Advice Please

[+mollyjak]

We have a good GPS which hubbie is in charge of but now I want one as well as I am fed up of standing there and following him backand fore.

Any ideas of basic models which I can look for on Ebay?

I have been watching some today (Magellan) and the prices shoot up as the end time nears. One was £62 and another one has just gone for £50.

I don't mind paying that as we are both enjoying the hobby and plan on continuing for a long time but I would prefer to find out which you recomend please?

Many thanks

[+rutson]

Not ebay I know, but:

 

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=90265421

 

£75 delivered, new boxed and from a reliable company.

[+HazelS]

Hi... I too was in your position about 2 months ago!!

 

We have a Garmin emap which is wonderful, but I never got a look in! Phill bought a magellan Sportrak on ebay and got it for about £50, but to be perfectly honest, you can get a brand new Etrek on ebay for that, Brand new, I know, we've bought 2 for different parts of the family!!

 

An Etrek is all you need, a good old yella fella!

[+third-degree-witch]

Buy a yellow Etrex , I run 2 of them , superb workhorse

[+Birders]

Definitely look at Garmin - the after sales service if a problem arises is legendary. Even after the guarantee has long-expired Garmin have been known to replace with brand new units..

[JackiePenn]

Garmin ! Lost count of the times where I wish I had not sold my old solid faultless Garmin 12.

 

I will never buy a Magellan again. I am an unhappy owner of Magellan Meridian Platinum, still a pricey model even now (£289.95) but with terrible build quality and many known firmware bugs which fail to get addressed in updates.

 

A gps that turns itself off if you apply light pressure to its rubber case at certain points. A gps with a known internal weakness in its battery connections. A gps with a serial cable that fails within a few days due to stress. A gps which firmware will often crash when storing waypoints to and from a memory card. A firmware with routing software that often renders the unit useless for 15minutes without a sat lock if you make the mistake of pressing menu buttons after turning the unit on before a sat lock is obtained. Firmware which will leave the backlight on when routing (regardless of user settings). A firmware which often powers off/crashes when trying to re-route. Blah, see the Meridian yahoo group for the host of issues.

 

No, if Garmin still produce units as good as the built quality and stability as the Garmin 12 then Garmin wins hands down over Magellan.. IMO

[+Bekandian]

We have a Magellan Meridian Platinum and so far have found 450+ caches with it without any of the issues stonefisk has pointed out. For us it's been a really good workhorse, the routing has never caused us problems and other than the boomerang effect which is a well know issue of averaging and easily overcome by standing still for 30 seconds about 100ft from the waypoint, it's been great.

 

To answer the question of what GPS to get.... Whichever one has the features you want. All GPSs have their pros and cons, if you just want an arrow to follow, the Garmin Etrex Yellow will get you there as will any other GPS.

[+t.a.folk]

Even after the guarantee has long-expired Garmin have been known to replace with brand new units..

They recently fitted a new battery connection to our 5year old one free of charge ,no questions asked .

[+leecee]

You can't go wrong with either an Etrex Camo or Etrex Yellow. Both essentially the same but the Camo is usually quite a bit cheaper. As Rutson said, Expansys is a good, reliable supplier of both units.

[+mollyjak]

Thank you to all the cachers who took the time to give me advice.

Much appreciated

[Jakobs team]

I can certainly recomend Expansys I ordered a Camo on a Tuesday afternoon at 3.15 and got it the next morning and I live in Jersey and they took the vat off for me, has for the camo, great little machine.

Jakobs team.

[+HazelS]

Little yellow Etrex are more than what you need! Get em anywhere these days!