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Would appreciate your 2 cents on the Garmin Geko


SlickRockRed

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If the price is right for you, it will work just fine for geocaching. You will probably get a lot of posts suggesting a more expensive unit, with more "features", and that you should look at this one, or that one, or the other one, but the bottom line is...The Geko will serve a geocacher just fine!

Edited by Alphawolf
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We have a Geko 201 and rarely use it - those AAA batteries are too expensive and don't last long enough. We bought some NiMH AAA's, but they don't even have the life of a fruit fly. Mere minutes. So our Geko is in the bottom of the pack for emergency use only (with alkaline batteries). Its a fun little unit, but in our opinion, not the best for caching.

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We have a Geko 201 and rarely use it - those AAA batteries are too expensive and don't last long enough. We bought some NiMH AAA's, but they don't even have the life of a fruit fly. Mere minutes.

 

G'day

 

I suggest you either get your unit checked out or get decent batteries. Your experiences sure as hell don't match mine with my old Geko 301 which I used for about two years geocaching and bushwalking nor do they match the specificaitons put out by Garmin. Seems very odd indeed.

 

Personally I am very happy with my Geko 301 and whilst I have upgraded now to a mapping unit, my Geko is on loan to a new geocacher and is being used. If I ever get it back it will still be used used on bushwalks as it size is great for this and I use it only as a backup to my map reading/compass work :mad: .

 

For the OP, if you are interested there are some Owner Reviews on the Geko 301 at http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Na...n%20Geko%20301/

and the Geko 201 at http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Na...n%20Geko%20201/

 

BTW I think the Geko 101 (?) does not have a means of connecting to the computer. If that is correct I would avoid that unit for geocaching and get either the 201 or 301.

 

Enjoy

 

Andrew

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My wife has a Geko 201 and loves it. It gets pretty good reception (sometimes better than our much more expensive units) and is very easy to use. I use a 60CS and we also have an eTrex Vista and Magellan MeriGold, but my wife always chooses the Geko over the other two.

 

Battery life isn't the best I admit, but way better than what Goodguys are experiencing. We get about about 6-7 hours out of a pair of NiMH rechargables and about 7-8 hours out of regular alkalines.

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I've been using a Geko 201 for for geocaching for more than a year. I like it a lot. The small size makes it handy to carry around in a pocket for opportunistic caching. As someone else mentioned, avoid the 101 because it has no computer interface capability.

 

The battery life quoted by Goodguys seems to be the exception, not the rule. I've used rechargable NiMH cells in mine and they work fine. They last about 80% as long as alkalines, but they pay for themselves after a handfull of recharges. If you do use NiHM cells, don't forget to tell the GPSr that it is using them. Somewhere in the config menus there is an option to tell the Geko whether it is running on alkaline or NiMH cells. If it is set for alkaline and you feed it NiMH, it will think the batteries are dead long before they actually are.

 

If you're buying alkaline batteries, don't bother paying a premium for the name brand (Energizer or Duracel). You're just paying extra for the flashy marketing. I've been using Ray-o-vac alkalines whenever possible for years and they're every bit as good.

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If the price is right for you, it will work just fine for geocaching. You will probably get a lot of posts suggesting a more expensive unit, with more "features", and that you should look at this one, or that one, or the other one, but the bottom line is...The Geko will serve a geocacher just fine!

 

What follows is one of those posts.

 

The Gecko 101 does not connect to the computer. The 201 does. The one key thing that I will always reccomend is to get a GPS that connects to the computer so they can upload the cache waypoints to the GPS. Miskeying a coordinate and looking for an hour for a cache in the wrong part of town teaches you real quickly the benefit of the ability to directly load waypoints.

 

Any GPS you can buy over the counter today will work for geocaching. However I'd drop any GPS that does not have the ability to connect to a computer. That would have to look at the Gecko 201.

 

The other GPS features such as mapping, routing and all that are nice, but not needed.

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Hello,

 

I have the 301. It's a good unit. I use it as a bacliü for flying and sailing. It is very handy that you can customiz the data field on one of the pages.

 

On the other hand the 301 has a lot of features that you don't really need for geocaching, like the barometric altimeter. I personally still think that the best unit for a beginner is the Etrex yellow. It's easy to use, you can connect it to a computer and the new version is almost like the Geko (except the Etrex doesn't have an altimeter) The etrex yellow is very robust and if you upgrade to a better unit it has a pretty good resale value.

 

I'm always surprised when I see people with $500 GPSr's who don't know anything about navigation except how to download coordinates from GC.com. We have dozenz of topic here, where people mix a true and magnetic north, WGS84 with other datum formats or don't get the a minute has 60 seconds, not 100 and so on...

 

Really, just to find geocaches a basic unit is just fine, you don't need a color display, a map mode and all that stuff to start with. Start with a basic unit and understand what it tells you.

 

I use only rechargeable batteries in my Geko and they last about as long at the normal ones. I think pretty much everybody in Europe uses rechargeable in their GPSrs since normal batteries are far to expensive and just plain wrong from a environmental point of view.

 

To put it in a nutshell:

 

The 301 is a good unit to start with, but the 201 or a Etrex yellow is as good. You probably get 2 Etrex for the price of a 301, so both your daughter and her husband could have their onw units....

