legend vs vista

[dakota duo]

What are the main differences between etrex legend hcx and etrex vista hcx. I just did a comparasion of the two at garmins site and they look the same to me.

[dogwalkers2]

The Vista has an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter.

[+briansnat]

The Vista has an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter.

 

That's it in a nutshell. The Vista uses a magnetic compass to determine direction and atmospheric pressure to determine altitude.

 

The Legend uses sat data to figure these out. As far as advantages, the compass works when you are not moving in the Vista. You have to be moving at a fairly brisk pace for it to work when using the Legend. The barometric altimeter tends to be more accurate as long as it's been calibrated.

 

As far as disadvantages, the Vista will chew up batteries faster than the Legend and the compass and altimeter have to be calibrated frequently. The compass every time you change batteries and the altimeter when the

weather changes.

[+Prime Suspect]

The Vista has an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter.

 

That's it in a nutshell. The Vista uses a magnetic compass to determine direction and atmospheric pressure to determine altitude.

 

The Legend uses sat data to figure these out. As far as advantages, the compass works when you are not moving in the Vista. You have to be moving at a fairly brisk pace for it to work when using the Legend. The barometric altimeter tends to be more accurate as long as it's been calibrated.

 

As far as disadvantages, the Vista will chew up batteries faster than the Legend and the compass and altimeter have to be calibrated frequently. The compass every time you change batteries and the altimeter when the

weather changes.

The altimeter will auto-calibrate, which works fine, unless you really need pin-point precision. I've always let mine auto-calibrate, and it's never been more than 10' off. The Vista and Legend are rated the same for battery life (25hrs), which means with normal usage (on when you need it, off when you don't), the impact of the compass is negligible.

 

Without the compass and altimeter, you also lose the additional functionality that comes with them. Altitude profile display, and Sight-N-Go, for instance.

[+briansnat]

The Vista and Legend are rated the same for battery life (25hrs), which means with normal usage (on when you need it, off when you don't), the impact of the compass is negligible.

 

Hey, you're right. I was going by earlier units where the ones with the electronic compass got nearly half the battery life as similar units without one. Way to go Garmin!

[+Chuy!]

The Vista has an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter.

... As far as advantages, the compass works when you are not moving in the Vista. You have to be moving at a fairly brisk pace for it to work when using the Legend. ...

 

Not so, if you go to the satellite screen, you can move about as if you had an electronic compass. The difference is you don't have an arrow so you need to know which direction to head in order to match the current location to the cache coordinates. It can be confusing at first, but it don't take long to master the technique. Matter of fact, I've come to rely on this technique to the point that the compass on my Vista HCx is turned off. The upside is an extention of battery life.

[+Prime Suspect]

The Vista has an electronic compass and a barometric altimeter.

... As far as advantages, the compass works when you are not moving in the Vista. You have to be moving at a fairly brisk pace for it to work when using the Legend. ...

 

Not so, if you go to the satellite screen, you can move about as if you had an electronic compass. The difference is you don't have an arrow so you need to know which direction to head in order to match the current location to the cache coordinates. It can be confusing at first, but it don't take long to master the technique. Matter of fact, I've come to rely on this technique to the point that the compass on my Vista HCx is turned off. The upside is an extention of battery life.

But to know which direction to move, you either need a separate magnetic compass, or you have to move in a straight line far enough to detect a significant coordinate change (which is exactly the same thing you have to do to activate the faux compass).