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thinking of trying geocaching


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Hi all,

 

I'm thinking of trying geocaching. If i buy a GPS unit for this, it would be really cool if i could also use it in the car to get directions going places. I'd prefer not to spend a ton of money doing this. I'll probably look on ebay for a used unit first unless i can get a new unit cheaply that'll do what i want.

 

And what i want is something i can use for geocaching, but something that'll also give me turn by turn directions when driving in the car. Voice prompts would be very cool but if the price difference is significant, i'd settle for just visual prompts on a screen.

 

Any suggestions for gps units that would do this?

 

thanks

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sent you a pm :-)

 

Hi all,

 

I'm thinking of trying geocaching. If i buy a GPS unit for this, it would be really cool if i could also use it in the car to get directions going places. I'd prefer not to spend a ton of money doing this. I'll probably look on ebay for a used unit first unless i can get a new unit cheaply that'll do what i want.

 

And what i want is something i can use for geocaching, but something that'll also give me turn by turn directions when driving in the car. Voice prompts would be very cool but if the price difference is significant, i'd settle for just visual prompts on a screen.

 

Any suggestions for gps units that would do this?

 

thanks

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i am looking for an inexpensive gps, too. any suggestions?

About the cheapest that does the job the OP wants to do is going to be a Garmin Venture Cx.

 

The Venture Cx may offer directions for the car, but it has a very tiny screen and will be exceedingly hard to use for this purpose.

 

My experience has been that the car GPS units and handheld GPS units are enough different that they are seldom combined. However, the price of the Cx seems to be only a little higher than other handheld units without the car directions, so what the heck!

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i am looking for an inexpensive gps, too. any suggestions?

 

You might want to try the iFinder GO. It is the lowest cost unit around. The down side is that it has minimal features (could be a plus for a beginner) and a small screen (none of the handhelds have "large" screens). If you use it for awhile and decide you want something better, it is easy to sell on eBay. But don't try to buy it on eBay, I am trying to get one there...

 

In other words, it is a good starter unit. :^)

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i am looking for an inexpensive gps, too. any suggestions?

About the cheapest that does the job the OP wants to do is going to be a Garmin Venture Cx.

 

The Venture Cx may offer directions for the car, but it has a very tiny screen and will be exceedingly hard to use for this purpose.

 

My experience has been that the car GPS units and handheld GPS units are enough different that they are seldom combined. However, the price of the Cx seems to be only a little higher than other handheld units without the car directions, so what the heck!

Plan B is the Garmin Quest. A bit more car optimized and a bit less hand held, but still can do both.

 

Screen size can be an issue. Normally GPS makers do not use all the space they could for the screen. Everone would be served better with larger screens.

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Plan B is the Garmin Quest. A bit more car optimized and a bit less hand held, but still can do both.

 

Screen size can be an issue. Normally GPS makers do not use all the space they could for the screen. Everone would be served better with larger screens.

 

Thats probably a bit more then I would want to spend unless i was absolutely sure I'm going to be using it a lot. Seems to go for around $300-$350. For me, i'd rather not spend more then $200 or so.

 

If i knew for sure i was going to use it, i'd be more inclined to get the quest since i think I'd rather have it leaning a little more on the car use side of things. It still seems small enough that carrying it around on a hike wouldn't be a big deal.

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Also note that if you want car directions, you ALSO must buy maps. Factor that into the cost as well.

 

I agree that the Venture Cx is the best bang for the buck. You can get it now and do maps later if you find you like it.

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If when you factor in maps your budget is blown. You may want to consider a Garmin GPS V. It's not color, doesn't have a USB interface so maps take a long time to load, BUT it does come with City Select. It's discontinued, but cheap for what you get.

 

In your shoes if I could swing it I'd go with the color screens. Very nice.

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If when you factor in maps your budget is blown. You may want to consider a Garmin GPS V. It's not color, doesn't have a USB interface so maps take a long time to load, BUT it does come with City Select. It's discontinued, but cheap for what you get.

 

In your shoes if I could swing it I'd go with the color screens. Very nice.

 

How much do maps cost? I only need a map that covers the southern calif area.

 

thanks

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You can get the Garmin City Navigator maps, along with a beanbag automount and cigarette lighter adapter for around $140.00. I think retail on the maps alone is around $120.00.

 

The Mapsource Topo maps can be purchased on eBay for less than $60.00.

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You can get the Garmin City Navigator maps, along with a beanbag automount and cigarette lighter adapter for around $140.00. I think retail on the maps alone is around $120.00.

 

The Mapsource Topo maps can be purchased on eBay for less than $60.00.

 

dadgum thats pretty expensive just for a map. I was thinking $10-$20 for a map. That seems worse then what the printer's charge for a new printer cartridge :laughing:

Edited by merkk
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If you have to navigate through a city you have never been to before, you will save gas money having those maps on your GPSr. The GPSr will tell you which freeway exits to take, and even which lane to get into when you need to get back on a freeway. The GPSr will navigate through tangled suburban streets that, without it, you would have to stop several times to look at a paper map.