 

GermanSailor

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I know a Geocacher with more than 10,000 finds, and she still uses a Geko 201. :laughing:

 

I own a Geko 201, and use it for urban and short hike caches. No problems with NiMH batteries here, I get about the same battery life as briansnat, and I always use WAAS mode. The unit is compact and easy to use, but eTrex Yellow is probably a better value - less $, longer battery life, about the same features.

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Wow! Lots of experiences here that are better than ours regarding AAA battery life. We've been using Kodak 700 mAH in our Geko 201. I charged a set up fresh last night, and got less than 2 hours out of them this morning. And past experience is that most of the charge leaks out if the batteries sit unused for a few days. I'll need to do an alkaline test to see if our Geko is unwell.

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Wow! Lots of experiences here that are better than ours regarding AAA battery life. We've been using Kodak 700 mAH in our Geko 201. I charged a set up fresh last night, and got less than 2 hours out of them this morning. And past experience is that most of the charge leaks out if the batteries sit unused for a few days. I'll need to do an alkaline test to see if our Geko is unwell.

 

I already went through a pair of "Ultralast" brand NiMH I shared between the Geko and my PDA. Probably about 200 cycles.... first sign of death was their inability to hold charge, similar to what you describe (2-3 hours). Then the fast charger started to complain because the voltages became unstable during charge.

 

I have a pair of Sanyo AAA NiMH that's still holding, even though I've used it longer. Looks like that pair is of higher quality (and more expensive).

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The low-end magellan eXplorists are decent as well - I have a Garmin Geko 101 and a Magellan eXplorist 400. The 400 is not exactly low end, more midrange, but I appreciate the advanced features. The Geko works well for caching too though, although the lack of computer interface makes it a pain - my first 2 finds were with the Geko because I thought "hey, I don't need mapping for geocaching" - but now me and my trusty eXplorist are inseparable :-)

 

A computer interface is mandatory, but all other features can be done without - for geocaching, all you reall yneed is a "goto waypoint" feature... Although, topo maps help a lot - my geko wanted me to walk through a lake to get to a cache, while my eXplorist clearly showed me a way around the lake...

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I have had a Magellen 315, and I now own an Magellen eXplorist 400, and a Garmin Geko 201. I certainly like my eXplorist 400 with the mapping capabilitys etc. However, I also love my little Geko 201. So small and compact, ability to download waypoints from the computer etc.

I am not sure why a couple of people have had battery life problems. No problems with battery life with my Geko 201. Maybe they have the Geko settings on the wrong battery type? Alkaline vs. NiMH ???

I would not use less then 900 mAh NiMH batteries in my Geko though. And if I come across batteries more powerful then that, I will use them.

Maybe a problem with the batteries themselves?? Or maybe a defective Geko., although nobody I know that has a Geko has ever had a problem. There are a few people locally who use Gekos geocaching and they have no complaints. (Except for one person with a Geko 101 who wishes they had bought a 201. 101's can't be hooked up to a computer.)

The Geko 201, in my opinion is almost a pefect beginning geocaching GPSr. (I don't believe in a pefect GPSr.) I would not sell mine.

Just make sure you get the one that has a little ridge going part way around the on-off button. On that newer model, the on-off button is also recessed a little more to protect the unit from coming on accidently. This was a problem with earlier units.

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Is there a new Geko in the works? I have a 60CSx but I'd like something tiny when I travel outside the USA. I don't have (nor want - ususually) maps when I travel outside the USA but I'd like color and I'd like a USB connection. Actually, I've not ever seen a Geko 301 or 201 for real. From Gramin's web site, the screen resolution looks poor. Maybe instead of color I want better resolution (and - so it appears) better battery life. I just want to mark special places I've been and also mark waypoints to get back to where I was. And, I'd like to see a cookie trail.

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Is there a new Geko in the works? I have a 60CSx but I'd like something tiny when I travel outside the USA. I don't have (nor want - ususually) maps when I travel outside the USA but I'd like color and I'd like a USB connection. Actually, I've not ever seen a Geko 301 or 201 for real. From Gramin's web site, the screen resolution looks poor. Maybe instead of color I want better resolution (and - so it appears) better battery life. I just want to mark special places I've been and also mark waypoints to get back to where I was. And, I'd like to see a cookie trail.

Only Garmin knows that answer, and as noted elsewhere, anything you hear regarding a future project is an unsubstantiated rumor, because they are a publicly traded company and want to avoid the perception that they release insider information. You might get a quicker answer from a shareholder than any of us here. :(

 

If you really need a back up unit NOW, it doesn't hurt to purchase one without waiting for a newer version. Shop around to see if you can buy a refurbished unit. Same warranty, and just as reliable.

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Only Garmin knows that answer, and as noted elsewhere, anything you hear regarding a future project is an unsubstantiated rumor, because they are a publicly traded company and want to avoid the perception that they release insider information. You might get a quicker answer from a shareholder than any of us here. :blink:

 

If you really need a back up unit NOW, it doesn't hurt to purchase one without waiting for a newer version. Shop around to see if you can buy a refurbished unit. Same warranty, and just as reliable.

 

Thanks for the advice. Was just hoping there was something going on re a new Geko.

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