So Does Anybody Like Their 60csx?

[Moun10Bike]

TracknQ, I commend you for your decision to return your GPS. ...

Thanks, iNiq.

 

I believe that, over time, more people will come to understand that Garmin lacks ethics.

 

TracknQ

 

Have you seen better quality and functionality in the Magellan receivers?

[+GadgetMonster]

Love mine!! It's my 4th garmin gps and don't intend on switching.

[inHaliburton]

I'm new to GPSing and am reasonable happy with my CXs. I had to return the first one when a hole burned in the screen. There is considerable horizontal traveling. As mentioned, until they rewrite the alogs, there will be issues.

 

Any guesses as to when the next Garmin GPS generation of receivers will appear?

[jimutc]

iNiq,

 

I totally agree. I don't want anyone else to be cheated by Garmin's dishonest advertising.

 

I have a hiking buddy who's a retired professional surveyor. He used GPS devices for years in his profession. He's very disappointed with the inaccuracy and vertical and horizontal wanderings of his 60CSx.

 

The folks who've raved about their 60CSx's in this thread may never use the 60CSx's odometer, altimeter or barometer.

 

TracknQ

 

 

I am considering purchasing a 60csx. After reading this entire post and reading more about the people who responded, I think this comment sums it up about the 60CSX at the current moment. The 60csx has a lot of great capabilities, that are by no means perfected. The reality is that Garmin intrduced an incomplete product into the public, claiming it would work. In the past, these GPSr companies have done this, and most of the time have release firmware fixes, or allowed us to swap GPSr's for a new one if they were not upgradable. Magellan has done it, lowrance has also.

Not meaning to bash anyone, people here who love this reciever as is seem to either a.)not use the corrupted features b.) do not care if, for example, their altitude readout is 100ft high. The other crowd, the techie people who actually use the 60csx functions for information they need are not happy with it because the information is erroneous. I happen to be one of them and will not buy this reciever until it is fixed. Until then I am trusting my mid 1990's magellan thet is great.

Edited July 8, 2006 by jimutc

[Suscrofa]

Microsoft and many others have produced and keep producing incomplete, full of bugs and prone to errors products for years now !

 

True I did not buy the 60CSX but the 60CX as I did not care for the compass as you need to carry one for backup.

The problems encountered with these Garmin GPS are really peanuts compared to the advantages. Besides many of them are due to improper use, misinterpretation if not unrealistic expectations.

 

It took me three months reading this kind of forums to make up my mind and to sort out the pros and cons and above all filter the futile and unsubstantiated complains.

 

Keep in mind it is a consumer product, the best in its class but not a surveyor one.

[Moun10Bike]

Not meaning to bash anyone, people here who love this reciever as is seem to either a.)not use the corrupted features b.) do not care if, for example, their altitude readout is 100ft high. The other crowd, the techie people who actually use the 60csx functions for information they need are not happy with it because the information is erroneous. I happen to be one of them and will not buy this reciever until it is fixed. Until then I am trusting my mid 1990's magellan thet is great.

 

I have been involved with GPS use for mapping purposes since 1995 and the 60CSx is as good of a unit as I have ever owned. Most of the complaints that are getting repeated in these forums are ones that I simply am not seeing in my unit, nor in those units used by my friends.

 

I, too, don't mean to bash anyone, but from what I have seen from reading these forums, most of those complaining about the 60CSx are relatively new and unfamiliar with GPS usage and are expecting performance that simply isn't available in any consumer receiver.

 

I personally am happy that Garmin released the unit as early as possible, as the advantages of this unit have outweighed the disadvantages since day one, at least for me. The advantages have grown and the disadvantages decreased with firmware updates.

[iNiq]

I, too, don't mean to bash anyone, but from what I have seen from reading these forums, most of those complaining about the 60CSx are relatively new and unfamiliar with GPS usage and are expecting performance that simply isn't available in any consumer receiver.

