My First Gps, 60csx Vs. Quest 2

[M3drvrr]

Hey Everyone,

 

Newbie here, and i have a couple of questions about the 60CSx & Quest 2. I know its a long post but please understand that i want to purchase the right unit.

 

First off, i want to tell you that i will be using the GPS for many things, including driving, hiking, hunting and fishing.

 

Obviously the unit will be in my car for about 90% of the time. I know the quest 2 is more user friendly for driving purposes. With that being said, how does the 60CSX perform on the road? I know it is not a talking unit like the quest 2. I always carry my DeLorme California map in the car on these trips, so will not relying on the GPS 100 % of the time.

 

I do about 1-2 hiking trips in the Sierras a year. I want my GPS to display the trail heads, trails, and all those details. I would also want to to give me specific directions to campsites that i know using trails. For example, i want to GPS unit to guide me to a campsite, which i will input the coordinates of. I know that the 60CSX is superior to the Quest 2 in this case. For the 60CSX I can buy a 1gb chip and load both US Topo 24 K & US Topo. Does anyone know if the 140 mb of space that the Quest 2 has will be enough to load both California only topo maps?

 

When it comes to fishing, i am referring to saltwater fishing. I want to save certain coordinates with names and that's it. Basically i want to save the coordinates so that on my next trip the GPS will guide me there. Do I need any other software for this, or is saving coordinates just a regular GPS function?

 

When is comes to hunting, i basically want it to do the same thing. I want to save hotspots using coordinates, and I want the GPS to guide me there. Some of these hotspots are right off the road, and others are deep in the mountains, only accessible by trails.

 

Also, does anyone know how easy is it to switch from lets say City Navigator to a Topo map?

Can i put in a campsite coordinates from my house in the city, and will any GPS unit guide me to the trail head and then guide me through the trails to the campsite?

 

Another problem about the Quest 2 is the casing material, it just does not seem rugged or strong enough compared to the 60CSX.

 

Cost is not that big of an issue because they will be close in price if i purchase the city navigator for the 60csx.

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Harry Tashdjian

[mrandrews]

I have a 60CSx which I use for driving, hiking and backpacking. It's loaded with a 512MB SD card which is loaded with Garmin Road maps, TOPO maps and national park maps. All of California, and a good swath of Oregon and Nevada takes about 400MB.

 

I use it in the car all the time, I never see it lose lock on forested mountain roads, once in a while I'll see it get confused in very deep urban canyons, i.e. downtown amoungst the skyscrapers. I upgraded from a 60CS and the performance increase here was significant.

 

To save your current location hit the Mark button and follow the directions. The Waypoint is now saved in your GPS and can be recalled anytime. You can also back it up using the supplied Mapsource software or many of the 3rd party software packages that talk to a 60CSx. I use Mapsource, EasyGPS and Maptech Terrain Navigator.

 

Switching maps is a bunch of button presses in the Map Setup menu, but relatively quick and easy, i.e. less than 30 seconds once you reach the trail head.

 

Auto routing works well on the road maps, some National Forest dirt roads that lead to trail heads are also autoroutable. I don't think regular (1:100,000) TOPO maps are autoroutable, but the National Park 1:24,000 maps are supposedly autoroutable. My preference is to plan the trip in advance using Maptech's Terrain Navigator, and then down load tracks and/or routes into the 60CSx.

[CenTexDodger]

I will add my $ 0.02.

 

The 60CSx appears to be more rugged than the Quest 2, but that may just be my impression, as they are both water resistant to the same standard.

 

I use a 60cs for driving and hiking and it works well for both. The Quest does not have removeable batteries, just an internal rechargeable. depending on how long your hikes are, the battery life may not be adequate for your use, and you would have to carry a way to recharge the battery. The 60 uses AAs, so you can take spares with you, and buy batteries virtually anywhere.

 

The 60cs autorouting is very good. I don't have any personal experience with the Quest, but I would think they would be similar, with the exception of not having voice on the 60. It beeps, and with a quick glance I can see where I am going

 

If you choose the Quest, all of California in the US Topo program takes up 68 mb, so you would have plenty of room left over for 24k Topos or other maps.

 

We have given you a place to start and probably prompted more questions!

[+BigLarry]

So happens I own 3 GPS receivers:

Quest for the car

eTrex Vista for MTB handlebars

GPSMap 60CSx for Geocaching and MTB camelbak (more accurate tracking and backup)

 

The Quest is nice for the voice commands, and comes with a nice mount for the car. The button interface and software is much more oriented for car use. The Quest is nice and compact, and last for hours on the Lithium batteries. It's good for walking around on city streets, but I wouldn't want to be using it in the woods for for Geocaching. It's certainly not rugged enough for the handlebars, and maybe not even hiking. Only my rugged Vista can handle my 3 years of very tough MTB on the bars.

 

However, the 60CSx has a more sensitive receiver based on the SiRFIII chip. Although the Quest is good, on rare occasions I've lost signal driving in thick California woods trying to find my way. It was annoying trying to get good enough signal to figure out which way to turn.

 

Rather than voice, the 60CSx can give different coded beeps that you can customize. For instance you can have one beep type for attention, another for 1.6 miles, and yet another for 400' from the turn. You need to look at the screen for the direction to turn and the street name. But with the Quest, you need to get the street name from the display anyway.

 

The Quest comes complete with software, power cord/speaker, and nice suction cup windshield mount for under $400. The 60CSx costs $400 (on Amazon.com) and you need to get the car navigation kit (with City Navigator software, power cord, and windshield mount) for another $140.

 

My recommendation for combined use with only one GPS would be to get the 60CSx with the Car Navigation kit. And for off road, you want the Garmin MapSource Topo software ($80).

[appletree]

I have a Quest 1 that I use for car and trail. It works great. On the trail, I use it with a Glisson neoprene/clear vinyl case and a small, light, external antenna that sticks magnetically to a small steel clip on my hat, collar, or other convenient exposed site. In its case, built-in antenna folded down, antenna cable as a saftey line, it would be hard to damage a Quest. Most of the time, it stays in my pocket. It will easily do all of the tasks you described, and would hold all of the maps you would want. The internal battery lasts a very long time unless you keep the light on for many hours rather than just when you want to look at the screen. Probably not good for 4 days of mostly on with no car time to recharge, but fine otherwise. For me, the voice prompts are a very big deal, making in car use much more pleasant and easy. I would strongly advise trying a voice unit on a drive before deciding not to go that route. If you buy a Quest rather than a Quest 2, you will save about $100 and, if you decide later that you also want a unit that is primarily designed for trails, you will have a second unlock code with which to load CitySelect road maps for the entire US and Canada into the other unit, no extra charge. Not so with the Quest 2.

Edited August 3, 2006 by appletree

[+kyot]

I had a Quest1 - sold it to a mate because I wanted the 60CSx for it's extra range of off-road use + microSD card + better reception.

I use/used them on a Bike, not a car - and never used the voice cammands.

 

The road routing in the Quest is miles better.

- You can down load pre-planned routes from MapSoruce - complete with direction info - which is lost to the 60CSx.

- the Quest will do partial off-track re-routing to get you back on the route, rather than recalculate the whole thing as the 60CSx does. This can be quite significant if the route is quite long.

 

There are work-rounds for the above. But the quest is much more natural for road use.

Apart from the aggravation with the 2nd rate handling of routes, I prefer the 60CSx; more hand friendly, storage, and all the good things folks have mentioned.

 

(Garmin seem to have just dropped out / switched off one or two routing features - presumably for marketing reasons? idiots)