Accurate, Cheap Gpsr For Beginner?

[dielikemoviestars]

Well, the title pretty much says it all. Any suggestions?

[+Team Cotati]

What is your definition of 'cheap'?

[dielikemoviestars]

Under $150, preferably. You know, cheap

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

Etrex Yellow, or GPS 60.

[4ft8paws]

Lowrance I-finder Go or any I-finder

[+Renegade Knight]

Any brand but Cobra. Anythat connects to your computer. Meet those two things and anything you can buy will do the job.

[+WalruZ]

etrex yellow. My target has them in their sporting goods aisle. you will have everything you need to get started and if you eventually want to do serial waypoint download that unit will handle it. If you progress beyond 30 or 40 finds I suggest investing in a battery charger and some rechargables. If you get hooked, your next investment sholud be a PDA with cachemate and maps, rather than a mapping GPS.

[+Miragee]

Under $150, preferably. You know, cheap

For that price, you can get the very durable, reliable Garmin eTrex Legend which comes with the computer cable. It is also a mapping unit so later, if you get the Topo maps, you can load them on it.

[+briansnat]

You can go real cheap and get a Geko 101 ($55) or an iFinder Go ($69), but I wouldn't recommend either because they don't hook up to a PC (well the GO can be hacked, but that's a different story).

 

Probably the best unit in your price range is the Lowrance iFinder H20. I've seen it for $135 for the basic unit and its a lot of GPS for the money. Its the only unit in that price range with expandible memory and has excellent reception. Its not a beginner unit however. You can spend a little more money and get the H20 Plus package with mapping software, memory card and card reader. A great deal.

 

If you want a true beginner unit, consider the Garmin Geko 201. Its $109 and is very easy to use. For a little more GPS, Miragee's suggestion of the Garmin Legend is pretty good too. The Legend is a mapping unit

[dielikemoviestars]

What about the Magellan Sportrak? I've seen it offered for $100 online with a 4.5/5 star rating... Can it hook up to computers?

[+Miragee]

I think that model has been discontinued, which could be why the price is so low. If you do a Search of these Forums, you will see that Garmin has much better Customer Service, if you ever need it.

[Michael Cook]

If you're only interested in accuracy and good reception you could look at the Magellan Explorist 100 (to be had for around $80). As far as features go it really just has the bare minimum, but you should get better reception, especially in difficult situations, than with an Etrex or Geko. If you need to connect to a computer there's the Explorist 210, but it costs about twice as much as the 100.

 

The whole Magellan Explorist series (100 - 600) uses the same chipset and antenna, so you'd be getting reception as good as that from an Explorist 600 (and that's good: look here, for instance: http://www.mtgc.org/robertlipe/showdown/). With Garmin models there's a big difference between reception in the more expensive and the cheaper models.

[+Jeff&Suli]

I vote for the Garmin eTrex Legend. Great reception and accuracy, intuitive to use, durable, good battery life.

 

The only con-- it does come with a computer cable, but your PC has to have a serial port to use it. Or you have to shell out some more $$ to get a serial to USB adapter, as PCs manufactured in the last five years tend to have all USBs and no serial ports.

[+sailorjp]

I know your quest is for an inexpensive beginning in the sport of Geocaching. Here's food for thought. To quote my father, "How can you truly evaluate a new sport while using budget equipment?"

 

When I was a kid, he invested in high end archery equipment when he took up the sport. I grew sick of turkey week after week from all the turkey shoots he would win.

 

I know you have a budget, but you’ll get more out of the sport if you purchase the best you can possibly afford.

[+edelen]

Well, the title pretty much says it all. Any suggestions?

 

I'm new to the whole geocaching thing, just getting my Magellan eXplorist 210 this last week. I purchased it for $146 and Magellan also had a $30 rebate running through July 7th. So all told, I paid $116.

 

Pros:

 

* Fully PC-connectable with included USB-to-Serial cable and software

* Rugged and solid

* Put me everywhere I wanted to go once I figured out how to use it

* Fairly intuitive

* 22MB of RAM is barely used with what I'm doing

* Exceeds my expectations

 

Cons:

 

* Perhaps it could have had a power adapter socket, but I use rechargeable batteries anyway, so I'm not burning through batteries.

 

Truthfully, for $116, I don't know how I could have done any better! My son and I have spent six hours the last two days geocaching and have had a blast.

 

I'm no pro, but I'm highly satisfied with the eXplorist 210. One day I'll step up, I'm sure, but I like this unit.

[BlueFalconer]

Under $150, preferably. You know, cheap

For that price, you can get the very durable, reliable Garmin eTrex Legend which comes with the computer cable. It is also a mapping unit so later, if you get the Topo maps, you can load them on it.

 

A friend of mine just bought one of these at Dick's with the mapping software included for $180. It included some other nice accessories not usually included as well.