Thought I'd put these here, I'm sure there's a zillion posts on the topic, but maybe not one of a newcomers impressions of gps equipment.
I initially went to purchase an etrex legend at the local wal-mart, but when I got there, I found the price to be about $40 more than the price listed on their website so I punted on the purchase, did some more research and ended up with the Magellean Explorist 200.
A few things I found on reading how-to guides on purchasing gpses struck me and made me comfortable getting this "less featured" unit and I think after about 12 hours of use, it is worth sharing here.
The two things I found over and over on how-to-buy sites - I read mainly hiking ones were these:
1) A GPS is never a substuite for a map
2) A GPS is never a substuite for a compass
So with those in mind, I saved a few $$ and got a unit w/o an expandable map. I found 13 caches this weekend and for caching, I think in ways, a more detailed map on the screen would be in encumbrence.
I do think I'd like pc link capability to just save manually entering in the coordinates, but it is a small inconvienence. I just sit down and enter in 10 at a time and then done.
So, my advice is if you are on a budget, get something along the lines of a garmin etrex or a magellan explorist and then spend $15.00 on a good silva compass and pocket the difference. I'm sure the nicer models have plenty of cooler bells and whistles, but this gps and my old silva boyscout compass got me through some pretty good hunts in unfamiliar territory w/o a misstep.
