Upgraded To Legend Cx...and Loving It...

[+Jeff&Suli]

Hey, folks. We have been caching for 8 months or so, using our trusty eTrex Legend. While helping a friend search for a GPSr on eBay, I saw a NIB Legend CX for $185 "Buy it now," INCLUDING THE SHIPPING (the seller had received it as a conference gift, used it twice in a group-building exercise at the conference, then put it on eBay).

 

I am a geek, and couldn't pass it up even though our trusty black & white Legend is such a great little unit, ESPECIALLY since our cell phones use the same expansion cards (MicroSD) ...

 

First thoughts-- I never bought a serial to USB converter for our Legend, so the Cx was my first chance to move waypoints back and forth from my laptop as opposed to manually entering. My impression-- we have been missing out on one of the greatest aspects of caching, because we always had to pick a few points, enter coordinates and print, and then go.

 

Now, via the USB interface, I ran a pocket query and loaded up the Cx with the 487 closes unfound geocaches from our home. So, (and this is what I love) we have been out and about a few times, and just decided to look for caches nearby. So cool...

 

I also love the "geocaching" screens built-in to the newer unit. For those that haven't seen them-- you can designate waypoints specifically as "geocaches," and they appear with a unique symbol-- a treasure chest. When hunting for a waypoint flagged as a "geocache," the GPSr allows you to click on "found" after you have it, and to later pull up a list of all "Found" geocaches. How freaking cool...

 

OK, sorry if I'm salivating. It was sort of an impulse buy ($185 vs. $330 suggested retail), but I am getting so much new excitement from caching due to these "nice to have" features.

 

Thanks for letting me ramble...keep caching...

Jammer

[Chris Fisher]

I did the same upgrade just a few weeks back.

 

Nice clear colour screen, full routing capability when loaded with the correct maps (I have Topo GB), and loads of storage space for maps if you spend just a few quid (dollars?) on a new micro SD.

 

Better all round than the old Legend, which was still a pretty nifty gadget

[+IronmOn]

Yea, hear you both there, I sold my Basic Legend to a Friend and invested in a Legend CX also, just a few weeks ago too. I really love the color maps, they just make geocaching so much more fun. I also went and bought Garmin's Mapsource City Navigator v7 and Autorouting is so cool. I really like being able to enter in address and having an autoroute figured right to the door steps. One thing I have noticed though, sometimes when Caching with my Team mates, the Basic Legend is closer to the posted Cord's than my Legend CX, anyone else notice that also????

[+Night Stalker]

You have discovered several of the things that have made caching a lot easier for me, but you are missing on big one. Purchase City Select or City Navigator and then go caching. With maps of your area loaded into your GPS when you push the go to button select on road and let your gps guide you to the closest parking spot to the cache you are looking for. It won't be 100% perfect, but it sure saves time over trying to figure out which way to drive to get to a cache.

[+Jeff&Suli]

...One thing I have noticed though, sometimes when Caching with my Team mates, the Basic Legend is closer to the posted Cord's than my Legend CX, anyone else notice that also????

 

I hate to say it, but we have noticed that also the one time we had both units side by side. Most of the caches, the units were giving comparable readings. But a couple of times, the Cx was WAY OFF while the basic Legend took us in. I am hoping it was just random variables and not the unit itself...we'll see...still loving the Cx...

[+Jeff&Suli]

You have discovered several of the things that have made caching a lot easier for me, but you are missing on big one. Purchase City Select or City Navigator and then go caching. With maps of your area loaded into your GPS when you push the go to button select on road and let your gps guide you to the closest parking spot to the cache you are looking for. It won't be 100% perfect, but it sure saves time over trying to figure out which way to drive to get to a cache.

 

What is the difference between Select or Navigator? Are there other products available that work with the Garmin?

 

Thanks,

Jammer

[+agkirk]

I too am a new owner of a Legend Cx, having previously owned a Magellan ColorTrack. The display is much better than the Magellan and I like the screen navigation and text entry approaches better. I too have noticed a location error problem, the Cx seems to be 40-60 feet off form the cache locations. I have compared it with a Garmin GPS III, which is usually within 5 feet of a cache and the Cx is about 40 feet different. Another discovery is that the Cx will handle a 1 GB microSD, but the number of files that can be transfered is limited to about 2025 , leaving more than half of the card empty . I only have MapSource Topo US to compare with, so maybe the other data sets have fewer files for a given byte count. Another unusual feature is the data loads to the card erase the previous content...without a warning confirmation requestor .