an eTrex 20/30 with a Glonass lock increases current draw with about 15% from running GPS-Only. I have verified this with a multimeter.

Hmm.. we have other things we run on those batteries: a vista hcx, digital camera and a few other things. The batteries last long as they're supposed to do. They only drain quickly in the Oregon. Okay. Then you should probably look to the Oregon as the source of error. A battery may be damaged in such a way that it only drains quickly in a certain load condition (specific type of device), but that's rare.

Check if also normal alkaline batteries drain quickly. A charger failure could have damaged your rechargeable cells. If that's the case, it could be either a software fault/imperfection in the Oregon or unintended battery drain (often caused by faulty input capacitors on the circuit board).

Considering the default GPS position update speed is once a second on most chipsets... well, that isn't too far off. Is the update speed only "once every few seconds" even if you use the compass rose mode? My eTrex30 seems to update the map arrow every second on the screen. Not that I am a geocacher, but I fail to understand how such fast position updates would help anyone except for in speed sports. There is a 5 Hz Garmin USB receiver intended to track racing cars and such. The default method when reaching ground zero used to be "find a spot with good reception and use a compass from there". But probably not anymore.

Just wondering, what response times are you talking about? Interface response times or GPS position update times?

I believe it has gone this way because the dedicated GPSr industry is underfunded/has lost ground due to the inrush of cell phones with similar or in most cases better capabilities to the end user. Dedicated GPSr companies will really have to innovate and release extreme quality and usable products in the future if they want to stay in business. In short, they are in a difficult situation. The receiver/antenna package in most cell phones is still inferior to a dedicated GPSr, but it's not like this matters for most users. Geocachers might be a bit more picky. In my case what has been causing some frustration about neo-era GPS is not actually sluggishness, but bugs. When I first switched on my eTrex 30 in February 2012, I was in utter disbelief on what Garmin actually had released. Was the firmware QC from this reputable company so bad that I, as an end user, really could have found several serious bugs in a 30 minute timespan of use? YEP, you bet... That receiver line is probably an extreme on that point, though. I saw TDM22 posted an image of an eTrex H above. Great reciever, I also own one. Not a single software issue found yet. Unfortunately it suffers from the rubber band loosening which plagued the old eTrex line. However, this is much easier to fix than buggy firmware, and can be fairly permanently fixed with a tube of the right glue (Silane based) and fifteen minutes of work.

Anecdotal afaik. One reason I can think of is if the systems are used separately and in parallel, and weighting from the different systems is based on signal strength/quality. If most GPS sats are blocked from direct LOS, there is at least the likelihood that a few Glonass ones are not, "canceling out" the errenous position derived from bounced GPS signals. Not a cure to the problem, but I can at least see some plausibility to the theory that it would reduce it. Missed your notice about similar receiver chips. I do not know if the Sirf VI/V have made their way into consumer/prosumer grade GPS yet.