Garmin eTrex Yellow vs Camo vs Venture

[+Deryn]

Hello all. I am VERY new to Geocaching, so please bear with me if the questions seem a little silly.

 

I have read up a little bit on the game, and it seems like so much fun to me. I have been looking for GPS units within my budget (about £100 inc. P&P preferably).

 

I have come across quite a few similar threads where n00bs like myself ask what is a good starting GPS system, and the three that seem to keep coming up (and that are not out of my price range) are the eTrex Camo, the Venture and the Yellow. I am pretty much going to buy one of these three (unless someone has a revelation for me), but I am wondering which will be better. I think Amazon.co.uk has the Yellow for about 80 quid, the Camo for 90, and the Venture for around 100.

 

Is it possibly as obvious as buying the most expensive one?

 

Any help is hugely appreciated, and again, excuse my newness.

 

Deryn

Edited March 15, 2007 by Deryn

[+Spnoo]

Hi Deryn.

I own the eTrex Camo, which I bought because at the time for some reason it was cheaper than the yellow, despite it having slightly better specifications. There's a comparison table on the garmin website at http://www.garmin.com/outdoor/compare.jsp . As far as I can tell the main advantage that the venture has is the mapping capability, but I know there are plenty of cachers who use the yellow and get by fine. Whichever you decide to get, do make sure you have the appropriate cables for connecting it to your computer so you can transfer waypoints, as loading them in manually will get tedious very quickly!

[+Deryn]

Hi Deryn.

I own the eTrex Camo, which I bought because at the time for some reason it was cheaper than the yellow, despite it having slightly better specifications. There's a comparison table on the garmin website at http://www.garmin.com/outdoor/compare.jsp . As far as I can tell the main advantage that the venture has is the mapping capability, but I know there are plenty of cachers who use the yellow and get by fine. Whichever you decide to get, do make sure you have the appropriate cables for connecting it to your computer so you can transfer waypoints, as loading them in manually will get tedious very quickly!

 

Thankyou for the speedy reply! Didn't expect one for a bit.

 

Are these cables the same for all three? A USB Cable of some kind presumably?

[Red Squadron]

Hello Deryn, I have only been caching for about a year and so i cant give you any for or against with regards to which GPS to get. Other than to say I bought the Garmin Etrex Legend for about £89.00 with all the maps of the UK (Mapsource) The cables to hook up to the PC came with the GPS, so as far as i can see the Legend has most of what I need. Two things that are different from the more expensive models and they are .... increased memory capacity and colour screen. But it doesnt really matter to me as the Legend has everything else. Lots to choose from.......have fun

[+Stuey]

I'm not sure if things have changed since I bought my Venture, but....

 

The Yellow didn't come with a cable, but the Venture did.

The Venture has a higher resolution screen than the others.

The Venture has extra keys on the unit which makes it easier to key in waypoints manually.

 

The Venture is much better, in my opinion and would be £20 well spent (especially seeing as it has the Garmin data cable with it - which incidentally is Serial, not USB)

[+Spnoo]

As far as I can tell, the Venture comes with a cable and the yellow and camo do not. Cables for the yellow can be picked up for around £10-15 from that auction site people use, so in effect it's only a £10 price increase if you go for the venture. Whichever you choose though, if your computer does not have a serial port you will need to get a usb adapter in addition.

 

Spnoo