I faltered just a bit. I didn’t do a good job of explaining myself… in a nutshell, the “S” functions on my 60CS are better than on the 60CSx. My expectation was that the sensor functions on the 60CSx would either equal, or exceed the 60CS. (Unfortunately, that’s not the case.) With the improved reception, that’s all I was looking for when I decided to get a 60CSx. (…and expandable memory.)

 

Respectfully,

iNiq

[+CiscoHiker]

I personally am happy that Garmin released the unit as early as possible, as the advantages of this unit have outweighed the disadvantages since day one, at least for me. The advantages have grown and the disadvantages decreased with firmware updates.

 

Me too. I have really enjoyed it over my Vista and had Garmin waited I would have gotten the 60CS which does not compare for holding sats under tree cover (or in walmart). It's not the perfect unit but it met my expectations

[Moun10Bike]

in a nutshell, the “S” functions on my 60CS are better than on the 60CSx. My expectation was that the sensor functions on the 60CSx would either equal, or exceed the 60CS. (Unfortunately, that’s not the case.) With the improved reception, that’s all I was looking for when I decided to get a 60CSx. (…and expandable memory.)

 

Respectfully,

iNiq

 

It's hard for me to fully understand your complaint here, though, as your assertion comes across as rather vague and anecdotal. Do you have numbers to help quantify the differences that you are seeing? How are you determining that it is the 60CSx that is performing worse and not the 60CS (both units of which I have owned, by the way, and I cannot say that I have seen what you are reporting)?

 

People in these forums are talking about inaccuracies of 100+ feet in reported elevation from the 60CSx and I simply have never seen anything close to that. Here's a track that I recorded during a bike ride in typical Pacific Northwest tree cover a couple of weeks ago:

 

 

The transparent green area layered on top is the elevation plot of the route as determined against the USGS DEM for the area, while the background plot is what was reported by the GPS. (The GPS elevation differs more greatly from the DEM after about mile 5.5 as satellite positions moved into a less-optimal spread and caused a compete loss of signal at mile 6.8 for a moment. Rather than stitch the rest of the ride on, I am just including the first track for simplicity's sake.) You will see that here are no differences even close to 100 feet, and in fact the GPS is doing a great job of tracking closely to the elevations indicated by the DEM. Note also that the distance traveled as indicated by the track is virtually identical to what is indicated on the map.

 

As far as I am concerned, this is outstanding performance from a consumer-grade receiver, and the results seen here are as good as any I have ever recorded from any of my receivers, past or present.

[+HumveeDad]

I don't know if this fits in this forum but I'll give it a shot.... I just bought the 76CSX (for three reasons over the 60, One, it floats, two it has more memory and comes with a larger memory card, three it was 50 bucks less with the rebate.

 

I've had it a week, upgrading from a Garmin legend. I absolutly love it! It gets position lock faster, having a dedicated find button with Geocaching functionality is great, and best of all it beeps when a cache is nearby... No problems connecting to the PC AFTER initial problems on my work PC (would not install the driver without me using the update driver function in HW manager). I wish Garmin would cut a deal with GC.COM so Mapsource would talk to GC. I can see the day when logs will update right from a GPS download. Lord knows Garmin has probably sold 20% more units because of GC.COM....

Edited July 9, 2006 by HumveeDad

[+ellteemg0307]

I keep reading the horror stories, mine should be here in the next few days.

 

So how does yours work? I wish we had polls here (or if we do I wish I was smart enough to figure out how to do one.)

I have had mine for about 4 months and love it. I did quite a bit of research before I bought it. I figured it was better to spend a little more money up front and get the best unit I could afford.

[Castanea]

Upgraded to a 60CSx from a 60C and it is like night and day. The reception is way better with stronger signals and the electronic compass is nice when getting close to caches. I added a 1g memory card and it holds tons of road and topo maps and the barometer is cool to watch changing weather patterns. I love it.

 

The only problem I have had is that it wouldnt route me back to a waypoint via roads. Once I did a little investigating, I turned off City Select to show only topo maps during a hunt and didnt switch back, so the fault was my own. Once again, very sweet unit that gets awesome reception under heavy cover.

Edited August 13, 2006 by Castanea