 

After I saw how useful the auto-navigation features were on the color units, I upgraded from a monochome Garmin Vista. Although it worked perfectly well for Geocaching, I wanted to get to the parks and trailheads, and parking lots, more efficiently. :laughing:

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If you have to navigate through a city you have never been to before, you will save gas money having those maps on your GPSr. The GPSr will tell you which freeway exits to take, and even which lane to get into when you need to get back on a freeway. The GPSr will navigate through tangled suburban streets that, without it, you would have to stop several times to look at a paper map.

 

After I saw how useful the auto-navigation features were on the color units, I upgraded from a monochome Garmin Vista. Although it worked perfectly well for Geocaching, I wanted to get to the parks and trailheads, and parking lots, more efficiently. :laughing:

 

I have no doubt it'll be useful. I've driven in cars that have had auto navigation systems. It still seems pricey for information thats basically publicly available. I can get turn by turn directions from google maps. For me personally it would take a long time for me to save in gas money what i would spend on the map. I'm not driving down strange streets all that often really. And if i am, i've usually printed out a map from google ahead of time. How big of an area do the maps cover? I assume its not all of the US but broken down into regions?

 

thanks

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You get the entire US on the US maps. You can upload your local region, or the entire country. It all depends on how big a memory card you purchase. I don't travel much now, so the 24 MB on my old Vista C is adequate for my area.

 

hmm, well then i guess the price isnt so bad considering it's the entire country. I was thinking it would have been $10-$20 but only for a region of the country.

 

thanks for the explanation.

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I'm going to upgrade my GPSr and want some user feedback and opinions, specifically on comparing

60CSx, 76CSx, and a Rino 520 or 530???

My first GPSr is a Garmin12...wanted to start real basic until I figured out if I'd make time for geocaching or not. I've made some time but am not rabid about it by any means.

Applications would be: geocaching, navigation around and out of town.

So far I have ascertained that the Rino series has only 500 waypoint capability but also has two-way reception and weather.

60 and 76 CSx series seem similar to me and I probably couldn't tell you the difference unless I read over the specs better...I am interested in knowing the difference from a user standpoint.

P.S. I already have $ earmarked for this so I'm not going the super-economical route...I just don't want to have to replace it in a year or two...

thanks for any words of experience that you might have to share with me! :wub::blink::wub:

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This is my two cents worth. I have a Garmin I-Que 3600 with the North America City NAvigator (V8). You can get a brand new unit for approx. $250 with most of the features that you mentioned. This is a Palm hand held and it has an integrated GPS which is WASS enabled. It gives you voice turn by turn directions and it also has a GPS funtion which allows you to geocache. The pros of this unit are that it has all of the features that you are looking for and then some. It is fairly priced in E-Bay, it brings the mapping software, and it is a GArmin. Their support is superb. The cons are that you better not let it drop into water, and it does not have a compass or any other of the features that fancy units offers. Prior to this unit, I only used military GPS systems and I can honestly say that the accuracy in the I-Que 3600 is pretty impressive. As for the battery life, the battery in the unit will give you approx. 3-5 hrs. I recently purchased a small battery operated hand held charger for the I-Que and this extends the battery for another 10 hrs. When the 4 AA batteries die in the charger, your unit battery remains fully charged which it should be good for another 3 hrs. I paid $10 with S&H in E-Bay for the charger. I hope that this opinion will help you out.

 

Hi all,

 

I'm thinking of trying geocaching. If i buy a GPS unit for this, it would be really cool if i could also use it in the car to get directions going places. I'd prefer not to spend a ton of money doing this. I'll probably look on ebay for a used unit first unless i can get a new unit cheaply that'll do what i want.

 

And what i want is something i can use for geocaching, but something that'll also give me turn by turn directions when driving in the car. Voice prompts would be very cool but if the price difference is significant, i'd settle for just visual prompts on a screen.

 

Any suggestions for gps units that would do this?

 

thanks

Link to comment

Hi all,

 

I'm thinking of trying geocaching. If i buy a GPS unit for this, it would be really cool if i could also use it in the car to get directions going places. I'd prefer not to spend a ton of money doing this. I'll probably look on ebay for a used unit first unless i can get a new unit cheaply that'll do what i want.

 

And what i want is something i can use for geocaching, but something that'll also give me turn by turn directions when driving in the car. Voice prompts would be very cool but if the price difference is significant, i'd settle for just visual prompts on a screen.

 

Any suggestions for gps units that would do this?

 

thanks

I have the Garmin Etrex Vista Cx.... color screen base maps of the US included, turn by turn all that jazz and a little more. although the screen is a little small for driving I use it for that alot all for $229 at walmart.com Garmin lists it for $345 it does not do voice prompt but has an audible alert when you near turns just beeps not speaks.

Edited by ETfonedhome
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